The year after next I'm hoping to spend the a lot of the winter outdoors. This includes sleeping, and as I'm hoping to do it in Norway and it gets kind of cold there it means snowholes or igloos. From experience I've found they rarely go below -10 celsius, which reduces your sleeping kit quite a bit , although they can be an awful lot of work. I've started this thread to look at snow hole designs, see what you lot think is best.
When I first dug one, it was like this: Dig a hole down, maybe 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8m). Then get in the hole and dig sideways at the bottom, eventually making an L shape hole as shown. This is hard work to dig and is still quite exposed, and the cold air will sink into it. Also the roof may fall in if you're not careful digging it
The second one is like the first, but solves the roof problem. Instead of digging so deep, you make the roof out of ice blocks - if you have a leuku it is very effective at cutting squares out of packed snow (I'm sure this is sacrilege to knife nuts ). If it's not very hard it helps if you jump on it first to compact it, or you can compact it in your hands if it's quite small. You need to build them like a bridge - so they support each other with a keystone in the middle. This also means you can cover up slightly more of the entrance and you have a thinner roof so should it collapse it might be less likely to suffocate you
The last one I know is just the traditional igloo design - I've only done this once, and it took a very long time. However as it is not sunk into the ground it can be warmer, although you must be careful to pack snow into the gaps or the wind will come whistling through. If you make it large it can be a really impressive structure, you can build in a firepit (if you have wood available), seats, a raised bed, and if you put a snow anchor in the ceiling (depending on how firmly you built it) you can hang all sorts off it, meat and fish to dry and smoke or just a torch or lantern. You might want to put in a chimney - this isn't easy as you are taking a stone out of the bridge structure and it's apt to collapse, but can be very well worth it. You will of course need a doorway because packed snow doesn't let much air through
If anyone has more designs and tips they'd like to share I'd love to see them. After all, that's what the forum's here for
When I first dug one, it was like this: Dig a hole down, maybe 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8m). Then get in the hole and dig sideways at the bottom, eventually making an L shape hole as shown. This is hard work to dig and is still quite exposed, and the cold air will sink into it. Also the roof may fall in if you're not careful digging it
The second one is like the first, but solves the roof problem. Instead of digging so deep, you make the roof out of ice blocks - if you have a leuku it is very effective at cutting squares out of packed snow (I'm sure this is sacrilege to knife nuts ). If it's not very hard it helps if you jump on it first to compact it, or you can compact it in your hands if it's quite small. You need to build them like a bridge - so they support each other with a keystone in the middle. This also means you can cover up slightly more of the entrance and you have a thinner roof so should it collapse it might be less likely to suffocate you
The last one I know is just the traditional igloo design - I've only done this once, and it took a very long time. However as it is not sunk into the ground it can be warmer, although you must be careful to pack snow into the gaps or the wind will come whistling through. If you make it large it can be a really impressive structure, you can build in a firepit (if you have wood available), seats, a raised bed, and if you put a snow anchor in the ceiling (depending on how firmly you built it) you can hang all sorts off it, meat and fish to dry and smoke or just a torch or lantern. You might want to put in a chimney - this isn't easy as you are taking a stone out of the bridge structure and it's apt to collapse, but can be very well worth it. You will of course need a doorway because packed snow doesn't let much air through
If anyone has more designs and tips they'd like to share I'd love to see them. After all, that's what the forum's here for