The first week on site for actual building has started with levelling the area where the building will stand and filling in the old dam. We bought the land because it was already terraced but the top terrace still had a slight gradient on it which we had to get all on one plane. The dam for the leiwater was actually created as a soak away for the neighbour’s dam (when the two properties were owned by the same person) so we made the call to fill in the hole of the existing dam with excess the clay coming off the top platform. This saved us a lot of money on having to cart all that material away. In the place of the old dam, we are going to put down a Rain Queen corrugated zinc dam that holds 43 000 litres.

We also got super lucky in that our new across-the-valley neighbour has the very machines we needed to get all this done. He could easily pop them on his trailer and come over to us in a matter of minutes. If we would have had to hire this machinery from outside the village it would have cost us so much, considering that the closest town is 20km away! We’d be very stuck and with a much reduced budget if it weren’t for him.

If you want to ask us about how we did this, why we did this or how you can do it get in touch with us via email info@ownerbuilderinsouthafrica.co.za