I Rebuilt My Workshop out of SNOW and ICE

[@htme]

Thanks again to Acorns for sponsoring! Click my link get.acorns.com/HowToMakeEverything to get a $10 bonus investment when you sign up to grow your oak! T&C’s apply.

[@CD3MC]

Even in Canada, you won't find igloos unless you're in the FAR north. Most snow shelters (and what overnight guides are trained to do in an emergency) is to build a quinzy. Pile snow and compress it, wait for a few hours and then dig it out leaving 2-foot Walls.

[@theshadowassassin1302]

Maybe try and Adobe house! you could use live wood to make rafters and stuff

[@evilcanofdrpepper]

oh oh! try some waddle and daube structures!

[@rivergreen1727]

Sod is a great building material!

[@caseyhaywardfoxington5324]

VIKING LONG HOUSE

[@bob1432bob1432]

FYI. During the ice cutting intro around 4:45, the talking to camera cuts out if you listen in mono audio. Works fine in stereo. Maybe it’s just me, but I tried on 2 devices and it still happened

[@Turnpost2552]

Yea same

[@TeslaFactory]

Same

[@georgekunkle1151]

Yep

[@bensavedbychrist]

Same here, only had my left earbud in. Sounded like digitally removed speech with intact background audio.

[@HarrysDogmalaysia]

No wander i can't hear it and no one is talking about it, I'm using my phone speaker and wandering why no one complaining no sound

[@norabellerose8560]

Gotta hand it to him, he’s definitely a hard worker/masochist to a high degree if he’s putting himself through all this for our entertainment and knowledge. A definite salute to you for all that you do.

[@G_SantosA]

This is the true definition of “When life gives you lemons…”. Love this channel and highly appreciate the dedication y’all have! Every episode gets more satisfying and impressive as they come.

[@That_Guy42]

Except here it's when life gives you fire, build out of water.

[@jasonritner9662]

I'd love to see earlier versions of wood structures like what Townsends has covered. An 18th century log cabin is neat, but what about early wood structure that those essentially evolved from? How did we get to those 18th century buildings?

[@Nermander]

TA Outdoors has a few good videos on different iron age houses.

[@Biaanca5036]

My favorite is the wattle&daub stuff from Primitive Technology. It just seems so structural and yet also looks easy to make with enough patience

[@riuphane]

I'd love to see you attempt to put a small stove or fire of some kind inside the igloo to see if you can make it more comfortable and still maintain the structural integrity. I know the weather is going to make that difficult, but still would be really cool to see

[@doubtful_seer]

I think in the video he showed doing some smithing inside the igloo, didn’t he?

[@maddockemerson4603]

Too late now, spring starts in a couple days and we’re only seeing this video now because it takes a while to edit. Maybe next winter?

[@riuphane]

@@doubtful_seer yes, but that wasn't in the smaller area and the main area never seemed to reach its final form, so I feel like there's a lot more that could be done and world be interesting

[@lairdcummings9092]

Pykrete. A mix of roughly 14% sawdust or wood pulp added to water *or* compacted snow, and allowed to refreeze. It's remarkably durable and long lasting, and can be used for structures. Just don't cantilever it too much - build in arches and domes. To extend its life, cover in an ablative layer of snow - which can be refreshed as needed.

[@TheFoxfirelight]

Ive never slept in an igloo before. However, when I was traveling (hitchhiking), I once burrowed into a snow bank and slept there. It was actually quite cozy.

[@ossiehalvorson7702]

Yup, my step father was in the marines and I guess they did this as a survival exercise (we lived in Montana where there are mountains with sometimes 8-10' of snow in places at the base. He said their big snow foxhole was more comfortable than his house was at times, like nobody was anywhere near as miserable as they all thought they would be. Some people were even stripping down, because all the trapped body heat in there was actually making them hot.

[@Nae_Ayy]

@@ossiehalvorson7702 yeah snow insulates surprisingly well, when I made an igloo as a kid I didn't even need to make a fire to camp outisde in the freezing weather, just a fair-weather sleeping bag.

