Foundations for building on sand in Zanzibar

scottybowl · 04-21-2010, 05:33 AM

I recently purchased a plot of land in Zanzibar and am looking to build a house which is raised off the ground. The plot has a thin layer of top soil and underneath it is sand.

Some pictures of the ground:

to give some scale:

and finally a picture of the plot - I'd like to build between the coconut palms at the back:

I'm a complete novice when it comes to building so any simple answers which link to more information would be great. I've been looking at the Mega Anchor system and it looks effective, cheap and fast - have any of you had experience with it, and if so, what are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Willie T · 04-21-2010, 08:16 AM

Sand is not your problem. In fact, sand is one of the best bases you can build on... better than almost anything else we have in all our country.

Your problem will be building so close to the water. Not far under that sand you see now is water. This is not good for building upon.

The problem is usually handled by driving pilings down into the ground till they offer enough resistance to the driving to be able to build upon.