4. Belt concrete

House Construction: 

Belt concrete (plinth beam) above basement

After finishing foundation and basement, we have to give a concrete belt on the top of basement. Here use steel bars. This will redistribute weight of the whole building towards all over the basement and foundation. We construct this on 1.5 feet wide basement. We have to give 9 inches width for this. I am going to use 6 inches cement block, so the width of belt is 9 inches. See the photo below to know how to put steel bars and wooden construct for filling concrete. 

See the photo below: Near kitchen side the foundation comes very close to the wall of open well. So instead of normal foundation and basement we gave concrete  structure.

By putting metal concrete all over the top of basement, the work of belt concrete is complete. For three four days do watering to cure concrete. Fill water and allow it to retain there. Then we can remove wooden planks.

No need to fill earth up to the level of belt concrete. But put some more earth and after pouring water this level become down.

Here I have one suggestion. As I said the width of basement is 18 inches. And the belt is 9 inches. Put the belt exactly on the middle of basement. Usually people build the belt putting towards outer boundary of basement. This also is ok. Here we can increase the inner area little bit. But better to do the other way for getting more strength to whole structure.