Building a Debris Hut Shelter for Long-Term Living

Description

Built at the Metamorphosis training grounds (http://www.rewildu.com/metamorphosis-2/), this shelter combines a debris hut with a workshop area. It's created without any cordage, knife, or other tools. It took a total of 16 hours to build. Built in Wisconsin for students at ReWild University and Metamorphosis. Visit http://ReWildU.com/debrishut to get more details on how a structure like this is built, including the Bear Alert trick to make sure someone hasn't moved in when you're away.

Tags: Survival,Debris Hut,Survival Shelter,Wilderness Survival,ReWild University,Survival Skills,Living in the Woods,Best Shelter in the Woods,Kenton Whitman,Shelters,Natural Shelters

Video Transcription

this is a step-by-step tutorial on the shelter that's going to keep us warm all winter long it's going to involve a debris Hut or variation on a debris Hut which is basically a natural sleeping bag to keep us warm it's also going to have a workshop area and some places to sit and have a fire in a way that it will reflect the heat into the shelter so we're going to walk this through right from the beginning so you can see exactly how it's done this is the area of Chosun I know it looks a little bit dubious right now what I'm looking for is a flat area it has a lot of building materials and also that has a really nice deciduous leaf cover and the next couple weeks all these leaves are going to be coming down to the ground and will give us a lot of debris to cover our shelter with this log here is going to service the backbone or the spine for the debris Hut it's just about high enough we're going to use something really strong like this so it gives us a lot of durability first thing I've done is to clear out the area that's going to become the debris Hut I've taken the bark off this fallen tree and collected it up because we're going to use it on the outside of the debris Hut any material so they found on the ground starting to gather them into some piles because they're going to create the skeleton of the hut now I need to lie down inside the debris Hut and get a measurement to where my body is going to be wanted to breach ought to be really tight

the idea is to cocoon myself so that I'll be warm even in the winter without blankets our sleeping bag the mark where my feet I where my hat is the first sticks I setup are not support sticks these are just marking out the boundaries that little stick is my foot marker I've left a little bit of extra space there's going to be a lot of stuffing on the ground and all throughout the inside of this I'm leaving extra spacer on the top side we've got two over there marking out it's only going to go this far because my door or entrance is going to be right here and there's a shot at the inside from this point on we're going to use beefier sticks or sticks or from species that are a little bit stronger like Ironwood or open no matter what size we get it's going to fit somewhere along here so as you collect you can break sticks and then come in find where they're going to be placed about a half hour later we have the skeleton complete

you

I don't mind there being some overlap on the top this is all going to be covered with a massive amount of debris next step was to build the rest of the workshop area we've constructed back here and then we've added a firewall let's swing around the other side so you can see it better that's the firewall on the right and this is the entrance to the shelter right here is where a fire is plan and it would reflect off this wall so you could sit in the main entrance here and have a fire that's going to reflect back on you the inside of the workshop area and the entrance to the debris Hut this is the skeleton that's been put up and from here we'll start to cover it debris Hut we need to be really really insulated we want this to keep us warm in winter without a sleeping bag or blanket so there's going to be an immense amount of insulation put on there

I've begun with the layer of bark and that bark is stacked in the same way that shingles would be layered the water will shed down off of them and the rest of it is going to get a very nice layer of insulation enough to pull the snow or the shed rain but it doesn't need to hold our body warm in the same way so we don't need as much depth of coverage next we're beginning with a layer of debris this can be really sticky stuff it's a mixture of six and leaves so it holds together really nice this thickness is only our very first layer with the debris Hut it's important to consider places where you're going to have a heat loss this is the entrance which seems fine we've got a lot of good insulation in the front right on the side and over the top what we're going to be losing heat coming right through here so here's how we'll fix it here's the before and here's after this is a little space up here that we can fill with insulation and close off that weak spot where we're going to be losing heat Here I am inside the finished shelter and I'll show you the entrance to the debris Hut and then we'll go outside and take a look around inside here's the entrance to the debris Hut it's very stuffed with leaves the key to that is to stuff it full of leaves that don't have any sticks as clean as you can get them and then get in there and squash it down lay on it and then collect more leaves and do that over and over and over and you're going to create a nice little leaf mattress beneath you this is the angle that we started from you can see that original spine that we use that huge log

there's the debris Hut and there's the work space in this angle you can see the debris Hut the fire wall and the entrance to the work space here's how we get inside fire pit ready to go with extra rocks for hot rock warming you've got a seat here to keep our butt off the ground when we're sitting at the fire inside of the workspace and the entrance to the debris Hut this shelter took about 16 hours to make so low you had some friends working with you would go a lot faster it's designed to be a winter shelter that will keep you warm back in the debris Hut a nice workspace that can be heated reflectively with the fire hot rocks to bring inside keep it a little bit warmer debris Hut is a great way to reconnect with nature gives you a place that you can call home out in the woods place to practice ancestral skills in place just be able to get out explore get to know the animals and plants and to have a place where you can be comfortable in inclement weather visit real wild University for tips and tricks on how to build a shelter like this and thanks for watching by the way you probably notice the lack of leaves up here well it took me about 16 hours that was 16 hours spread out over a few months and so I was up to some other projects so you got to see the whole change of the seasons here