Dugout Shelter Insulation by @cahlen on 3Speak
I put up double aluminum insulation on the outside of the dugout shelter walls and on the interior ceiling. I'm starting to get worried about backfilling the dirt, and could use your feedback... --...
Tags: #survival #diy #offgrid #prepping #life #lifestyle #minimalism
Hey everyone, Cowan here, coming to you from inside the dugout shelter, and in this video I want to show you the insulation which I have installed today, okay? So you can see it on the ceiling here. This is basically something called Reflectics, that's the brand name, but the stuff I'm using is from a company called Viver, who makes something similar, and it's... about half the price, okay, so it's got an aluminum layer on one side and aluminum layer on the other side with foam in the middle. The Reflectics has bubble, it's basically like bubble wrap you get in packaging that you pop for fun, but the Vever stuff is more like much smaller bubbles, it's like foam, okay, but it's essentially the same stuff. And I have used this stuff before, like in my yurt many years ago, like eight to ten years ago, I lined my entire yurt. with this stuff and I was able to go from zero degree freezing so 32 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees Fahrenheit just by heating like six or seven maybe a few more than that but fire bricks using propane okay and it only took I think maybe half an hour to an hour and because the heat basically is just reflecting back everywhere into the structure Okay, so this stuff is super powerful. I also used it to make, I made a smaller yurt out of PVC pipe, and this stuff was basically the wall, okay? So I also have a video about that, it's a little more recent, but still weighs a long time ago, okay? So this stuff works great, and I basically lined the entire structure with it, the entire ceiling. You can see it's on the walls, but it's actually on the outside of the pallets here. Okay, so one thing that you need to be aware of with this stuff is that when you're inside of this and you're completely enclosed, if you're trying to connect to a Wi-Fi or a cellular signal, first of all, you're not going to get any signal. Second of all, when it's trying to broad, when your phone is trying to broadcast, sending out, like, feelers to see if it can connect to something, all of those... microwaves are bouncing around inside of the structure and it's super strong, okay, to the point where you actually create a really strong magnetic field, which is not normal, okay, microwave shouldn't be creating a super strong magnetic field, but if you're inside of a structure where it has no way to escape and it's just reflecting, that's going to happen, okay? So if you're going to be staying in a structure, it's completely enclosed with this stuff, Keep your phone in Wi-Fi airplane mode. Do not even turn it on. Even if you have nothing to connect you, don't turn on your radios, okay? So that's just a warning for you. And where I am, I wouldn't even get Wi-Fi signal. I don't use cell towers. So actually, this is just actually perfect, because it's going to shield me from the cell towers, just, you know, the general ambient radiation. And also from... Starlink and stuff like that. So I'll be protected in here. I'll be grounded, right? Because I'm just going to be right on the dirt. So as far as I'm concerned, it's the perfect situation. So anyways, this is what a roll of this stuff looks like. I got about 600 square feet, and I calculated that I needed 400. But, so I basically bought an extra 200 because it was, it was so close. Like the big roll was 400 and I had five feet to spare But you're gonna make mistakes when doing this stuff and you can see, you know, it's a little bit of a rough job because I had to go around the beams and things like that So it's a little bit harder when you're going around stuff, but it's much easier when you go around the outside and I'll show you that right now Okay, so here's the back wall You can see I just laid it flat and I went around it with a staple gun, okay, so this is two layers. This is one here and one here, and that covers the whole, you know, six or seven feet, and also I had to go up over this theme, and then it comes over like this, okay? You can see how reflective it is with the sunset, basically. So anyways, I'm going to be getting the refractory mortar to build the wood stove out of fire bricks. I'll be putting it down in this corner right here. I'll be putting maybe reflectics in this corner here just to reflect that heat off of the wood, right? And then maybe even putting metal on the other side of that, okay, just to make sure that these walls don't get exposed to too much heat. Then the wood, I'm thinking that the pipe is going to come up here, the chimney. and it's going to go out this wall here, okay? So we're basically going to strip these two off here, and we have this big culvert, and we're going to basically cut it to maybe be this thick, and it's going to be this big around, okay? And we're just going to set it on this beam right here. Okay, and we might even feel it was cement and put the chimney section that we're going to connect to through the middle of it. Okay, so that's our plan to try and keep it from getting too hot where it's