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Survival Shelters

Purpose of Survival Shelters

A skill of building a shelter in various survival situations is crucial. A shelter can protect you from the sun, insects, wind, rain, snow, sun and hot or cold temperatures. It can also give you a feeling of well being. Hiding in a shelter creates a feeling of security. Also in hostile areas, shelters can hide you from possible dangers.

Size of a survival shelter

The most common mistake in building survival shelters is contructing them to large. A shelter of a proper size is one in which you can comfortably lie down. If you plan on using it for a longer period of time, you may want to be able to sit in it, but that is all. The bigger the shelter, the more difficult it is to keep it warm.

Shelter site selection

A site that you will choose for shelter should:

  • Contain material to make the type of shelter you need - it would be extremely inconvenient to carry materials from a distant place to build your shelter. When in a survival situation, you should try to preserve your energy, unless you have huge supply of food and you are warm.
  • Be large enough and level enough for you to lie down comfortably - as you will see below, many types of shelters are really small. They allow you to lie down only. It may be a bit uncomfortable, but such shelters are quick to build and they isolate you more efficiently from climate outside.

Apart from the above mentioned, depending on your environment, while choosing a shelter site you should also consider:

  • Suitability for signalling – you will probably spend most of the time in or around your shelter, therefore you should be able to signal for help from there.
  • Protection against wild animals, or rocks and dead trees that might fall.
  • Freedom from insects, reptiles, and poisonous plants.

Do not overlook natural formations that provide shelter – often this may be your best choice. Examples of these are caves, rocky crevices, clumps of bushes, small depressions, large rocks on leeward sides of hills, large trees with low-hanging limbs, and fallen trees with thick branches.

Apart from possible good options, there are also sites you should avoid when choosing your shelter site. For instance:

  • Avoid flash flood areas in foothills.
  • Avoid avalanche or rockslide areas in mountainous terrain.
  • Avoid sites near bodies of water that are below the high water mark.
  • Avoid low ground like ravines, narrow valleys and creek beds. Low areas usually collect heavy cold air at night and are therefore colder than the surrounding high ground. Also thick, brushy, low ground harbours more insects.
  • Avoid places inhabited by dangerous animals, ticks, mites, scorpions, poisonous snakes, stinging ants, bees nests etc.
  • Avoid loose rocks, dead limbs, coconuts, or other natural growth than could fall on your shelter or put you in danger.

Types of shelters

Once you have chosen a site for your shelter, you need to determine what type of a shelter you are going to build. Questions to ask yourself at this stage are:

  • How much time and effort will it take to build the type of shelter you have in mind in the particular environment? – you want to construct a shelter that will protect from outside conditions, but on the other hand you should also focus on limiting the amount of energy that you will spend on building it.
  • Will the type of shelter protect you adequately from the outside conditions?
  • Will you have sufficient tools to conclude each stage of building or will you be able to make the tools? – you do not want to work for many hours only to find out that you won't be able to finalise your concept because of lack of axe or saw.
  • Will the amout of material on site or around it be sufficient to create a big enough shelter?

Only if the answer to all of the above questions is YES, you can commence to build your shelter. If not – you should spend more time on thinking and planning. Maybe you can use some other materials or build a different type of shelter, or perhaps look for a better site.

REMEMBER! Survival shelters presented in this Outdoor Survival Guide are just examples – model shelter types. In your survival situation you will almost certainly be unable to build an exact replica of shelters presented here – YOU WILL HAVE TO IMPROVISE. Shelters presented here are for guidance on various types of solutions to help direct your mind to the best solution in your survival situation.