If bad weather in summer or severe frost in winter finds you in an unfamiliar forest and it is unknown at what distance the nearest human dwelling is located, then do not despair, especially if you have a roll of plastic film in your luggage, which is usually used to tie composite cargo on pallets.
How to make a hut from plastic film
We are immediately looking for a place where we can build a life-saving home. It’s great if there are 4 trees that enclose an area within themselves that is a square, rectangle or trapezoid in plan.
Using an ax, we prepare poles from thin long trunks of young trees, cleared of twigs and branches, commensurate in length with the distance between the selected trees. We assemble the roof frame from the poles and wrap it with plastic film.
Since the frame is made of poles of a certain thickness, our roof turned out to be two-layer. This ensures better heat retention inside the home.
Then we proceed to forming the walls.To do this, we wrap the film around the tree trunks, starting from the bottom, and gradually rise to the roof. To make the walls stronger and retain heat better, we place a transverse layer of film on top of the longitudinal layer of film, each time cutting the film at the ground and tucking it in on the other side.
We cover the gap between the bottom of the wall and the ground with poles cut to size. They will not allow the wind to blow into the home from below and cool it on a frosty night, and together with vents under the roof, they will create natural ventilation inside the home so that carbon monoxide does not accumulate.
In the end wall, consisting of several layers, use a sharp ax blade to cut the film in the center in the vertical direction. We insert two sticks transversely into the slot at the top and bottom, which will provide the width of the entrance to the home.
Inside the house we make a sunbed and a table from the same poles. If you also have a compact wood stove, then the problem of heat and cooking will disappear by itself.
To lead the chimney outside the home, cut a square hole in the wall with an ax and push it apart with two sticks of the appropriate length. This will prevent the hot pipe from coming into contact with the film.
We ignite dry kindling in the stove using resin extracted from under the bark of birch trees and modern flint, consisting of mischmetal (an alloy of rare earth elements) and firewood (in our case, a steel knife).
The home becomes warm within 15 minutes as soon as the firewood starts burning. You can cook any, even very gourmet, food on the stove, it all depends on what is at hand.
After waiting out bad weather or spending a frosty night in such a dwelling, it can be quickly dismantled. The film is unwound and recycled, and the poles are returned to nature.
