Making A Shelter Out of Wood/Mud

I saw this video one time, of this guy who makes his own shelter out of wood and mud that he finds around the forest. He'll rip the bark off trees and find other miscellaneous sticks around. He'll also gather up mud and from it into a hut with a chimney so he can start a fire. I think it's a really interesting way to go about shelter out in the forest, that doesn't require any outside tools. He uses the sticks for the basis of the walls and furniture, and pats mud on the outside/roof.

 

Indeed, is entirely possible to build your own shelter with only wood and mud. And also you don't need anything than a primitive woodcutter axe and your own bare hands. You can also build an adobe structure using rudimentary timber framing techniques.

 

If you want to go a little further down the rabbit hole, look up Cob.

Cob is easy to work with, takes a bit longer to dry out but is sturdier and you can work with it a bit better. Mud+Stick is way more practical in the short term, cob is way more practical in the long term. The big thing is that cob is ratio based, where mud is just a slap-on pack-on and doesn't require as much finesse or as steep of a learning curve. Both have their advantages.

 

Grass Thatching can be Suitable for molded shelters that are dome shaped in appearance. You can even make waterproof grass tangle mats that can be shaped basically by sewing together packs of grass stalks that is of comparable length. The materials that can be utilized as a part of a cabin are wood for the casing, vine coupled together with what would be called lawyer cane that can be used for the lashings and mud for the greater part of the smearing. Birch bark is surely understood as one of the best common materials that you will ever discover for shingle making. A large portion of these strategies that have been utilized for building these shelters dates way back to no less than 6 millenniums where now and again even dried animal dung was used as building material.

 

^ wow, nice. About how much time does it take to build grass thatches versus the mud & wood tutorial there? It seems like that would be kind of specific to the area to have access to grass like that though, whereas mud should be just about everywhere...except the desert?

 

It wouldn't be that hard to build a mud hut. All you need is a tool for digging, water and some roofing material. As long as there are trees around you'll have the roofing material if you can't find grass to use for thatching though if it rains, I'm sure that some of the water will get through.

 

I think you saw a Primitive Technology video (and if not, I highly recommend this channel anyway) about that shelter, Keith linked it a couple of posts above. That being said, you don't need to be the best architect in the world to build a shelter with wood and mud, but you do need to have an idea about structure and how things hold up. You can't just tie up sticks with mud and call it a day!

 

^ Absolutely, this is also true about woods used for guitars...if you see the old "tonewood" debates on electric guitars, nobody ever seems to pay attention to the origins of "tonewoods" ironically matching what was local & cheapest at the time.

I never made the connection with cob/adobe though, makes a ton of sense. Would that mean it's easier to just match what you should be building with where you're at in general? Would it be reasonable to make something like a google maps extension or simple app to explain to people their building options given a certain environment?

 

If there are trees around, bark makes an excellent roofing material, too. I'd be sure to roof it first, so that you can have shelter from rain before I began to do any walls. You can always make a lean-to wall on a winded side for added protection. Then, make permanent wall. It's always important to remember that shelter ultimately means protection from the elements most of all.

 

Has anyone on here ever tried making a tent out of hemp? I've read that hemp is one of the strongest natural substances, and has been used for things such as rope, clothing, paper, and various building supplies. A tent made out of hemp seems like a pretty reliable one.

 

Bamboo is a good type of material for framing the structure for a mud hut. The shoots are cut into strips and tied upright and horizontal to construct the frame for the hut and then the mud is applied. The bamboo would probably ensure that the life of the hut is an extended one as bamboo is a very long lasting material.

 

I like the idea of easy construction , and it seems that a house built out of mud, stone or similar material would also be a natural way of cooling the inside of a dwelling. Those materials tend to deflect the sun's heat, or the winter cold. Having never lived in one personally, I would tend to worry about intruders having easy access, though.

What kind of security would you suggest? Because in a desperate society, I don't think this structure would deter anyone for very long. I think it could be broken into very easily, and without much effort at all.

 

Oh! I have seen this before. I always found this was cool. When I was younger I used to use the mud and clay as well as weeds to make bricks. We build a small wall around our secret hideout in the woods when I was a kid. Believe it or not depending on how you make your dirt house they can be sturdy enough to withstand some weapons. However, unless you build a sturdy house house, there will not be much protection from others, more so just against the elements and animals.

 

This method of constructing mud huts is used by some communities around the world especially nomadic pastoralists. Its quite applicable in survival situations but there is the issue of availability of water to make the mud. The structure also needs to be watered from time to time in order to prevent it from cracking. I would also suggest that flexible sticks like wattle and bamboo are the best to make such structures. It should have peepholes so as to monitor the going on in the wild.