Dos and Don'ts When Building Shelters

There are several different reasons in which an individual may be building a shelter. Most likely you are building a shelter to have a place to escape the elements. In some instances, you will be building a shelter as the means of a new home. If you are building a shelter for the fun of it or a home, make sure that you take the time to do it right the first time. By building a structure that is not sturdy, you run the risk of it collapsing. Should your shelter collapse when you are on the inside not only will potentially ruin your day, you could also end up injured. When you are building your shelter make sure that you secure it in as many ways as possible. If you can design your shelter where you only need to apply two walls instead of 4, it will help with the stability of your structure.

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Making sure that your structure is sturdy and will not fall over is a must for anyone who wants to stay safe. Never use rotted material or extremely dry material when building your shelter. Don't build shelter under big trees that have branches that may fall and crush you or at the edge of cliff that could potentially drop rocks upon you. Also do not build permanent shelters to close to rivers as rivers tend to flood from time to time, and this could be extremely dangerous for you. Making sure to build your shelter according to your needs is important but at the same time making sure that what you're building is put together with quality is equally important. Don't rush building a good shelter that way you end up with more than a shelter, you end up with a safe dwelling you can call home or simply have fun and enjoy safely.

 

I occasionally visit a shelter a few friends and I built about three decades ago
It is on a gentle slope in the open, we hauled 120kg of cement (three 40kg bags ) there and 120sandbags!
We mixed dirt with a little cement and water bagged it and built the walls around the hole we made for the dirt leaving a wide platform around the inside!
We dropped a few trees for roof beams and carted in 14 x 3.5m long sheets of tin!
We also rolled in a steel 1,000l water barrel and some guttering!

Last visit the actual sandbag material is gone but the dirt is still standing, roof is still intact other than the guttering and water tank is stuffed!
Inside is still dry and cosy but you need to clear out all the nasties every visit!
The mud fireplace still works as well as the flue, inside floor stays dry!

 

Dig down is good but you then need to consider drainage
The one refered to above was on a slope and we dug down about 2 feet as that was as far as we could go and still have gravity drainage!
Spoil from hole was used for the sandbag walls, upslope was a small diversion ditch and excess spoil was used to embank the outside of sandbags.
Total height above ground around 1.5m.

 

First, let's look at the rule of 3s. 3 minutes without air, you die. 3 hours without shelter, you die. 3 days without water, you die. 3 weeks without food, you die. Granted every individual is different. But shelter can be as simple as a debris hut, or as complicated as a log cabin. I've built many a shelter (lean-to) between 2 trees and have built shelters up against the trunk of a huge pine, whose lower limbs hung down to the ground. I
ve also built a wiki-up in the middle of a young pine barren by tying the tops of several of these trees together to form the frame. that one grew into a living shelter.
Use what you have, but some times you need the shelter yesterday to save your life.

 

Cheers! Sounds like youall did a great job!

 

One good thing about living in cave country... "Rock House" was a true story, and the cave is still there.

But I wouldn't go into a cave if shelter above the ground was available. One not so good thing about living in cave country is that the ground is always damp and moldy.

Also, there's much to be said for bats, but living with guano...fresh and plentiful...I think I'd rather live in a chicken coop, with chickens.

 

Awesome tips for anyone that is looking into building temporary shelter. Like you said, never build shelter with rotting materials. Cheers!