© Yuri Ivanov, 2007.
© Translated from Russian by Alexander Roumega, 2010.
In our undoubtedly ill society people in trouble are always left to themselves; nobody will lift a finger to help those in trouble. Your ideas are close to my mind. Therefore, I consider necessary to share my knowledge with you. I hope it will be useful for you. Now I am a candidate pensioner and I have a wide common and building experience. My first construction I had built when I was a six years old boy. It was a kennel for my darling dog. 50 years have passed since then, but I continue building because while I build I live. During that time I have many jobs in the different regions of USSR, from Vladivostok to Ukraine. I have a high construction education. I have read a lot of special books. And so, all that I will tell you is the truth or 99% of the truth. It can be called “a settler’s manual”. Let begin from the simplest.
I want to note that habitation is not necessarily a villa or cottage but first of all it’s a place of human life activity. So first construction required to be built is a toilet. After coming to open country, dig a 20*20 cm and 3 spades deep hole and leave ground near for future coverings. Then put 3 – 6 two meters long poles around hole and tie top ends together. Cover poles with opaque materials (black film etc). It will be like a prism or a tent. When hole will be filled we have to dig a new one and move toilet there. Toilet is ready and it’s a time to begin construction of habitation.
You are in the open flat field. Make marking of 2*2.5 m rectangle (here and below first size is length, second size is width and third size is height or depth; all sizes are in meters (m) or centimetres (cm)).
Remove turf 2*2 m and stack near. Then dig and increase depth of 2*2 m hole to 60 cm. Put ground near two big sides, then dig a middle part 2*0.6 m with additional depth 40 cm.
Then dig footsteps and cover it with turf. Make gable roof over digged hole. Step out 20 – 30 cm from edges of hole and put roof rafters in the ground. Rafters can be made from poles, boards, pieces of pipes, dead-wood etc. Distances between rafters may be 0.5 – 1 m depends on durability of rafter material. Lathing may be made from poles, boards, pieces of plywood or tin, brushwood, dead-wood or from other cover materials. Lathing also may be wicker (wattled) from packthread, wire, withe (rod), cane etc. Spaces in the lathing must be small enough to not allow cover material to be broken.
Cover poles (lathing) with ruberoid or polyethylene film. It’s better to cover ruberoid with polyethylene film, and then put on film straw, grass, branchlets, twigs or other cover material to protect film from sunlight and wind. If there is no ruberoid or film, poles can be covered with sheaves of rye, straw, cane (stems have to be laid from top to bottom with overcloak). If rafters are strong and durable, films can be covered with turf.
It’s really possible to live for several months in the earth-house while house is under construction. In time of war, resettlers lived in earth-houses warmed by thick straw layer and heated by small stoves. As old people said, frosts were up to minus 20°C!
A front door can be curtained with cloth like curtain or blanket and it also can be knocked together out of planks. Earth beds inside is covered by layer of straw or grass. To prevent fall of ground, put a wide board at edge of bed and drape walls of bed with film. Earth-houses have to be located on eminence to not to gather water around it or under trees.
If you are digging earth-house and weather don’t allow you to continue work, dig into bottom of hole two poles near edges. Top of pole has to be at 0.5 – 1 m above ground level. Stretch a packthread between these two poles and cover hole with a polyethylene film and bestrew edges of film with ground. And rain will not go to earth-house. Water at bottom of earth-hole dries up for several day longer than at open ground. This earth-house is meant for two residents. If there are 4 adult people in the earth-house, its length has to be increased for 2 m and width of middle gangway – for 20 – 30 cm. A back wall of earth-house may be made flat or semicircular. By extending of top bearer, awning for things can be made.
If you are near forest or woodland belt, it may be useful. Find two trees located at 2.5 – 3 m from each other. Stretch a rope or a wire between trees at height 1.5 – 2 m. Put polyethylene film on it. Move bottom edges of film apart and bestrew it with ground. You also can cover film with grass and small branches. Shelter is ready.
If there no two trees nearby, one tree can be used and dead-wood and poles instead of second tree. It’s not necessary but it’s more comfortable to dig earth-beds under shelter.
This variant is expedient when earthwork not possible for some reasons. For example, if there is soil with many stones, or frozen ground, or sand etc. Did you see how yarangas at tundra where reindeer breeders live are made? How chum (a tent of skins or bark) is built when blizzard and thirty degrees below zero around? How Kirghiz jurt in the boundless desert is made? These habitations are built for many centuries by simple people, not by high educated experts.
Review several variants:
Take from 10 to 20 straight poles 3 – 5 m long and put in circle. Tie top parts of poles together. Sometimes tin bucket without bottom is putted into bunch for smoke exit (as chimney). Cover poles with strong textile or animal skins.
