House fox hole from containers. How to build "fox holes"

The house under such an unusual name "fox hole" is a bunded house or, simply, a dugout. The construction of houses of this type is due to protection from the adverse, and sometimes simply extreme, effects of climatic conditions.

The advantage of such a building is that it is very warm, which allows you to spend heating agents of any kind to a minimum. This house is warm in winter and cool in summer.

But there you will not save on electricity, since the rooms are all dark and need lighting even in the daytime.

The construction of such houses belongs to the category of eco-construction.

When building a "fox hole", the most important thing is to make high-quality waterproofing and ventilation systems in order to create the most comfortable conditions to live in such a place.

Modern Construction Materials provide a wide selection of high-quality waterproofing, but nevertheless, such a house needs to be built on elevated places, where groundwater is very low.

From above, the building is covered with a turf dome, which is an excellent material for additional thermal insulation and sound insulation.

In our time, when all heating resources are becoming more expensive at an unthinkably fast pace, the issue of building such houses is becoming very relevant, because in any case, such buildings are more economically profitable.

Such houses are built from any available building material and the principle of construction is not much different from the construction of ordinary houses, with the only difference being that the embankment is made for insulation. In this regard, there must be a solid roof structure.

The fox hole can be located completely underground or partially.

Another advantage is the low cost and speed of construction. Such a building can be erected and finished in just a couple of weeks.

First of all, for the construction of such a house, they dig a hole, the depth of which depends on the wishes of the owner of the house.

The bottom of the pit for waterproofing is laid out with roofing felt or fiberglass material impregnated with bitumen.

A log is placed to each of the walls - this will be the lower trim. In each corner, with the help of brackets, we fasten to the bottom harness vertical logs and the same pillars are installed in the center of each wall. If necessary, based on the size of the structure, we install additional supports in each gap. Then we sheathe everything with boards, roofing material and a layer of any heat-insulating material.

Windows are made to order. Windows can be made anti-aircraft - in the ceiling. On the interior decoration underground houses also take a minimum of funds.

Lastly, heating systems are being built, as well as ventilation.

Sometimes you can be surprised at how many stereotypes associated with various animals surround us in life. It is generally accepted that the dirtiest animal is the pig, the most cowardly is the hare, and the fox eats exclusively chickens and bunnies. But if you watch all these animals a little, you can make sure that our ideas about them do not always correspond to reality. In all such cases, there is a fixation of a single behavioral method, which then, for some reason, spread to the entire lifestyle of this or that animal in the form of a stable opinion. Among such situational stereotypes, there is one: the fox lives in a hole.

No, we won’t tell now that foxes actually build huts for themselves in the depths of the forest, walk on their hind legs and confuse poor bunnies with human voices, luring them into their red nets. Such foxes live in children's fairy tales, and we will leave them there. We will try to figure out the location of the fox, using the observations of scientists and professional hunters.

Visiting the fox-sister

The fox is one of the most adaptable animals that can easily adapt to almost any environment. In addition to the forest, they willingly settle in drained and plowed swamps, in those places where they are engaged in cutting down forests and increasing sown areas. It is no secret that in the old days in many countries of the world, foxes allowed themselves to run into big cities. This habit has survived to this day: in modern England, for example, foxes have perfectly settled down on vast agricultural lands and began to settle in city parks. Foxes can be found even in the center of London, and a city like Birmingham has long and fairly suffered from the dirt that foxes have spread, and despite all the efforts of the city authorities and volunteer hunters aimed at catching foxes, they, even being taken out to forest, still return to the city. Wherever the fox settles, she chooses for her residence the open areas and landscapes she likes. And here we come to the main fox feature: foxes spend almost all their time in these open spaces. A fox lives in a hole only in two cases: when raising offspring and when winter sets in - that is, only a few months a year. At the same time, she prefers to use natural depressions in the ground - for example, a pit from under an uprooted tree or under its roots, in a ravine - or other people's, often abandoned dwellings - for example, a badger's hole. However, if there are no free holes in the area she has chosen, she has to dig her own shelter on her own.

Since a fox's hole is a temporary phenomenon, it digs it where it can be done easily and simply: for example, on the slope of a ravine or hill with a predominance of sandy or sandy loamy soil, in an old abandoned trench, mine, basin, even in an ordinary ditch. The fox hole is shallow and simply arranged, most often it has one entrance (rarely two) and is a straight passage without side holes, leading to the nesting chamber at a depth of about one meter. If the fox digs the so-called. hatching (or brood) hole, where she breeds, then there are two or three otnorks in it, from which there are underground corridors up to ten meters long, connecting them with the already mentioned chamber. Through these snouts, the fox can leave the shelter in case of danger. Such a hole is made near some reservoir. Even in the desert, foxes try to concentrate within a radius of eight to ten kilometers near wells where nomads bring cattle to drink, but there have been cases when hunters found fox holes in a completely waterless area, where the fox and its offspring quenched their thirst due to the moisture contained in the fat and rodent tissues. In front of the entrance to the hole, there is usually a trampled area where the cubs play. The fox does not make toilets and pollutes the entire space around the hole with its excrement and remnants of meals. It is interesting that the male fox, who is a good family man and anxiously takes care of his girlfriend, actively helps the fox in arranging the hole and raising the fox cubs.

