How to make a house out of snow. Project “Different Human Dwellings”

We live in upstate New York, which means we are used to cold and snowy winters. Last winter, however, was unlike any other in recent memory. We had more than a month, where almost every day brought subzero temperatures. For us, this is enough that you start to lose your mind!

After several weeks of freezing temperatures, I took a look at the long-term forecast and saw no end to the freezing weather. This got me thinking and looking all over the internet. A project was found on how to make an Igloo out of snow using empty boxes from milk containers as molds. The water in each block is colored differently, creating the perfect picture of a small dome of ice. snow house, which is especially beautiful when illuminated at night. From that moment I saw this picture, and I knew that we had to make an Igloo out of snow, make an Igloo with our own hands and we now have weather that makes it possible.

After about a week of fiddling with ice blocks, we made the Igloo with our own hands, we achieved our goal. The process was surprisingly easy - although a little tedious and time-consuming. I will share with you how to make an Igloo out of snow. The end result will exceed all your expectations.

Step 1: Choose your materials to make your Snow Igloo

Materials:

* Water.
* Food coloring.

* 25 plastic shoe box containers from Walmart. They can be purchased for ~$1 and fit perfectly. (I was counting on milk cartons, but that would have taken us away from drinking milk and orange juice for 2 months).

Tools:

* Garden Sprayer and/or Sprinkler.
* Plastic bath(for mixing snow and water).
* Trowel.
* Axe.

Working conditions:

*Stable temperatures below -10 degrees. This allows you to make about 2 batches of ice blocks per day.

Step 2: Making Ice Blocks

This is by far the most time-consuming step when making your own Igloo. I bought 25 containers of plastic "shoe boxes" from Walmart. If I had bought more, the process of making the blocks would have taken less time, but I didn't want to waste more money I haven't seen how it would work yet.

Unfortunately, my outside water faucet freezes every winter. This required carrying 5 gallon buckets of water from my kitchen sink to fill plastic containers in my backyard. It took a total of 15 gallons to fill all 25 containers. Food coloring is added to the water and mixed well. I used 4 colors, along with about 20% unpainted blocks. We made about 150 blocks in total and we used almost all of them.

For my first batch, I filled the containers all the way to the top. Water, of course, expands and when it froze, it was pushed out of the container. With the ice on top it became difficult to separate the ice from the container and I ended up breaking several containers.

I only filled subsequent batches 2/3 full with water. This allowed the ice to expand without completely filling the container. I could move each sidewall a little away from the ice. Having torn off the walls, the ice easily slipped out of the container.

Step 3: How to make an Igloo with your own hands - laying the first row

How to make an Igloo out of snow so that it stands straight? To do this, the first row of blocks must be laid on a flat surface. The surface of my yard is not quite level, so I built a small, 8" tall, 1" wide "footing" out of wet snow. This foundation was made with a diameter of about 6". To achieve a fairly even circle, I first traced a contour line in the snow made with a string and a stick made from a broom. I held the stick in the center, at one end of the string, and my daughter took the other end and walked around around me, drawing a line in the snow with the end of another stick.

After creating the foundation, I took an 8" long 2x4 and laid it across the circle in various points. Using a 3" level on top of the 2x4, I could see where the high spots were on the foundation and scrape them off.

Then I started laying the first row of snow igloos, one block at a time. I wet the snow under each block to help it freeze to quickly form a strong bond. The side walls of the blocks are conical, which corresponds to plastic forms shoe box. This works to our advantage because as subsequent blocks are placed on top, they will begin to form a dome shape on their own. This solves the question of how to make an Igloo out of snow dome-shaped.

Snow was packed between each block and sprayed with a garden sprayer to seal the gaps.

For a long time, people have been using any material suitable for this purpose to build their homes: some use wood of various species, some clay, and some have even found a use for snow. Yes, yes, we will talk about those very snow houses of the Eskimos, called “igloos”, which are so unusual for the perception of most people.

Translated from Inuktitut, “igloo” means “winter dwelling of the Eskimos.” Such houses are dome-shaped buildings, the diameter of which reaches about 3-4 meters, and the height - 2-2.5 meters. The main material for building an igloo is ice or snow blocks, compacted by the wind. If the snow cover is deep, the entrance to the room is built in the floor, breaking through a small corridor to it. If the snow cover does not have the required depth, then the entrance is built in the wall, completed with the help of snow blocks additional corridor.

