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When we purchased Arborlon 18  mths or so ago, one of the existing problems we knew about was the footings that supported the SW corner of the house.   They were in bad shape and needed repairing/replacing.  So much so that there is a 50mm drop in the floor of our lounge room from one side to the other.

Unfortunately we needed to support other elements of the hill the house is built on, before we could get to actually permanently fixing the damaged and broken footings.

Damaged House footings
Damaged House footings

Back in October 2015 we added some sleepers and star pickets to hold back the bank that surrounds the footingsand we planted the bank below the footings.

The aim was to secure the ground with well-rooted plants and for this we chose Lomandra hystrix.  The soil was terrible and hard and dry, but Lomandra’s just about grow anywhere.  We put a temporary edge on the bottom of the bank too.

Temporary Footing bank repair

So today we replaced the bank support “wall”  with bits of 200mm treated pine sleeper.  This should give us some height, that will allow us to mulch and nurture the Lomandras that have ‘survived’ for a year but have not done very well.

We also starting building ‘sleeper boxes’ to surround each footing and protect it from moving soil and running water. Not a permanent fix, but a temporary measure that may just decrease the erosion around the SW side footings.

New SW bank wall

We still have the (full)major repair of the footings to do, but we have secured things as best we can for now.  With the Tank level wall almost finished, and the main water tank about to be moved to it’s final position we are close to the point where the main repair can be done.

Fixing the footings permanently will be one of the great successes of our move here..  but it is still a little way off.

Dave

Dave

Dave

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