[@alexsiemers7898]

Growing up we’d take all the snow from our driveway and use that to make a snow burrow in our yard, still surprised by just how solid it was

[@Wisconsin.pikachu]

If you ever get to go inside a Amish house and check out the ice rooms 😮 they have like 1ft thick foam insulated walls and blocks of ice from the ponds on the farm, they use that all summer for the fridge/freezer

[@That_Guy42]

For the igloo you should have a reflective underlayer to sleep on so the frozen ground doesn't suck down your heat but reflects it back up to you and the inside of the igloo. It wasn't so cold to make it a necessity but definitely helps when winter camping.

[@Kairi-ou]

I’d be interested to see how long the igloo holds up tbh, considering what a good show of structural support it was to see the time lapse compared to the straight walls. It’s so interesting to see how clever people were in finding ways to survive.

[@Elmerstudd007]

I continue to marvel at how adaptive to a bad situation you guys have been. By far one of my favorite KZbin channels. To answer the question, the mud hut would be a fun would to learn more about, especially with the steady progress of rebuilding your workshop, the space itself almost acting as a functional museum through time as to how civilization progressed. A simple Mud hut, to Roman bricks, to full brick and morter and wooden cabin structures, all the way out to modern sheetrock cinderblocks and rebarr.

[@antongolovko1149]

You really should try to sharpen your saw, I think it will make things go faster

[@mattchrets]

Not only sharpen but also offset the teeth with a chisel.

[@antongolovko1149]

@@mattchrets He can make a whole video on making a more efficient saw

[@meboyotube]

I was thinking the same thing. Sharpen and set the teeth. Basically create a big rip saw for cutting fast and aggressive.

[@roberson644]

He didnt make a saw.... he made a strip of metal with triangles cut out of it.... Saws have sharp edges that cut the material lol.

[@starshot5172]

@@mattchrets chisel? Anvil?

[@bensavedbychrist]

I love the How to Make Everything: Home Edition idea. Do some solo overnighters in your backyard and I bet the algorithm will love it too. Maybe a green bushcraft woodworking lathe?

[@Nono-hk3is]

Andy and crew, you continue to amaze and impress me! Great work and great video.

[@alwayswatching.5923]

We use hay to cover and protect our ice blocks throughout the summer at our "off the grid" log cabins! Hay is an excellent insulator! Give it a try!

[@bensavedbychrist]

Would love to see you save your sawdust and make snowcrete with it next winter. Maybe a side by side with some Pykrete ice. That stuff is amazing.

[@Yamtaggler]

This is such a wild view into a world that's so different from mine. Here in Texas, we get 2 or 3 days with Snow a year and if we're lucky it was 70F the day before so it melts before it hits the pavement. The idea that you can have enough of the stuff to easily build stuff like this boggles my mind.

[@tracybowling1156]

I would like to see some basic structures. I'd like to see what came first like with the tools and other projects. Maybe a Yurt or teepee something like that maybe.

[@SpaceDodo]

Imagine the cold cold hours it took for Andy to properly satisfy our curiosity. Video deserves much more views!

[@renwins]

Part of what makes snow structures warm on the inside is the layer of ice that forms as you heat it. It's important to have an entrance that doesnt allow wind to blow, usually by making it a tunnel perpendicular to the entrance. and then heating the inside with a small heat source melts the snow and makes a solid shield of ice to hold in your heat. so its important to have a channel for water were the walls meet the floor.

[@MeleeTiger]

Something we would often do as kids here (Southern Ontario, Canada) was to lightly spray the finished build with water, like a mist setting to create a thin ice shell then to add more snow and misted water to build it up over time. Popular among the kids for stronger forts, but also for stronger snowmen when a**hole older kids would come by and try to knock them over, found out the *hard* way after the first kick or punch. 😂

[@MeleeTiger]

And I don't know how cold it gets there for you in the winter, but we would often just left water out in buckets/trays to freeze either overnight or sometime even during the day, like rectangular ones you might use for a foot bath.

