Still striving for Skill Knowledge.... wattle & daub primitive shelter/building

[TresMon]

Well,
this prolly sounds like a "canned" opener at this point from me these days but it is ever true:

I have missed yuns here on the board but I have been at it being vigilant & diligent learning skills.

I was part of a "Wattle & Daub" primitive building workshop. I have been researching long term building techniques for the primitive living enviorn/scenario.

I'm pretty well convinced that when you factor in labor, materials, long term stability, insulation, maintenance, etc. that "Wattle & Daub" is where it's at for primitive building for the bulk of the US forested environments.

In the following photographs I was involved with making 3/4 walls to wall-in a outdoor kitchen for wildabundance.net.

However I have hung out and lived short term in tight, water proof & WARM wattle and daub shelters complete with bark (peeled Poplar Bark in my area) roofs. A central fire pit in the center, burning kindling (nothing bigger) provides a warm smokeless fire, light and cooking. Hides over the doors/windows keeps the cold out.

Here's pics from the class where we made 3/4 walls but obviously full walls are the same....

2012-06-09 14.16.18.jpg2012-06-09 14.15.02.jpg2012-06-09 14.16.04.jpg2012-06-10 14.45.04.jpg2012-06-10 14.46.01.jpg

There's a good bit of Wattle & Daub info on the net but here is a starter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_and_daub

For those who are curious our wattle was Maple, Privet & Pine saplings and our daub was a mixture of local clay, creek sand and chopped up native grasses, which we ran low on and switched to deciduous leaves which worked fine.

[BENESSE]

I'm SO impressed! I can see a lot of uses for that style of building, if nothing else then a cool structure on you property for a workshop, a studio or a potting shed. It looks nice, it's organic and seems right in a natural environment. This would look cool on YCC's new piece of land.

You're really walking the walk, TM, atta boy!

[Sourdough]

Very interesting, thanks. (rep point sent)

[1stimestar]

Very cool!

[gryffynklm]

Great pics. Wattle and daub has been around a long time for a good reason.

[crashdive123]

Well done.

[randyt]

awesome job!!

[hunter63]

Very cool, some of these types of building are still being used in merry old England after 500 years or so.....
Nice job!

[jhnnymwr75]

Very very cool!! I want a house like those, to live in full time?.... Probably not. IMHO that is cooler than anything home wise i've seen and I get stuck going to all the houses in 'the parade of homes' every year, and they got some cool stuff. I'm impressed!

[jcullen24]

Once again, excellent post!
I've been following your posts with great interest .
Is that the commune you're staying with?
Rep points sent

[TresMon]

No-
Thats the outdoor kitchen at my friends place.
Thanks for the kind words.

[kyratshooter]

Wattle and daub was the standard building technique all over europe for 5,000 years. Then Indians of the southern U.S. were skilled at wattle and daub.

The first houses built by Europeans at Jamestown were wattle and daub. It was not until the Sweedes settled along the Deleware River in the mid-1600s that log cabins were introduced to North America.

I have worked with wattle and daub at several archiological sites, it is not perfect and does have its restrictions. The upright posts are usually planted directly into the ground and will suffer termite damage and rot. The daub also melts in the rain and needs constant attention. The people that used this techeique expected to rebuild at short intervals. They are also subject to vermin infestation, one of the reasons the plague spread easily through Europe. It takes only a few moments for a rat to chew through the wall.

They are not a shelter one can build in a few minutes for an overnight stay. There is considerable investment of time and effort. In a "long term survival situation" I think one would find a better solution, such as plywood and 2x4s with a blue tarp roof. Most of us are not in abo-hippie mode. We want to get out of the survival situation and into normalcy asap.

Tres, remember that you are attempting to duplicate a lifestyle that offered a short like of misery and filth with a life expectancy of around 35.

[Rick]

he first houses built by Europeans at Jamestown were wattle and daub. It was not until the Sweedes settled along the Deleware River in the mid-1600s that log cabins were introduced to North America.

My direct ancestors arrived aboard the Charitas from Sweden in 1641 and were part of the group that brought such things to the New Sweden settlement. My direct ancestor was a millwright in New Sweden and the first magistrate in the New World. His brother was a soldier. Both are listed in the manifest.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ny...shsw3char.html

[hunter63]

The cool part of "doing it" is that you can appreciate how good we have it most all the time......In this country.

It's easy to romanticize the old ways and methods......but it's pretty hard to find someone that has done it (lived the life) for an extended period of time...... because they want to.

Kudo's to anyone trying it......It's a good thing to know how.

A shelter as this would be a palace in a lot of the world, to this day.........

[randyt]

this type of building is still being done on a large scale. Plaster and lathe, metal screen with plaster are two that come to mind., it's a modern twist to the wattle and daub.