Sometimes a fox digs not one hole, but a whole system of shelters, reaching up to several dozen and located not far from each other. In this way, she protects her brood hole from various dangers, primarily from human persecution. According to the observations of scientists, the number of such holes is affected by the "anthropogenic load" - that is, the population of a given area by a person and the frequency of his visits. If these “disturbance factors” are high enough, then foxes increase the number of protective holes, their length, and change the system of their use accordingly. If there are many natural shelters in the area chosen by the fox, the animal digs fewer holes, but actively and fully uses the maximum possible number of shelters created by nature.

Two factors can limit the reproduction of foxes: the lack of places suitable for creating holes, and the lack of food in the territory chosen by them. In this case, in the fox world, the species self-regulates by creating so-called "family groups", usually consisting of one male and three or four females. It is interesting that in such a family roles are strictly distributed between females: one or two females participate in reproduction, the rest look after the offspring, visit the brood hole, but this season they do not have their cubs. In autumn, when the young can already get their own food, the male leaves or is expelled from the “family”, while the females remain.

Despite the fact that the fox has a poorly developed “sense of home”, it sometimes happens that, for some reason, year after year it returns to the hole it dug once. If this happens, then her refuge is constantly expanding, renewing; the fox "finishes" additional "rooms", which are located on two or three floors. The nesting chamber in such burrows is already located at a depth of up to three meters, and up to a dozen snorks with a total length of up to thirty to forty meters can approach it. Among hunters who are well acquainted with such types of holes, they are called "secular". The badger's dwelling has a similar structure.

But even in the hatching hole, the fox lives exactly as long as it takes for the cubs to grow up. In autumn, when they are already adults, the fox leaves the hole and uses it only in winter time during heavy snowfalls, snowstorms and wet snow, and in case of danger, when it is being hunted. And then it becomes difficult to smoke the fox out of the hole.

How to smoke a fox out of a hole

Before you start smoking a fox out of a hole, you need to make sure that it is in it. If a fox hides in a hole, then the hunter is waiting not only for her device, which is often quite ingenious (especially when it comes to nesting or centuries-old holes), but also the very system of protective holes that we talked about above. And even taking into account the uncleanliness of foxes, it can be extremely difficult to find a red beast in a pile of shelters scattered throughout its feeding area. In this regard, the experience of Canadian zoologists is interesting, who, when studying foxes in the province of Ontario, at one time used an ingenious way to search for them in its shelters. It consisted of the following: in May-June, in those lands where the existence of a fox was supposed, they laid out the carcasses of freshly harvested woodchucks, having previously placed radio sensors in neutral plastic boxes in their chest cavities. The foxes carried the treat along their burrows, thereby revealing their location to the person. We understand that hunters in the post-Soviet world can hardly afford such a luxury as a radio sensor for a fox, so we report this only as an interesting fact - although this information may be useful to someone.

The paradox is that in the presence of quite a large number ways to smoke a fox out of a hole, each of them has both supporters and opponents. Some methods have not passed the test of time, others are not entirely legal, others are good only for certain cases and purposes ... The only thing that all experienced hunters agree on is the opinion that if a fox has gone into a hole, it is almost impossible to drive it out, or in extreme cases very difficult.

The most common solution to the problem is to smoke the fox with the help of a dog. The essence of the method is as follows: quietly and quietly sneak up to the hole, run the dog there and just wait for the result. If the fox cannot figure out the hunter and if the hole is not a dead end, then, escaping from the dog, it will jump out pretty quickly. If you have been calculated, then the struggle will drag on for a long time. However, a number of hunters have recently abandoned this practice, motivating this with a number of weighty arguments. Indeed, fox hunting requires specially trained trained dogs of certain breeds (the so-called "burrow dogs"), and it takes several years to train them, and it is not known how the dog will behave when it finds itself in the same hole with a fox. It is not uncommon for a dog to die after being buried in a hole. Many believe, and not unreasonably, that by launching a dog into a fox hole, they lose control of the situation, and the dog already becomes the master of the situation, and not the hunter, and this is fraught with damage to the skin and a number of other troubles - up to the point that the dog can strangle the fox in a hole and bury it there. Some hunters blame the fact that when hunting with the help of a dog, a lot of time passes in empty expectation while the dog drives the fox out of the hole. There is also a lot of debate about which dogs are best suited for such work: hounds and dachshunds are traditionally considered the best, but there are good feedback and about likes. Summing up all the impressions based on the individual experience of each hunter, we can draw the following conclusion: some general recommendations on this occasion it is impossible to give, so you just need to take it and try it, having previously talked with experienced trappers about all the nuances.