[@dylanm742]

also sticks for support and to block the sun

[@jordanpatsula2861]

Instead of an igloo that requires ice blocks, there is a quinze. It’s pretty much a big pile of snow that you hollow out. It’s a much smaller space and gets pretty warm. Also, the entrance is really important. Here you had more of a door where it is better to have a tunnel with a u-shape in the floor. Loved the video and this channel!

[@Sanity016]

the amount of dedication you have in these videos is just mind-blowing! I wish I had as much drive to do anything as you do. I would have given up within five minutes. your work is truly inspiring.

[@DarinMcGrew]

I'm impressed! I've helped build snow shelters before, but they've been smaller shelters the size of a 2-3 man tent, which took a few of us just a couple hours to build. And we didn't actually sleep in them.

[@paulmiller6545]

I really like that you’re using a catastrophe to learn more things! Bravo!

[@amandashelton1162]

You can use thick blankets and foil to insolate. My grandpa use to make insolation blankets for our farm. I would help make the blankets for the cows and sheep. We put foil on the outside of the blankets to reflect light. It heats up to keep the animals warm in the winter. You can add water to cool it down in the summer heat. Reflective surfaces are great for heating and cooling. You can use it to wrap pipes to help heat them with the sun or fire. But I don't think it's fireproof. Unless you treat it with fireproofing chemical's.

[@zippythinginvention]

Years ago in Girdwood Alaska, some folks I knew made a pretty large igloo structure out of ice blocks. It took a couple months to complete. They simply filled plastic totes with water outside and let them freeze. They could make a couple batches of blocks per day. That thing held up well into the heat of summer.

[@jasonflay8818]

Part of the igloo problem, it was fairly large. The added space meant you had to heat all the surrounding air, a successful snow shelter should be small as possible, but still had the temp dropped during the night the igloo temp would have remained about where it got to. Still it's always fun, I loved snow cave camping in scouts.

[@scottcampbell96]

Save up some sawdust and build a pykrete fort next winter. Then hang a tarp a foot from the south wall to keep the direct sunlight off during the day.

[@riippumatonlinja]

For cutting ice with hand saw, you can use lot bigger teeths. Here in finland we have commercially 4-6inch tooth ice saws. About saving ice for summer, saw dust was the insulation for ice long time before electric and gas refregeration.

[@johnharder5618]

Interesting to watch you make it 20 or so years back I made a snow cave and spent a week living in it , it lasted till late April But I started with a mound of snow , a LARGE Mound of snow They hauled snow to my place out of several parking lots in dump semi trailers I used a front end loader to make the mound I then removed the center leaving 4-6 foot walls I put wood for the ceiling joist and added steel roofing I used a tractor with a snow blower to blow 2 feet of snow on to to insulate and seal the roof

[@triciaf61]

would be interesting to see you work on some stick and daub housing

[@sypernova6969]

maybe you can "reboot" the living structure the same way you rebooted the series. start from reproducing how early humans might have lived in cave s(what it takes to make it liveable) and then progress to branch and grass huts, then mud and dung (mmmm!) houses and so forth. that would be cool; ALTHOUGH there are already people doing that, they are not YOU. and YOU and your team bring a certain something to these projects.. thanks!

[@dbseamz]

A structure made of mud and dirt would also be less flammable than the primarily-wood construction favored in modern America.

[@zacharyhalterman]

This is a good idea

[@velazquezarmouries]

Or probably tamped dirt like some sections of the great wall of china

[@bensavedbychrist]

How to Make Everything: Home Edition

[@Horsesdontbarf]

you do not give up! actually amazed at how you don't stop working

[@MatasVinikaitis]

If you guys have a lot of mud available there, maybe build a mud hut of some sort, not really flammable but could crumble in heat

[@lastwymsi]

The Ice cube section seems to have some missing audio. Unless it was cut by the Youtibe editor, I think the narration file didn't get properly added in a few spots. The video is really cool though (pun TOTALLY intended) quite lovely to watch

[@KainYusanagi]

It's not cut/missing, you're just listening to it through mono audio rather than stereo, which is why you can't hear it.