As straight chum, but use semirings from wood or metal pipes instead straight poles.
Jurt consists of two parts: bottom walling part which assembled from thin poles put crosswise to give hardness to construction and top part assembled from slanting wood arcs. Bottom ends of arcs to be tied with a solid rope. Cover structure with large felt mats with overcloak (as roofing slate).
Make a mast from 2 – 4 pieces of pipe 1.5 – 2 m long linked with each other by sharpened pieces of spade handle. Tie 4 – 10 guys and top of dome to top part of a mast. Lift mast and set it vertical. Tie guys to pegs driven into ground at circle.
Dome is glued from polyethylene film or sewed from textile (waterproof nylon cloth, raincoat cloth, thin tarpaulin or other thin cloth impregnated with a special chemical which protects it against rain). Edges of a dome are bestrewn with ground.
These several methods of simple and fast construction of habitation can be used separately or together. Here is big space opened for keenness of wit and creative work taking local situation into consideration.
I think that in second stage of construction must be building of auxiliary objects of yard: sheds, bath-house, summer kitchen etc. Possibly you will have to live in it while capital construction of dwelling house for more than year. The construction of these objects takes much more strength, money and, especially, time. Settlers have to be busy at garden and kitchen-garden besides construction, so this first stage of construction can not be skipped because a man always need a place to rest, to shelter from the rain, to sleep. Consider several variants.
Many different material can be used in construction of temporary and capital dwelling. Every material has advantages and disadvantages. Most widespread of it are brick, wood, clay and concrete. In consideration of features of our construction and our location (Rostov Region of Russia) take in account several of them. Cob, slag stone, claydite, shell limestone (coquina) are usually used for construction of temporary dwelling.
– a building material that have been used in construction for more than 1000 years. According to the UNESCO information, now one fifth of the population live in cob houses.
Cob walls are not inferior to brick walls in heat shielding and better than brick walls in ventilation. Cob is one of most environmentally acceptable materials. Quality of cob depends on its ingredients. Sawdust increases heat resistance, additions of cement and lime increase humidity resistance and durability. Dung dissolved in water also increase durability of cob.
Amounts of additions defines by experiment but usually clay not less than 50%. Good cob isn’t broken if falls from 1.5 m height. It isn’t destroyed during 24 hours in water. It holds hammered nails good.
Recommended sizes of a cob brick: 40 cm length, 20 cm width, 19 cm height.
How to do it:
Dissolve clay to the thickness of liquid curd, add 10 – 15% of straw, mix thoroughly and put to moistened form from wood. Carefully tamp mixture by hands to left no air cavities. Remove excess and smooth top side of cob brick. Slow and carefully lift a form. The cob brick form from wood may be for 1, 2, 3 cob brick.
It’s better to dry cob brick in the shade to prevent strong cracking and turn over cob bricks every 2 – 3 days. If cob is making in the field, cover formed brick with plywood, ruberoid or straw (to protect it from rain if rains falls often at that place and season – comm. of translator).
Mixture is prepared in mixing pan or directly on the plane ground.
Choose a place where you have to dig a hole (a cellar, a cesspit). Remove a turf and black earth to clay. Then dig clay depth to which a spade will go. Fill a clay hole with water and wait while the clay has soaked up all the water. After that, fill up a clay hole with straw. Walk to and fro on the straw to mix straw with clay. That’s all! Cob mix is ready and you can put it to forms. Repeat all the process as many times as it’s required.
The results of this job: hole has been digged and cob has been made.
I want to note that not all clays suitable for the cob. Make several test cob bricks. If there is a fat clay and cob is cracking, add 5 – 30% of sand to the mix.
Lay cob brick with clay mortar and make joints as in usual brick wall. Thickness of wall in our region must be not less than 40 cm. First (footing) and last (top) cob brick courses must be header (binder) courses. Make wooden lintels upper doors and windows.
Bear in mind: walls of cob house has a 5 – 8% linear shrinkage depend on quality of the clay. In the sequel, this hose can be reveted with brick to protect cob from atmospheric precipitation. Cob house can be covered with wood joists only! It can’t carry reinforced concrete roof planks.
As a rule, temporary structures have no basement. Walls have to be put on the ground, remove a 20 cm layer of earth with plants beforehand. Because of rotting of plant residues, voids in the soil appear and earth under walls is compressed. It makes additional shrinkage of building. To protect walls from deformation of freezing ground, a 10 – 20 cm layer of crushed stones is put between wall and ground. Or boards may be putted there instead. Boards need to be treated with antirot or wrapped in tar paper.
Horizontal ruberoid damp-course usually used in brick walls has no sense in a clay wall because clay stops water (damp). In the brick or concrete walls capillary moisture can go up to 2 – 2.5 m above ground level.
