Good day people of Hive, we begin with beautiful morning in Chile and set off to gather materials for what will be our new construction. We’re aiming to build a room that will have all the criteria of insulation and protection from moisture that can be expected for a smooth winter in the forest. We will as usual be using local material for the most part, though we are planning on buying some stone and rubble for the floor layers as we don’t have enough of that nearby.
The wood we’ll be using seems to be mainly black willow, which is tougher than others trees of this family. We’ve needed to prune some enormous branches in order to allow more sunlight in our garden so its a good source of material. Also, it renews it’s branches super fast, so no danger of killing them.
We estimate we’ll need 9 pillars for the main structure, which we’d like to have a height of 2.85 mts at the tallest part, and 2.20 at the lowest part. So far we’ve only been able to cut 6 usable branches as it is insane work doing this without a chainsaw. We don’t expect to be in need of gyms any time soon 😎
We then proceeded to shoveling some of the soil that was too uneven, though if we want it to be really well leveled we’ll have to do a lot more work.
The space we cleared and leveled up a bit just to get an idea is of 4.38 x 3.40 mts which is enough to fit a two-seater bed, a stove, and some shelves for clothes. With a fully closed space, winter should be way mor comfortable than in the first shelter built by @fenngen .
After we had our working space ready we started peeling the bark off the branches. When they’re still green it’s pretty easy to get them off with bare hands.
If they’re a little tough then we have resort to our good ol’ metal friends, whether the axe or machete. We hadn´t mentioned this, but we do our stuff without power tools, though every now and then we use cars or trucks which aren't exactly old tech either.
We’re going to bury the logs into the ground but don’t want to use synthetic protectors for the wood. There’s an ancestral technique which consists on burning the outer layer of the log which prevents moisture from entering, therefore avoiding rot and decay.
You can imagine a log this big without a chainsaw is a lot of work, specially for us who were raised in modern society and have to remember our ancestral skills little by little. Since we wanted to bring it down without extra effort we tried to light up a fire in the other end hoping it would fall.
The fire had double purpose as we took the chance to start burning the base of the logs that will serve as pillars for the construction. This is an ancient technique that prevents moisture from entering the wood and therefore impeding rot and decay.
We'll be uploading more of our progress as soon as we can, we've already advanced more than can be seen here but with all the physical effort this means we've been a bit exhausted and have less energy for blogging.
We're being careful here with the measures and we aim to make this a more permanent place to inhabit, so we're going to take our time doing this right. This building is probably going to be pretty cool so stay tuned for the adventure ;)
Have an awesome day, till next time.**
REALLLy really happy to see this post in the ecoTrain community.. and to see you use some amazing old techniques of sealing wood.. the cheapest, no chemical and long lasting way to treat wood! keep em coming! best of luck with the build i hope to see more!
It takes a bit of time but it’s definitely worth it. We’re guessing if the holes where they go are later filled with sand and gravel it should be even more resistant to moisture. Thanks for the support, more coming soon!
I know from experience cutting that larger log was a job. I can't wait to see the finished product.
Are having raised floors off the ground or a dirt floor?
Took us days to finally see it through since we would make small advances and then move on to other activities..
We want to do the floor with clay but layered like it shows on this video:
Materials might be different but it should work nicely.
Great to see a DIY forest building post on Hive!
Reminds be of squatting in Runnymede. Similar wood preparations were used for building.
Willow is something that grows easy just by sticking it in the ground from a cut branch from my experience. I remember people making bender structures from willow branches and then the branches would start to shoot on the inside of their homes. lol
I am not familiar with 'black willow' specifically though.
There was a lot of sycamore as well there and thar was commonly used because it was accessible and grows back fast but this is a terrible building wood.
Look forward to future posts!
Not sure if it is actually black willow, here they call it German willow, and it is tougher than others of its species... looking up on Google it was the best match.
It’s funny how quickly it grows back and we’ve already experienced new shoots in awkward places hehe.
Thanks for checking out our build, more coming soon
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