[@mwater_moon2865]

it's only on the right channel, which will only show up if you are playing in stereo and have the right side audio turned on and loud.

[@BIllMcCambridge]

I can think of a couple of unique building practices. One involves an air form, spray foam and shotcrete. It is an almost fireproof structure called monolithic dome. Then there is straw bale construction with is environmental friendly method using straw bales to stack for walls. Good luck. Stucco and concrete materials will be safest for fireproofing a structure.

[@vyr01]

small candle in the igloo is recommended in survival books to help increase temp ----------- tipi, lavvu, etc...

[@momi7473]

5 mins in the audio is missing for the Andy's voice

[@TheSpookiestSkeleton]

I'm sad that winter is over, all this has done is remind me how much I miss building with snow

[@riuphane]

This was extremely cool, but thought you might want to know you're missing some audio around the ice block section, not sure if you were aware

[@riuphane]

More specifically a little before the 5 min mark

[@LiteraryCurtastrophe]

Extremely COOL, you say? 😏😂

[@draco5991rep]

Okay I thought for a second my pc is dying 😅

[@riuphane]

@@LiteraryCurtastrophe glad someone caught it. Lol. Didn't want to be too obvious

[@pocketloft]

I think you should do a joint episode with Matthew Posa. He does a lot of traditional camping stuff along with his modern equipment and I think it'd be a fun mash up.

[@thehudsonforge71]

The window made of an ice block is such a nice touch.

[@SF-li9kh]

Suggestions for structures would definitely be a wooden or stone watchtower where you can also use the ballista project you had hinted

[@curtishoffmann6956]

When I was a teenager in St. Paul in the late 60's, early 70's, the family would build ice forts by filling up plastic buckets with cold water and letting them freeze over a few hours for the building material. We'd add food coloring to make the blocks more interesting to look at. The easiest snow enclosure to make was just to pile up 5'-7' of snow, pack it down, then hollow it out with a shovel. But, for surviving the night in minus weather, we'd just sleep in sleeping bags on air mattresses on the concrete floor of the bike shed. Zero insulation, but with the sliding door more or less closed it protected us against the wind at night. Probably the biggest issue would be dehydration, because any external moisture freezes fast and the air stays pretty dry. Leaving water near the sleeping area overnight means it'll probably be frozen in the morning. The worst part was when we had to leave the nice comfortable sleeping bags in the middle of the night to go outside to take a piss...

[@princecharon]

While I certainly hope that you'll have an intact workshop next winter (and preferably well before that), I also hope you'll revisit snow and ice construction then with the lessons learned. Also-also, looking forward to seeing more of what you did with this snow-shop while you had it.

[@GaiusCaligula234]

He'll probably burn it down again

[@the_air_ocelot]

Nice! Whenever I try to build a snow fort my family thinks I need a saw to get a good size, this didn’t though!

[@victoriaeads6126]

Hey! In glad to see that things are slowly progressing! I'd love to see you do an episode or short series on the ancient cooling towers like those of Yazd, Iran. Some are so efficient that they can make ice in the desert!

[@graywolfdracon]

Glad to see you're still in good spirits. Keep the great videos coming.

[@SD-oi9gr]

“Build a snow structure and see how they stack up”. Nice, ultimate snow dad joke.

[@joakes33]

With the igloo one way to keep yourself warm was to build an upper shelf to sleep on and have just a little candle on the floor to heat up the air

[@kimjongmill4445]

Definitely would love to see Yurts or Tipi structures!

[@alexandrastimens1828]

This is awesome!! Makes me think about early humans during the ice ages. Also love the fun jazz music!

[@BabyMakR]

The ice cutting motion is good practice for butter churning and other household duties.

[@ossiehalvorson7702]

"I like it cold when I sleep." Finally, someone gets it. Lived in Montana my whole life, and I always left the window cracked even when it would hit -20 or -30°F. Recently moved to Florida, and I've gotten maybe three good nights of sleep in the last year of being here, and only because it dropped to around 40°F for a few days and I left my bedroom window wide open. Lmao

[@DianeGraft]

That was great! My only suggestion would be to tie a rope through the hole in the handle of your saw (and make a hole if there isn't one), to give you a way to pull it back out if you drop it.

