Phase 01 — First days: water, fire, shelter / About year 1
01.10
Lean-to shelters
first roof for 24 people
AWhat it needs
Needs 3 other products in all, 2 of them directly.
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- 01.10 Lean-to sheltersHome Year 1 needs 3 products
- 01.03 Sharp stone flakeMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.05 Twisted plant-fibre cordMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
Cold, wet and wind kill faster than hunger. A lean-to is a single sloping roof with its back to the wind and its open side to the fire. It can be built in an afternoon with no tools but a flake and cord.
CYou need
- One ridge pole per shelter: straight, wrist-thick, two body lengths long
- Two trees a little less than that distance apart, or two forked posts
- Twenty to thirty rafter poles, thumb-thick and taller than a person
- Thin flexible sticks for cross-pieces
- A great heap of covering: large leaves, bundles of grass or reed, bark slabs, leafy boughs, dead leaves
- Cord (01.05) and a stone flake (01.03)
DSteps
- Face the open side away from the wind. Later the fire will be three paces in front of it.
- Lash the ridge pole across the two trees at chest height. Wrap the cord three times round both, then twice between them to tighten, and finish with two half hitches.
- Take poles from standing dead wood where you can. To break a pole to length, wedge it between two close trees and lean on it, or cut a groove round it with the flake and snap it.
- Lean the rafters against the ridge on the windward side, a hand-width apart, their feet pushed into the ground. The slope should be steep, like a hill you would have to climb on hands and feet.
- Lay or weave the thin sticks across the rafters a hand-span apart, to hold the covering.
- Cover from the bottom upward, each row overlapping the one below like fish scales, so water runs off and not in. Leafy boughs go on with their tips pointing down.
- Pile dead leaves and grass over everything until the layer is as thick as a forearm is long.
- Lay a few heavy poles on top to hold it down in wind. Close the two ends with more poles and covering.
- Scrape a shallow ditch along the back so rain runs round the shelter, not through it.
EIt worked if
- Lying inside in daylight, no sky shows through the roof.
- In rain there are no drips, and in wind the back stays still.
FWhat goes wrong
- It drips. The covering is too thin or was laid top-down. Double it, starting again from the bottom.
- The roof slides off. The slope is too flat or there are no cross-pieces. Steepen it and add them.
- Wind comes in at the ends or under the back. Close the ends and bank earth against the foot of the rafters.
- The ridge pole sags. It is too thin for the span. Prop it in the middle with a forked post.
GIn the story
Bjorn and Luca have never met before today and each believes he is the builder. They build next to each other, in silence, competing. Theirs are the only two shelters that do not leak on the fifth night.
HFigures