Each Eskimo camp has several buildings, where up to four related families are located. Eskimo housing is divided into two types: summer and winter. The first consists of stone buildings located on a slope, the floor of which is deepened into the ground. From below, a long passage of stones, partially buried in the ground, leads to the house. The last part of the passage, which is located above the floor, is covered with a wide slab of stone, and is at the same height as the bunks in the hut.

The snow house has a completely ordinary layout: the sleeping bunks are located in the back of the room, and there are bunks for lamps on the sides. When building walls above ground, stones or whale ribs are used, whose arcs are spaced so that their ends intersect each other (or both materials). Sometimes, when constructing the roof frame, whale ribs are used, adding supports to the structure. Seals skins are tightly tied to the finished frame (which allows for high-quality insulation of the house from ice), on which small heather bushes and another layer are then laid in a thick layer. additional layer skins

Scheme of construction and arrangement of an igloo house

When constructing igloos, snow or ice slabs are used. The blocks are laid in a spiral, from right to left. To do this, two blocks in the first row are cut diagonally to the middle of the third, after which the construction of the second row can begin. During work, each row is slightly tilted so that a neat row is obtained. The small hole that remains at the top is closed from the inside using a wedge-shaped block. Then the builder, located inside the hut, seals all the cracks with snow.

The entrance tunnel digs through a snowdrift from the outside, ending in a hatch in the floor of the building. If the layer of snow is shallow, then an entrance hole is cut in the wall of the igloo, and a corridor of snow blocks is laid out next to it.

In this video you can watch the process of building a snow igloo house

External entrance the tunnel is about 1.5 meters high, which is why you can only walk through it with your head bowed. The entrance to the tunnel is even smaller - you can only find yourself in it if you crawl on all fours. But in the hut itself, the ceilings are quite suitable for freely moving around the room - their height reaches about 2 meters. Large snow house The Eskimo can reach a diameter of 9 meters, and the ceiling height in it reaches 3-3.5 meters. Typically, such large structures are built much less frequently and are used mainly for major holidays.

Secrets of building a reliable igloo

When working with blocks that are located next to each other, you should avoid touching their corners, otherwise the structure will become unstable. For convenience, it is recommended to leave a triangular hole at the bottom of the junction of adjacent blocks Not large sizes(it can be easily sealed with snow in the future).
It is highly recommended not to move a block installed on a wall in one direction or another, as this may cause it to wear out and lose its original shape. You can simply place a block, trim off the strongly protruding parts on one side and below, and then carefully move it as close as possible to the adjacent block. Then, using a saw, its final finishing is carried out. It is recommended to lay the slabs with the “crust” side inside the structure, as it is more durable.
To make the work process easier, the upper hole in the dome can be carefully covered with one of the plates. Large gaps that are located between the blocks are sealed with pieces of crust, and small ones are treated with loose snow. Through holes and cracks are easiest to see in the evening, by the light of a small bowl of seal oil burning inside the igloo. In addition, warm air will slightly heat the joints, which will improve the quality of processing of holes and cracks.
Before lighting a fire inside the igloo, you need to make a hole with a diameter of about 10-15 cm on the leeward side in the upper part of the dome and attach a smoke exhaust pipe made of strong crust to it.

Interior of an igloo

The interior of the igloo is usually covered with animal skins. Traditional fat bowls act as sources of light and additional heat. When arranging a bed, the Eskimos use two layers of reindeer skins, one of which is laid with the flesh up, and the other with the flesh down. In some cases, in addition to deer skins, old skin from a kayak is used, which allows you to get a very soft and comfortable sleeping place.

During the daytime, the Eskimo hut is so light that you can easily read or write in it without any help. additional lighting. Moreover, in sunny weather, ice walls can cause such bright light that it causes so-called snow blindness. When the polar twilight begins, the Eskimos can insert windows from thin lake ice into the walls of the hut, carving small holes above the entrance. Zhirniks, used for heating and lighting the living space, provide soft and diffuse light, which is enhanced by reflection on the ice dome.

In the conditions of the far north, building a reliable shelter is the key to survival. At the same time, such options as huts and dugouts, which are capable of saving a traveler in the forest or in the tundra, turn out to be ineffective. In the far north, a lost traveler or hunter can take refuge in snowy home, invented by the Eskimos - the igloo.

Eskimo snow house or snow igloo

Severe natural conditions forced the inhabitants of the north to build shelters for themselves. The building material that allowed the Eskimos to build a home was snow. Possessing amazing properties, it protected a person from wind and exposure low temperatures. And if you have a candle with you and light it inside, you can easily warm yourself up in such a home. In addition, snow can transmit light and water vapor. What is surprising is that when a candle or lamp burns, the walls of such a dwelling melt, but do not melt. An Eskimo house may also consist of separate ice huts, connected by transitions.