[@RealAndySkibba]

What a cool video. It was Ice to see it coming together and snow you would get it to work.

[@nobodynever4326]

This is an awesome idea! Thanks for uploading, you just made my day

[@aurora_dawn123]

It's awesome to see you guys building structures, hopefully you'll be able to build more structures of different types.

[@emilalbu]

it would be an interesting experiment next winter to try pykrete (sawdust combined with water and frozen) instead of snow/ice, it should be a lot more resistant in time and if you have enough casting forms you should be able to "cast" bricks to use for the building (you can even go the "Lego" route and make blocks that can interlock, making it easier to build)

[@tracybowling1156]

Great job, Andy! That block mold was an excellent idea!

[@christianreeves4608]

Dude. The music in this series slaps hard. Like yea we come for the show but damn that soundtracks just makes you stay.

[@lenorelestrange]

If you use sticks in the walls it goes a loooong way to keeping flat walled ice structures together, as for the melting, you have to make sure it's either out of the sun or build it about 1.5x thicker than otherwise, you could also use sticks on the outside (not touching) to block the sun.

[@esalehtismaki]

What you haven't understood is the geometry of saw tooth. Rip teeth are chisels and crosscut teeth are knifes. What you have is just triangles. They don't cut, they scrape. Make the front side angle 90 degrees and you'll notice a big improvement.

[@aaronpaul5990]

Well i would suggest to try some building methods of the past for the workshop but ... well you will be limited to what was used at your temperature zone ... you will not be able to build a lasting solid clay/mud building as they are common in warm zones like central africa/india. But you could build in the more central European style of Timber Fraiming ... or for the anti flammability of the workshop some nice brick or roman concrete buildings. There are many many possibilities that offer a solid building to explore where the biggest investment is time and manpower.

[@nikolaikostka7632]

That “hello there” got me good. Happy to like this video

[@danc6167]

I'm jealous you had a better winter for snow in the US than us east coast Canadians got.

[@poshhippie6446]

A privative structure series sounds super cool! Not to mention it might add another revenue to the rebuilding process

[@SF-li9kh]

This video was very interesting and was a refreshing change. I loved it. And I know you loved it too from your smile with the flamethrower

[@jacara1981]

Would love to see some primitive homes, everything from earth huts to reed homes

[@claramertens1792]

That mold works better than I thought it was going to like a lot a lot better

[@Monderoth]

Make a cob hut! It’s subsoil, water, fibrous material, and sometimes lime, sand, or clay! It’s chonnnkeh

[@dumdidumdumification]

This is one of the few channels I don't skip the adds on :) keep up the good work!

[@ndeepanshu6541]

10:43 Hello there. General Kenobi

[@adamreynolds3863]

I appreciate the insane amount of work and time you put into your projects! I enjoy learning about all the things you create!

[@cmawhz]

I would love to see some mud/clay/cob structures! I have seen a handful of videos where material is collected on site and used, but I think it would make a great cheap structure similar to what you have done here. I suspect with some paint and attention to detail it wouldn't even look out of place in a neighborhood.

[@allstarwoo4]

I don't know how much difference it would make in this weather but in snow shelters they also make a cold trap on top of including a heat source.

[@aerokas4817]

So something interesting to note about igloos. I will mention I am in no way an expert, but I have heard of the way you construct an igloo so you can have a fire is a bit different on the inside than your flat bottomed one. So basically you have a shelf of snow that you build up on one side of the igloo, opposite the door. In the doorway you build a slight pit, this is where you keep your fire. The logic goes is that the heat rises and melts the inside layer of the igloo, creating insulation using the ice that refreezes. Also because you are sleeping on a slightly higher shelf (also better insulated from the ground) you benefit from the heat of the fire, without needing to be right next to it. Also because the fire is in the doorway, it would make it a heck of a lot less attractive to any wildlife in the area. Not entirely sure how well this actually holds up, but I read it in a biography (lord knows I can't remember the name 🤦🏽‍♀️) and did a bit of research. If I can find sources I will link them below, also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!

