🏕️ Shelter & Construction

1. Site Selection

Where you build matters as much as how you build. A poorly sited shelter compounds every other problem.

Non-Negotiable Criteria

• Above flood plain: Know the 100-year flood elevation. Any structure at risk of flooding will eventually flood. Look for high watermarks on trees, debris lines, and eroded banks.
• Stable ground: Avoid: steep slopes (>30%), sandy or loose soil (slides, poor foundation), expansive clay (swells/cracks foundations), rock with no topsoil (can't build or grow food).
• Water access: Within a reasonable distance of a clean water source, but per sanitation rules — never immediately downhill of your latrine.
• Not in a natural wind funnel: Gaps between hills, canyon mouths, and valley floors often create severe localized winds.

Desirable Criteria

2. Emergency Shelters

These can be built in 1–3 hours from nothing. They buy time — days or weeks — while you establish more permanent solutions.

Debris Hut

The most effective no-equipment emergency shelter in temperate forests. Built from natural materials, it can keep you warm in near-freezing temperatures with no fire.

1. Find or cut a ridgepole 2–3m longer than your height. Prop one end on a forked branch or stump 1m high; the other end on the ground.
2. Lean branches and sticks along both sides of the ridgepole to create a ribbed frame. The interior should be just barely large enough for you to fit — smaller = warmer.
3. Pile debris (dead leaves, ferns, pine needles, grass) over the frame to a depth of at least 60cm (2 feet). This is the insulation layer. Err on the side of too much.
4. Fill the interior floor with dry leaves to insulate you from the ground — cold ground steals more heat than cold air.
5. Create a "door plug" — a bundle of leaves in a bag, jacket, or netting — to block the entrance when inside.
6. Sleep in layers and bring all clothing inside. Your body heat warms the small interior in 30–60 minutes.

Lean-To

Faster to build than a debris hut; better for mild weather or when you have a fire. Not suitable for severe cold without fire.

1. Lash a horizontal ridgepole between two trees (or forked stakes) at chest height on the windward side.
2. Lean branches and sticks against the ridgepole at a 45° angle to form the roof.
3. Layer bark, leaves, or a tarp over the framework. Overlap like shingles from bottom to top so water runs off.
4. Build a fire in front of the open face, with a reflector (rocks, logs, or tarp-wrapped frame) on the opposite side to direct heat back into the shelter.

Tarp Configurations

Snow Shelters

• Quinzhee: Pile snow into a dome 2m high, 3m diameter. Insert sticks as depth guides (25cm). Wait 2 hours for snow to sinter (harden). Hollow out from inside using sticks as guides — walls should be 25cm thick. Create a sleeping platform higher than the entrance (warm air rises). Make a ventilation hole in the roof.
• Snow trench: Quickest cold-weather shelter. Dig a trench just wide enough to lie in, 1m deep. Cover with a tarp, branches, or blocks of snow. Insulate bottom with pine boughs. Can be dug in 20 minutes with a tool.

3. Long-Term Construction Methods

Timber Framing

Traditional post-and-beam construction using large timbers joined with mortise-and-tenon joinery and wooden pegs (treenails). No metal fasteners required. A properly built timber frame will stand for centuries.

Key Joinery — Mortise and Tenon

Raising Sequence

1. Cut and prepare all timbers on the ground. Mark all joints clearly.
2. Pre-assemble bents (the two-dimensional frames: two posts + connecting beams) flat on the ground.
3. Raise bents one by one with pike poles, ropes, and helpers. Brace each bent plumb before moving to the next.
4. Connect bents with horizontal plates and girts.
5. Add roof rafters and apply sheathing/roofing.

Timber Selection

• Hardwoods (oak, elm, hickory) for posts, beams, and joinery — strong, rot-resistant.
• Softwoods (pine, fir, spruce) for rafters, sheathing, flooring — straight-grained, easy to work.
• Logs should be debarked and allowed to dry (season) before use — green wood shrinks and can loosen joints.

Earthbag Construction

Fill polypropylene bags (grain sacks, sandbags) with moist soil, tamp firmly, and stack in courses like masonry. Incredibly strong, uses on-site materials, and resists fire, earthquakes, and bullets.

1. Lay a rubble-filled French drain foundation (gravel in a trench) to prevent moisture wicking into earthbags.
2. Fill bags with slightly moist subsoil (10–15% moisture) — not topsoil, which has organic matter that decomposes. Stabilized soil (add 5–10% Portland cement) dramatically increases strength.
3. Fill bags 80% full, fold, and tamp flat before placing. Each bag should be roughly 15cm (6") high after tamping.
4. Stagger joints like masonry — each bag centered over the joint below.
5. Place two strands of barbed wire between each course — this acts as mortar, locking courses together and preventing slipping.
6. Plaster interior and exterior with earthen, lime, or cement plaster to protect bags from UV (which degrades polypropylene) and weathering.

Cob Building

Cob is a mixture of subsoil (clay-rich), sand, and straw formed into "cobs" (rough lumps) and pressed together by hand and foot into monolithic walls. No formwork or bags needed.

• Mix cob on a tarp by folding and stomping repeatedly — the straw must be thoroughly incorporated. Test: form a ball, drop from 1m — it should hold together but not splatter.
• Apply cob in 15–25cm lifts. Allow each lift to firm up (usually 1–3 days) before adding the next to prevent slumping.
• Cob walls should be minimum 45cm thick for structural walls; thicker for thermal mass benefit.
• Final plaster: clay plaster (interior), lime plaster (exterior — lime is weather-resistant and breathable).