There are basic rules that you need to know in order to do snow igloo:

you can dig with a knife, saw, bowl and shovel;
do not make the shelter large (the smaller, the warmer);
the cracks are covered with snow;
try not to sweat (remove excess clothing);
When constructing an igloo from snow, it is necessary to use a bedding made of waterproof material.

If you try and find a huge snowdrift, you can build an entire Eskimo house in it. It looks like a cave. The entrance can be dug into the wall lower and a small corridor can be added to strengthen the structure. The diameter at the base can be 3 or 4 meters. The low construction of the entrance to the igloo is due to the fact that the warm air rising to the top does not evaporate. The heavier carbon dioxide sinks down and comes out. Lighting shines directly through the walls. You can make a window using ice instead of glass. Inside, make a flooring of skins on the floor and on the walls too. Now real home Eskimos are ready. You can light a candle or fat lamp inside.

If the snow is dense, then it is possible to cut entire blocks out of it with a hacksaw. They are made like foam and are suitable for constructing igloos from snow. Blocks are cut from the side of the snowdrift from where the wind was blowing. They are stronger there. The blocks are heavy, weighing about 10 kg. When building an igloo, you shouldn’t go far in search of a good crust, otherwise you might get tired, and this is dangerous in the cold. After all, there are no deer or dogs in sled nearby to transport the blocks. You need to find a snowdrift 1 m high or higher. Next, start cutting bricks out of it. Do not move anywhere within a radius of 30 m, you need to save energy. Using a knife, you need to mark a contour in the snow, draw a circle with a diameter of 3 meters. A place to enter the snow igloo is immediately marked.

Begin building the igloo during daylight hours.
You cannot rebuild the shelter at night.
It is forbidden to leave it at night or in poor visibility conditions.
Do not place the entrance into the wind.
Have a shovel or tool on hand to clear the entry hole.
Do not build an igloo larger than 3 m in diameter (the stability of the structure is sharply reduced).
Carefully draw the circle during construction.
Be extremely careful when lighting an open fire inside (possible poisoning) carbon monoxide).
It is forbidden to sleep if there is a threat of freezing.
Drinking alcohol is also not recommended.

Dangerous! If one of the group members has a heart ache or chest pain, vomiting, dizziness, tinnitus, nausea or a dry cough with watery eyes, the victim must be immediately removed from the igloo to the air. Cases have been described fatalities. You should also turn off all heat-producing devices and ventilate the room. Remember that carbon monoxide poisoning most often occurs while people are sleeping.

How to make a snow igloo with your own hands

One block must be placed tightly against the other by tapping with a knife. In this case, snow plays the role of cement. First you need to sand the horizontal seam, and then the vertical seam. Seal the chips with snow and fill the cracks that form during the construction of the igloo with your own hands with snow crumbs. It is very difficult to cut an exit without damaging the structure. In order to make a snow igloo durable, it is important to carefully approach the details.

When the process of laying snow slabs begins, a hole will form at the top. To prevent the last top slab from sliding off from above, it is placed in the form of a wedge. Such a snow brick seems to jam the ceiling hole. It is made larger than the hole so that it does not slip through.

IN winter time, at subzero temperatures, a snow igloo can last from 3 to 5 months. Eskimo housing is capable of maintaining a more or less stable temperature inside. In such a room the temperature ranges from -6° to +2°. If you light a candle, you can heat the room to +16°. But the Eskimos heated the igloos with lamps containing deer or seal fat. The temperature in such a dwelling rose to +20°, despite the fact that there was a frost of -40° all around. It was hot to sit in clothes, and they undressed. A small corridor also emerged from the snow. To protect against attacks by polar bears, the igloo was covered with a large block of snow at night.

How to avoid freezing inside a snow house

After compacting the floor into the snow igloo, a layer of spruce branches or fragments of tree branches is placed on it. You need to put the skis on top, bindings down. A cellophane film, a piece of fabric or a blanket is laid out on them. The skis are laid out like a fan, wider at the head and narrower at the legs. All people should lie on one side and press tightly against each other. The weakest ones should be in the middle. In extreme cold, do not lie on your back. If there are empty ones in stock plastic bottles from water, then you can put them under yourself. It is necessary to slightly unscrew the plugs before lying down. They will bend a little under the weight and will save you from lying on the snowy floor.

