Shelter Construction

Building an Emergency Shelter

Things to Consider:

When looking for a shelter site, keep in mind the type of shelter (protection) you need. However, you must also consider:

• How much time and effort you need to build the shelter.
• If the shelter will adequately protect you from the elements (sun, wind, rain).
• If you have the tools to build it. If not, can you make improvised tools?
• If you have the type and amount of materials needed to build it.

To answer these questions, you need to know how to make various types of shelters and what materials you need to make them.

Also consider:

• Make the shelter as small as possible.
• Make sure you have plenty of ventilation.
• Avoid building your shelter on soft wet ground.
• Do not build your shelter on an exposed site.
• Always make sure that your shelter is safe to sleep and live in.
• If you are thatching your shelter, always work from the bottom up.

Building shelters, like all other survival skills, needs practice and lots of it. Don't assume that just because you have read instructions on how to build a shelter you will be able to construct something which will be comfortable and safe to sleep in at the first attempt.

Some Basic Shelter Types

Lean-To Shelter

Always build this type of shelter with its back to the prevailing wind. (if the wind changes direction in the night, you could get wet!) If you need to cut standing timber (with permission, of course), you will need five stout, straight pieces of wood - two about 1.5 metres (4.5 feet) long, two 2 metres (6.5 feet) long and one about 2.3 metres (7.5 feet) long.

Place the two 1.5 metre sticks in the ground about 40 cm (1 foot) down, so they stand about 1 metre high. Now take the two 2 metre pieces, tie these to the top of the upright poles and bury the other two ends in the ground. Take the longest piece and tie this between the two uprights. Now fill in the roof area with other straight sticks tied at the top and buried in the ground. You now have the skeleton of the shelter.

Finally , you must cover the skeleton with whatever material is available - for example grass, bracken and large leaves. Always start at the bottom of the shelter and work upwards when thatching, so that if it rains the water will run over the joints and will not leak through on to you.

A-Frame Shelter

This is basically an A-shape, and will offer more protection than the last one, especially if you block up one end. For both this shelter and the previous one, you can construct a frame for each side of the shelter. This method means that more than one person can work on the shelter at once, and the resulting structure will probably have Tore strength than if the whole shelter was built in one piece.

Tree Limb Shelter

Find yourself a long sturdy pole. Length about 1.5-2 times your height. This will be the main beam of your hut. Another option is to find a fallen tree that will fit to build this hut.

First look for something to hold the main beam of the hut off the ground. A rock, stump, tree with a forked branch anything strong enough can be used for this support. Height - a little taller than you are sitting.

Lean smaller poles against both sides of your main beam at about a 45 degree angle to make a framework. Place them close together and fill in around them with smaller branches.

Cover this framework with materials at hand. Dead leaves, dry fern, evergreen branches, grass, use whatever you can find. Once you have sufficient debris in place, at least 1 m (3 feet) thick, you will need to place a layer of small, light branches over the outside of the hut to keep all your insulation from blowing away.

Depending upon how thick your insulating layer is, a debris hut can keep people dry and warm in frigid temperatures. In the winter, pile snow on top of the hut to increase the insulation factor.

Place a 30-centimeter layer of debris inside the survival shelter. Try to choose stuff that you would like to sleep on. Your body heat can be lost very quickly lying on the bare ground.

At the entrance, pile insulating material that you can drag to you once inside the shelter to close the entrance. Or build a door.

You can make a door by gathering finger size dead wood and lashing it into a grid pattern. Make two grids and place debris between the two grids. Lash the grids together and you have an insulated door. You should have sited the door away from the prevailing wind.

Remember ...

PRACTICE   -   PRACTICE  -  PRACTICE