How to Make a Small Hut Out of Mud and Straw

Making Adobe Bricks

• 1

  Combine adobe clay, sand and straw in a 5-gallon bucket with enough water to make a doughlike consistency. Stir the mixture, adding more water if necessarily, until it feels similar to uncooked cookie dough.

• 2

  Cut one side out of the half-gallon milk containers and flatten the spout end using tape to hold it down. Pour the mixture into the milk containers until they are about two-thirds full. Five gallons of adobe mixture will fill about six milk containers, making six bricks.

• 3

  Place the milk containers in a sunny area to let the mixture dry. After 24 hours you should be able to remove the bricks from the milk cartons without them falling apart. Return the bricks to their sunny area for further drying.

• 4

  Check the bricks to see if they are completely dry after another day in the sun. A thoroughly dry brick will have a consistent color inside and out. You may want to make an extra brick to break open and check for any remaining moisture.

• 5

  Repeat the first four steps until you have enough bricks to finish your hut.

Building Your Hut

• 6

  Plant a wooden stake in the ground where you want one of the corners of your hut to be and use a tape measure to lay out the rest of the walls, planting another stake at each corner. Each wall needs to be the same length as the wall on the opposite side.

• 7

  Tie a piece of twine between each of the corner stakes to form a square or rectangle. Use the twine as a guide to make sure your wall is straight.

• 8

  Start laying out your adobe bricks using the twine as a guide. Make another batch of adobe to use as mortar between the bricks. You should make your walls at least two bricks wide to maintain the integrity of the structure. Build thicker walls for better insulation.

• 9

  Finish laying down the first layer of bricks and start the second layer so that the bricks alternate with the first layer. The middle of each brick of the second layer should be directly above the intersection of two bricks on the first layer. Continue building each wall in this way until it is the desired height.

• 10

  Lay wooden dowels across the top of the structure, no more than 3 inches apart. Press a still-moist adobe brick on top of each dowel to hold it in place.

• 11

  Place more adobe bricks on top of the dowels to form a roof for your hut. The roof layer should at least three bricks wide to ensure that the roof won't leak.