It must be remembered that hypothermia of the thigh is no less dangerous than hypothermia of the chest. It is better to remove wet clothes so as not to increase the cooling. You need to take turns sleeping. During a snowstorm, do not come out of shelter. Each exit outside introduces cold air into the snowy house. A lit candle, 10 cm in size, can burn for 2 hours. It is necessary to insulate your head and legs as much as possible, and put on a hood. You cannot undress in a shelter unless your clothes are wet. If your partner is trembling, do not be afraid - this is a protective reaction of the body. But if a person does not react to frost, this is dangerous. You can stretch your limbs and warm up with physical exercise.

It's no secret that since ancient times people began to use materials that were nearby for their needs. Those who live in forested areas have long built their houses from wood, but if there is clay nearby, people create bricks from it and build brick houses. What then can the Eskimos do if they have nothing nearby but snow? Of course, build your homes from snow and ice.

Igloo, translated from Inuktitut (as most Inuit Canadian dialects call it), means “winter dwelling of the Eskimos.” The igloo is a dome-shaped building with a diameter of 3-4 meters and a height of approximately human height. They build it from what is at hand, and in the winter tundra from building materials only snow is at hand... The igloo is built from snow or ice blocks compacted by the wind. If the snow is deep, the entrance to the igloo is made in the floor, and a corridor is dug to the entrance. If the snow is not deep enough, you have to make an entrance in the wall, and an additional corridor of snow blocks is added to it.

Alone, an Eskimo builds a spacious snow hut for his entire family in three quarters of an hour. The strongest snowstorm is inaudible in the hut. The snow bricks grow together tightly, and the hut freezes over as it heats up inside. They say that igloos can even withstand the weight of a polar bear.

How can you breathe under the snow? Fine. After all, if the entrance to the needle is located below floor level, then the outflow of heavy carbon dioxide and an influx of lighter oxygen in return is ensured. In addition, this location of the entrance hole does not allow leaving the home. warm air– it is known to be lighter than cold. However, for ease of breathing, a ventilation hole is punched in the vault with a needle.

As a result of heating, the internal surfaces of the walls melt, but the walls do not melt. The colder it is outside, the higher the heat the igloo can withstand from the inside. After all, wet snow loses its heat-protective properties and allows the cold to pass through more easily. Having made its way through the thickness of the block, the frost freezes what has begun to melt. inner surface walls, and the temperature pressure outside and inside is balanced.

In general, the thermal conductivity of a snow dome is low, and it is easy to maintain a positive temperature in a hut; often the heat generated by sleeping people is sufficient for this. In addition, the snow hut absorbs from the inside excess moisture, so the igloo is quite dry.

Today, igloo huts are used in ski tourism as emergency shelter in case of problems with the tent or a long wait for better weather. However, polar travelers did not immediately learn how to build igloos. For a long time It was believed that only a native Eskimo could build an igloo.

Canadian Vilhjalmur Stefansson was the first to learn how to build an igloo in 1914. He wrote about this in his book and in articles, but even from them it turned out to be difficult to learn how to do it. The secret of building an igloo was the special shape of the slabs, which made it possible to build the hut in the form of a “snail”, gradually tapering towards the vault. The method of installing the slabs also turned out to be important - resting on the previous ones at three points.

The Eskimos skillfully transform their winter settlements into a complex complex of snow buildings and, in bad weather, can visit neighboring huts without going to the surface. Rasmussen, in his book “The Great Sleigh Road,” talks about snow villages with covered passages between igloos, entire architectural ensembles erected by the Eskimos with amazing speed, and large hut-houses.

“The main housing could easily accommodate twenty people for the night. This part of the snow house turned into a high portal like a “hall”, where people cleared the snow off themselves. Adjacent to the main dwelling was a spacious, bright annex where two families lived. We had plenty of fat, and therefore 7-8 lamps were burning at a time, which is why it became so warm in these walls of white snow blocks that people could walk around half naked to their fullest pleasure.”

Interior The igloo is usually covered with skins, and sometimes the walls are also covered with skins. Fat bowls are used for heating and additional lighting. The Eskimos cover the bed with a double layer of reindeer skins, and the bottom layer is laid with the flesh side up, and top layer- flesh down. Sometimes old skin from a kayak is placed under the skins. This three-layer insulation serves as a comfortable soft bed.

Sometimes igloos have windows made of seal guts or ice, but even without that the sun penetrates the igloo directly through the snow walls with a soft light different shades. At night, one candle lit in the hut brightly illuminates the snow-white vault, and at the joints of the bricks this light breaks through a thinner layer of snow.

Outside, in the freezing darkness of the night, the igloo glows with a web of blurry lines. This is truly an extraordinary sight. It’s not for nothing that Knud Rasmussen called the igloo a “temple festive joy among the snowdrifts of the snowy desert."