[@kritzmaker]

Can't wait to see the fire and lava workshop!

[@williambenton9042]

10:42 General Kenobi! My you are a bold one

[@josuelservin]

I would love to see you guys build something using mud-bricks!

[@Scipiworld]

Should try a shelter made from pykrete! Mix by weight 14% sawdust and 86% water and freeze for a strong material that insulates well enough to handle warmer conditions for a bit longer than snow on its own.

[@QuinchGaming]

In an igloo shelter you pretty much just need a couple of candles to raise the temperature enough to make it significantly better.

[@firebladeentertainment5739]

Id love to see you work your way to a very classic type of building here in germany, a "Fachwerkhaus". A Framework of cut and treated logs with the spaces inbetween them filled commonly with clay, hay and sticks and then coated with a water proof coating against the elements. sometimes it was filled in with fired bricks, which i REALLY like in aesthetics tbh.

[@The_Razielim]

might be pushing our luck, but a hide tent or something like that would be cool. Would be a great exploration of ancient/traditional leather tanning and hide-work, etc.

[@stevenboelke6661]

You should include some medical advancements that were (or could have, but weren't) discovered in the past. "What is the most primative means possible to observe living cells?", "What were some lifesaving medicines that were created, and how?"

[@mwater_moon2865]

Fun fact, igloos have a lower space and you sleep nearer to the top, not the bottom. That lets the cold sink, and the warmth rise.

[@bow-tiedengineer4453]

On interesting construction materials, turf could be cool. For something more permanent, maybe try an episode on concrete from scratch. It worked well for Rome.

[@coldstone01]

Wow... HTME made a snowman fort and igloo. haha. awesome!

[@swag31556]

Judging by how igloos usually use a fire indoors to keep it warm, 5-10 degrees is alot warmer

[@pileofstuff]

An even easier (and faster to build) snow shelter is a Quinzhee. One person can build one in an afternoon and sleep in it that evening.

[@Yeetus0516]

I know when they make igloos in the north they make a camp fire shortly after making the igloo, when the fire burns inside the walls of the igloo turn to water then freeze before the wall collapses then the walls are alot sturdier and I've Heard that people legit live in those ones for months so if you were looking for ways to make it last that'd be the best way to do it.

[@pogostix6097]

We used to make snow forts like this using buckets as molds when I was a kid. We made them harder by taking a spray bottle and spraying everything down before going to bed, let the water freeze overnight, fun memories. As long as nobody committed Snowball War Crimes, anyway.

[@nathantupper]

This man put making snow forts to a whole new level

[@rashonryuu]

Perhaps a compressed earth structure? Essentially what you did with snow, but with dirt. The channel Primitive Skills made a house this way. I've been curious about making myself a small shed to store my garden tools while digging a small pond nearby. I am curious about the humidity levels and snow load integrity (and snow melt erosion integrity) such a structure could have.

[@Nickknows00]

I think you burnt more calories in this video than any other

[@jtwarner13]

Could explore some of the native building structures in MN! It would be cool to see something from Dakota or anishinaabe heritage!

[@ishnifusmeadle]

Sorta new to the channel. I've lingered for months catching various vids. Was unaware of the fire. Sorry to hear. Glad to know you making the best out of it tho. About 15yrs ago during a week long power outage due to severe snow/ice storms up here, we had a house fire that displaced our family of 6. It also ended up killing a dog and a cat of ours that we weren't able to get out (during the mayhem the firefighters thought they had let them out and they were just wandering the woods but sadly this wasn't the case.....oh, and this happened like a week before Xmas. Despite all we lost, it did bring us closer and helped us to cherish what we did and do have now more. This was a neat project, and I'm excited to see what your new garage/shop/ect will look like!

[@angelwhispers2060]

In the early part of the video when you go out on the frozen lake I can't hear anything you're saying. Around 5:20 it comes back on The thermal dynamics of how an Igloo works means that you should have built a sleeping platform within the igloo for the cold air to settle down below your body level