touching the wood, so I'm curious what you guys think about that. I'm trying to go at 45 degree angles because someone mentioned that if you go at 90 degree angles, then you're not going to get as much draw, which means that it's going to end up putting smoke into the structure, which I definitely don't want, okay? So that's the wood stove plan. And then there's one thing that's stressing me out that I wanted to talk to you guys about and get your thoughts on, okay? So, this structure is dug into the ground about six feet, and there's, you know, maybe two to three feet room on either side of the walls, which I've been planning to fill in with dirt, okay? So here's the most narrow section, okay? I'm not too worried about this section because when we fill this in with dirt, you know, it's not so much that it's going to be pushing on this a whole lot, okay? And there's two things that I would have to be worried about there, okay? But with this wall, this is like four feet across, this is a lot of dirt, and it's not going to be as stable. as this dirt here, because this dirt has been sitting here for years, right? This is going to be new dirt, and especially when we put it in, it's going to have a momentum of going this way. But even when it's not moving, as you stack it up, the weight is going to be pushing against the structure, okay? So the first problem with that... which I'm not as concerned about because we got a plan on how to deal with it is actually the structure of the building getting pushed inwards, okay? So basically we have a plan to brace this in multiple ways, okay? So I'm going to put some floor things along, like it'll be permanent, where I'm going to put floor boards here, just kind of up along the whole structure, okay? And then we're going to put little stakes. basically concrete stakes along the whole way so they'll be pounded down into the ground holding that in okay so that'll hold it for the first you know section then there's the mid section which is probably the weakest part of the structure and for that I'm planning to actually have boards which I measure which go across the entire structure from wall to wall and all along the whole thing. And these will be temporary just there when we're putting the dirt in, and then once everything's stable, then we'll take those out, okay? Then once we're getting up into the higher point, there's not so much weight up here, so I'm not so worried about that, okay? So anyways, that's our plan for that. Curious to know your thoughts, if you think that's going to go well or not. But the main thing I'm worried about is the only thing, that the dirt has to push against is, you know, there's these planks, but then there's this gap in between, and all it is, is this insulation. And so I'm worried that it's going to, it's definitely going to push in on that insulation, more than it's pushing it on the board, so we're going to get little bulges, but I'm worried it will actually break the insulation. And the insulation is pretty strong, but it might be too much, okay? Part of me is thinking maybe I shouldn't even fill in the holes because, you know, the structure right now is basically done, except I have to put a door on and put the stove in. But really, I don't even need the stove. I can already tell that this is going to be extremely comfortable, you know, even when it gets really cold and windy out there, okay? Even without having to bury the outsider put the stove in. But if I don't... buried on the outsides, then it's basically inviting a lot of moisture to get down in here, and so that could be a big problem. Also, if I do bury it, I mean, it's the original idea, I'll get a lot more insulation, right? If it's buried this high in dirt, then, you know, it'll be even that much more warm in here, okay? So anyways, curious to know your thoughts about this. I was thinking maybe get some 6 mil... of that stuff I put on the roof, basically the 6 mil plastic sheeting, okay, and putting around the whole thing, just to add a little bit of strength to these sections. I think that, you know, I think it would at least double, if not triple the strength of this, but even then it might not be enough, okay? Then another thing I was thinking of, on the outside of the structure, you know, you have these beams here. and then down here in between the beams, okay here's one down here, one here, in between the beans on the outside, putting something across and screwing it in from the outside and doing that for every single section, right? So down here, here, here, and here, okay? Then you're just going to have little squares, so this section would be exposed, and this section could be exposed, but there'd be support going across here. So anyways, that's my thoughts on it. You know, I'm curious to know what you guys think because, you know, it's got me pretty stressed out. You know, I put a lot of work into this. Really, it's already to the point where I could be using it. I'm probably going to sleep in here tonight. And I really don't want to go through all this effort and have something so good and then put the dirt in and it just destroys it, okay? So anyways, I'm looking for some feedback on that, so. please share your thoughts. All right, thanks for watching, and I'll see you guys later.