4. Insulation & Ventilation

Insulation Principles

Insulation works by trapping still air (which is an excellent insulator). Wet insulation loses all value — vapor management is critical.

Ventilation

All inhabited structures must have ventilation. Without it: CO2 accumulates, moisture condenses (causing rot and mold), and radon may accumulate. With it: fresh air, reduced humidity, healthy indoor environment.

• Cross ventilation: Place openings on opposite walls aligned with prevailing wind. Open area = 5–10% of floor area for comfortable summer ventilation.
• Stack effect: Warm air rises. High vents on south/east face and lower vents on north allow natural convection without fans.
• Cooking ventilation: Any open fire or wood stove indoors requires a proper flue to exterior. A smoke shelf in the firebox prevents backdraft. Chimney should extend 0.9m above the roof ridge or any obstruction within 3m horizontally.
• Winter balance: Excessive ventilation in winter wastes heat. Use operable vents, not fixed openings. Air-to-air heat exchangers (ERV/HRV) allow fresh air with minimal heat loss — can be built from two cardboard tubes in a box with corrugated inserts.

5. Passive Solar Design

Passive solar uses the building's orientation, glazing, thermal mass, and shading to heat and cool the building naturally — no mechanical systems required.

Core Principles (Northern Hemisphere)

Overhang Sizing

To allow winter sun and block summer sun:

Simpler rule: For latitudes 30–45°N, overhang depth = 50–65% of south window height. Example: 4-foot windows → 2 to 2.6-foot overhang.

Thermal Mass Requirements

• Use minimum 6 square feet of thermal mass per square foot of south-facing glazing.
• Thermal mass should be in direct sunlight (dark-colored, unobstructed).
• Concrete, brick, stone, tile, or water containers all work. Water has 3× the heat storage of masonry per unit volume.
• Insulate the building envelope well — thermal mass only works if heat doesn't immediately escape through the walls.

6. Roofing with Found Materials

Thatch

Traditional thatching uses long-stemmed grasses, reeds (Phragmites australis is ideal), straw, or palm fronds. A properly thatched roof lasts 30–50 years and is excellent insulation.

1. Harvest reeds or long straw at maturity. Bundle into 20–25cm diameter bundles bound with natural cordage.
2. Begin at the eave (bottom edge). Lay bundles with heads pointing outward, lapped by 50% on each successive course.
3. Secure bundles with hazel withies (thin flexible branches) and steel or bamboo rods tied to rafters.
4. Pitch must be steep (45°+) for good water shedding. A 45° pitch sheds water well; 60°+ is ideal for the wettest climates.
5. Ridge: fold bundles over the ridge and secure with pegs. The ridge is the most critical area — birds and rot attack from the top first.

Wooden Shingles / Shakes

Split from straight-grained rot-resistant wood (western red cedar is ideal; oak, chestnut, or any straight-grained wood works). A froe and mallet are the traditional tools.

• Shingle thickness: 1cm at the butt (thick end), tapering to a point.
• Exposure (visible area per shingle): 1/3 of shingle length. Three layers of shingles cover every point of the roof.
• Leave a 3–5mm gap between adjacent shingles — wood expands when wet.
• Secure with two wooden pegs or nails, set in from the edge.

Sod / Green Roof

A sod roof over a structure with steep walls provides excellent insulation. Requires: a very strong roof structure (sod is heavy, 40–80 kg/m²), a waterproof layer underneath (birch bark is traditional, HDPE pond liner is modern), drainage layer, and growing medium.

Improvised Roofing from Salvage

• Metal sheets / tin: Overlap minimum 15cm at seams and 30cm at ridges. Secure with screws or bent nails. Noisy in rain but highly durable.
• Bark shingles: Harvest large sheets of elm, birch, or poplar bark in spring (when bark peels easily). Lay and weight flat to dry without curling. Use as large overlapping shingles.
• Tar paper / felt: Any salvaged roofing felt can be layered. Short-term solution — degrades in UV within 1–2 years.

7. Essential Tools & Improvised Tools

Priority Hand Tools List

Improvised Tools

• Plumb bob: Any weight (nut, rock) suspended on a string. Gives true vertical.
• Water level: A clear hose filled with water — both ends will settle to the same elevation anywhere in the loop regardless of the path between them. Accurate to millimeters over long distances.
• Square: The 3-4-5 triangle (or any multiple: 6-8-10, 9-12-15). Mark 3 units on one side from a corner, 4 units on the other, 5 units diagonally = perfect 90°.
• Wedges: Split from hardwood; used to fell trees, split logs, and tighten joints. Make several sizes — small (splitting kindling), medium (driving joinery), large (log splitting).
• Rope pump: A rope with rubber discs (cut from tires) looped through a pipe into a water source. Pull the rope and discs lift water. Can be powered by hand, wind, or bicycle.
• Maul from a rock: Lash a smooth, hard, oval rock (granite works well) into a hardwood handle split and wedged around the stone — simple and effective hammer/maul.

Tool Maintenance Without Electricity

• Sharpen chisels and plane irons on a combination whetstone (coarse then fine), finished on a leather strop
• Axes: sharpen with a mill bastard file, then a whetstone. Keep edge at 25–30° included angle
• Saws: file-sharpen hand saws every 10–20 hours of use. Rip teeth at 0°, crosscut at 15–20° fleam angle
• Oil all metal tools lightly (linseed or machine oil) to prevent rust, especially in humid storage
• Oil wooden handles with linseed oil; replace handles before they break
• Store in dry conditions — moisture is the primary tool killer