Humans have lived on mountains and hill sides for as long as civilization existed and for a long time, adapting to a hilly climate was second nature to them. In the modern world, we try to change the surroundings to suit our needs and that has led to flash floods, soil erosion, avalanches and cracks and craters in homes. All of this is preventable by taking a few determined steps when first moving into a hilly area. Here’s how:
Choosing Your House
Bearing in mind that this will be your home for the foreseeable future, choose a house built on flat ground in the hilly area. This will keep it safe from a sudden bout of soil erosion. If you can’t find such a house, call in sloping block builders to build you a house on a piece of sloping land. Sloping block builders know how to proportion and structure the house in such a way as to distribute the weight of the house evenly on the slope, as well as drive a foundation deep into the earth to keep it secure. Cutting into the slope is a popular method of creating flat space to build a house. However, while the building may be easier, this destabilizes the earth behind the house which has been newly exposed, and it may become prone to flash floods. Avoid houses that have been rashly built in such a way.
Use the Environment
One of the biggest risks of living in the hilly regions is flash floods caused by sudden rain. Rain water running on naked ground cause the soil to loosen up and crumble, falling off and down in great chunks. Destabilized ground can cause even a newly built house to crack along fault lines and break down. The easiest way to prevent this is terrace gardening. Cut your sloping garden into terraces or long parallel steps and plant fast growing plants which have tap roots. Tap rooted plants hold the soil together and prevent soil erosion, which in turn help keep the land stable and secure custom built homes Geelong.
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Build a Great Wall
Not the Great Wall of China, but walling is a good way of holding in the soil and preventing degradation of land in a hilly region. While walls might not be de rigueur in some areas (where they are seen as anti- social and unfriendly), they contribute to maintaining the weight of the house and soil without fissuring. Note in building a wall that it is absolutely essential to build holes in the wall to allow water to pass through; without holes, the water will seep into the material of the wall and make cracks to seep through, undermining the entire structure and the purpose of building a wall in the first place.