Don't know how to entertain yourself and your child on New Year's holidays? Build a fairy tale with your own hands. The construction of a mysterious Eskimo igloo- it’s not an easy matter, and the more valuable it will be achieved result. Follow our instructions carefully, and the snow hut will definitely decorate the winter yard of your dacha.

The construction of an Eskimo snow igloo house is a rather interesting idea that not only you, but also your children will like.

Tools you will need for work:

Probe for measuring snow.
Saw.
Kingpin.
Roulette.
Rope.
Shovel
Small bayonet blade.

Looking for snow

Work on an igloo begins with a blank wall material, and for this you need a fairly thick layer of snow. Since optimal sizes for a block it is usually considered 600x450x200 mm, then the thickness of the snow at the excavation site theoretically cannot be less than 20 cm, but in practice you should look for a “quarry” of snow pie at least half a meter deep.

We make all the necessary measurements using a special probe, which can be purchased in a store or from a pre-marked metal rod.

Preparing the quarry

Before starting to manufacture wall material, the working quarry must first be prepared. To do this:

We dig a trench at least 70 cm wide and 60 cm deep. If the thickness of the snow layer does not allow this, then simply to hard ground.

Important! The front wall of our trench must be perfectly flat - these are the edges of our future “bricks”.

We remove all crumbly snow at the excavation site and level the working area.

Preparation of blocks

We cut the blocks out of the snow pie entirely, while achieving their most ideal geometry. The more accurately the dimensions are met, the easier it will be to build. In total we will need about 50 snow bricks per igloo.

Preparing the construction site

You can only build an igloo in deep snow, no thinner than 40-60 cm, otherwise there will be problems with the “correct” arrangement of the entrance. If there is no such layer of snow in the place planned for construction, you need to make it yourself, simply by dumping it in required space big snowdrift. Further construction site leveling and compacting with snowshoes. For our work, a patch with a diameter of 3-4 meters will be enough.

First row

Before we start laying the first row, we make markings. To do this, we hammer in a kingpin in the center of the area we have compacted and tie a piece of cord or clothesline to it, on which we set a distance of 1.05 m. We mark the latter with a knot.

Now, using this “compass”, we draw a circle on the site with a diameter of 2100 mm - this will be the outer boundary of the snow wall.

WITH inside circle, strictly along its perimeter we build a snow wall exactly one block high. All bricks in the masonry should be heaped inward at approximately 17°; more precisely, we control the angle of inclination using our measuring rope. Since the igloo has the shape of a regular hemisphere, the measured 1.05 m will not only be the radius of the Eskimo dwelling, but also the distance from the center of the site to any point on the snowy facade.

When the perimeter is laid out and the blocks are fitted to each other from the formed snow ring, you need to cut out the screw with a hacksaw.

It is this spiral shape of the first row that is the main secret of the northern builders, which Europeans have been unraveling for centuries. Laying along serpentine lines is the only option to get a third support point for the “brick” and not fall.

Thus, each block rests not only on the row below it, but also on side edge behind a standing wall element.

Further masonry. Keystone

Important! Since the mason is inside a closed loop, a helper is needed for further work. It is he who must supply the snow blocks.

There is nothing complicated about the spiral masonry itself, you just need to follow a few basic points.

Tilt angle

We control the angle of inclination as before using a piece of rope tied to the king pin. Only such a measure will allow us to build the right dome.

End trimming

For denser masonry, we cut the ends of the snow bricks at one angle.

The direction of the cut of the right edge of the block is set by the already familiar lacing.

We file down the left end, focusing on the already finished cut of the previous element. Sawing is done with an ordinary saw.

Keystone

The keystone is more difficult to trim. You need to work from the inside, focusing only on the finished working planes of already laid blocks.

Digging the exit

After finishing the masonry work, you can think about the door. This is the tunnel under the wall of our snowy hut (that’s why we needed deep snow on the construction site); it is this design of the entrance that ensures the free flow of oxygen into the room, but prevents warm air from escaping from the hut.

From the street, the “undermining” is decorated with snow blocks, making a kind of short snow pipe from the latter.

Video: how to build an igloo with your own hands

Facade finishing

When the walls are laid out and the entrance is equipped, we trim it with a saw sharp corners and seal the masonry joints with loose snow. That's all.

Finish facade finishing the needle can be trusted to nature itself. The very first snowstorm will turn our building into a cozy and warm snow house in which you can wait out almost any frost.

Don't be lazy, build a real Eskimo house out of snow - the children will be grateful to you.