How To Build A Mud House With Your Bare Hands

Need a break from today’s crazy news? Turn it off and take a few moments to watch this guy build a hut in the woods using only his bare hands and a stone tool. When it comes to primitive technology very few do it better than John Plant. In this amazing video he shows you how to build a simple mud hut with a roof and a chimney. The hut is made by weaving wooden strips called wattle and then covering them in mud or clay. This type of building can be traced back at least 7,000 years, and is still in use all over the world.

This is a great way to build yourself a simple hut/cabin that will not damage the surrounding ecosystem. Here’s a word from the builder:

I built this hut in the bush using naturally occurring materials and primitive tools. The hut is 2m wide and 2m long, the side walls are 1m high and the ridge line (highest point) is 2m high giving a roof angle of 45 degrees. A bed was built inside and it takes up a little less than half the hut. The tools used were a stone hand ax to chop wood, fire sticks to make fire, a digging stick for digging and clay pots to carry water. The materials used in the hut were wood for the frame, vine and lawyer cane for lashings and mud for walls. Broad leaves were initially used as thatch which worked well for about four months before starting to rot. The roof was then covered with sheets of paper bark which proved to be better roofing material. An external fireplace and chimney were also built to reduce smoke inside. The hut is a small yet comfortable shelter and provides room to store tools and materials out of the weather. The whole hut took 9 months from start to finish. But it only took 30 days of actual work (I abandoned it for a few months before adding bark roof, chimney, and extra daub ).

Thanks to John Plant and his Primitive Technology YouTube channel, anyone on the internet can learn to make the objects necessary for survival out of basic natural materials. Are you up to the task of building everything from fires to stoves to houses from scratch. Get your stone tools out and get to work!! His WordPress Blog is here: Primitive Technology