Distances between walls inside building have to not exceed 5.5 – 5,6 m or 3.5 – 3.6 m because wooden floor joists are made 6 m and 4 m long. And not less than 20 cm of joist must lay on wall. For more even load transfer from joists to wall, lay board with mortar to inner edge of wall. If joists lay on the board minimum 15 cm of joist must lay on board (instead of 20 cm). Distance between boarding joists depends on bearing capacity of joist, on load and on distances between joists’ bearers.
In practice, I laid joists at 0.5 m from each other when width of span was 5.5 m. Joist (from pine) had profile: width is 5 cm and height is 18 – 20 cm. Put thin (16 – 20 mm) shiplap floor boards or thick (12 mm) battens at the bottom of joist. Then vapour seal (polyethylene film) is laid on it, and heat insulation (claydite, sawdust, etc) is put and fill up to top of joist.
For going in roof space (attic), light covering is made on joists. The structure of roof and roofing will be considered later.
The vapour seal is intended to isolate moisture contained in the air of room from contact with the cold outdoor air. Otherwise, moisture will condense at dew point and drops will fall into room.
Cob is most available (all Rostov Region stays on the clay) and cheapest building material. Settler needs only clay, straw and much-much labour.
The amount of cob needed for construction of your house can be calculated easy. Divide house size by cob brick (with joint) size.
Cob is ready and construction of building is being begun. On the basis on my building experience, first building that we need to build at the field is summer kitchen. (You can have it your own way).
Location of building at land lot, sizes of building, number and location of windows, doors have to be defined before start of construction. Provide for abutment another rooms to kitchen and one wall will not be required, then.
The width of building has to be equal 4.4 m or 6.4 m, any length, thickness of wall – 40 cm. Height of kitchen (from floor to ceiling) must be not less than 2.6 m. This is a requirement of natural gas providers for gas entry.
Two methods of making wall from monolithic puddle exist.
Make wooden form panels with height about 1 m and length multiple of a wall length. Put panels at both sides of wall and fix it with spacers and rests. Then make a mixture of clay and straw. This mixture is like a cob mixture but with small lime additions. Fill form with this mixture. Make 20 – 30 cm layers of it to ease ram in.
After drying of clay-concrete panels can be moved to new place.
This method of house construction has many disadvantages. So this method has not a wide spreading.
This method is usually used when thickness of walls is small and not greater than 20 cm. Lodges and small summer houses are usually built with this method.
Dig in logs (10 – 15 cm diametr) at corners of building. If there is a long wall, dig additional supports in to have distances between bearers not exceeded 2 – 3 m. Dig two logs in where door will be at door’s width.
Both sides of supports are planked with one-inch boards with 5 – 8 cm gaps. It will be filled with clay-concrete. After drying, nail lath and plaster.
On the basis on my experience, I can say than cob walls construction is faster, easier and cheaper than these two methods of construction. In addition, making irregular shape of wall from cob is simpler.
In some cases, clay can be replaced with turf. Two houses in Volgograd had been built from turf-cob and have been lasting 80 years. At the time of war (World War II) Germans shot at these houses from artillery but could not destroy it. After end of war, people had repaired houses and moved into it.
Brick walls. The typical standard sizes of brick: length is 25 cm, width is 12 cm, height is 6.5 cm. Also one-and-a-half and double brick exists with differ height.
There are no special secrets in the construction of brick walls of kitchen or shed. Stagger brick wall joints as usually. If wall thickness is one brick (25 cm) then there will be very cold and walls will weep when winter. One-and-half brick (38 cm) wall weeps only when the outdoor temperature is minus 20°C or below. If wall thickness is 2 brick (51 cm) then there will be winter comfortable conditions as in home.
Wall of kitchen and sheds can be laid with clay mortar (50% clay, 50% sand). But external side of wall (half brick) better will be made with cement mortar. Cement mortar is more resistant to atmospheric precipitation, but clay mortar is cheaper. Using of cement mortar at external and clay mortar at internal allows us to save on material.
Because weight of the brick wall is very large, these buildings always require foundation. The height of foundation of brick building of kitchen is 50 – 70 cm. The width of foundation is equal to wall thickness. Top of foundation must be at 10 – 15 cm above ground level. Put 2 tar or ruberoid layers between foundation and brick wall for water stop. We shall speak at greater length about foundations later.
Shelly limestone sizes like cob sizes, so lay walls as cob brick wall, with clay mortar. But cement mortar also can be used in a limestone wall. Heat resistance of shelly limestone is slightly worse than cob. Water resistance of shelly walls is not very good and wall daubing is required. You can use cement or clay plastering inside and cement plastering on the outside.
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