If there is no dog, and it is necessary to smoke the fox out of the hole, then the question is put at the forefront, for the sake of which it is necessary to drive the animal out of its shelter. If the goal of the hunter is to extract the skin with its subsequent sale, then you need to carefully consider the choice of smoking method - not all of them are humane in relation to the animal. If we are talking about the extermination of foxes in order to limit their population in a particular area, then, as they say, "in war, all means are good." We do not undertake to analyze and evaluate each of the methods developed over the years, but simply list the main ones, which, although they are often criticized, are quite effective.

So, a fox from a hole can be smoked in the following ways:

1. with the help of burrow smoke.
2. pyrotechnics.
3. metal cable.
4. with the help of an "artificial ferret".
5. regular trapping of offspring for two to three years.
6. water.
7. using an old diesel tractor (a method invented in the Soviet Union).
8. traps.

Smoke is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind, despite the fact that this method is severely criticized by some hunters. It consists of the following: it is necessary to close up all the exits in the hole, except for one, and build a fire near it so that the smoke penetrates into the hole. Many hunters advise not to plug all the exits, but leave one or two so that the natural draft spreads the smoke throughout the hole. Opinions also differ about what to make a fire on: some say that dry wormwood is best for smoking, others advise using rubber. Sometimes it is advised to use a saltpeter-based smoke bomb instead of a fire. The technology of the method is simple: since the fox is most often located in the lower part of its labyrinth, therefore, any impact on it, not excluding smoke, will lead to the fact that it will run to the exit, where the hunter will be waiting for it. However, opponents of this method argue that in some cases - for example, when the fox is in a state of rutting - the effect of smoke is completely opposite: it will hide even deeper into the hole and prefer to suffocate rather than get out on Fresh air. In addition, it should be taken into account that the fox is more patient than a person and, in case of danger, will definitely outlast him: there were cases when hunters, not having achieved quick success, left the hole, and the fox crawled out alive and healthy on the third or even fifth day.

Some fox hunting enthusiasts advise using ordinary firecrackers. The calculation is based on the noise effect, which is amplified in a confined space, as a result of which the fox also leaves the shelter that has become unreliable. However, this method is criticized because of its danger - first of all, for the hunter himself: it is no secret that the quality of the pyrotechnics sold often leaves much to be desired, and when buying it for fox hunting, you involuntarily acquire the notorious "pig in a poke".

A metal cable is a more original solution to the problem, although it is also not indisputable. The essence of the method is as follows: one end of the rope is pre-fluffed, the hunter plugs all the exits, leaving only two, and begins, scrolling, to drive this rope with the fluffed end into the hole. Having reached the fox, the cable will definitely hook on its skin, and the animal will unwittingly leave the shelter. This method takes into account the direction of the hole, so many hunters recommend it as the most reliable and effective.

A variation of the method is the use of an "artificial ferret" (or wrapping). True, three people are required to use this method. The cable is a steel wire with a diameter of 3-4 mm., At one end of which there is a handle, and at the other - a rubber toy. One hunter sticks a toy on a wire into the hole, the second turns the handle, and the third stands with a gun at the ready. Sometimes, instead of wire, an ordinary plumbing snake with a steel brush at the end is used. The main thing in all variations is the sufficient length of the cable. But this method is applicable only if the fox hid in a simple hole. For nesting or secular burrows, this method is useless.

Trapping of offspring is used if there is a “fight to the bitter end” with foxes. It is carried out as follows: at the beginning of May, in previously explored nesting burrows, all otnorks are shut up with pipes with gratings at both ends. At one end there is a blind grille, at the other end it is fixed at an acute angle along the way, on an axis that lets in only in one direction. If there are not enough pipes, the least located otnorks are clogged tightly with stumps and stones and covered with earth. Chicken giblets are laid out in pipes. In this way, all fox offspring are caught. The method should be applied regularly for several years, then the fox will leave by itself.

Another way from the same arsenal is to fill the hole with water. It is used in the event that it is possible to drive up to the hole. The method is extremely simple: nets are installed on the burrows, a tractor with a barrel of water is driven to the hole, and water is launched through the burrows into the hole. The only nuance that you need to pay attention to is the following: if you need a live fox, then you need to fill the hole from non-working snouts and at first let some water in. After this method, the hole becomes abandoned for a long time.

The use of an old diesel tractor is perhaps one of the most barbaric methods of fighting foxes, which can only be justified by the huge number of them and the inaction of the regional sanitary services. This method is as follows: the tractor is adjusted to the hole, a hose about five meters long is put on the exhaust pipe and pushed into the hole. The remaining space is sealed with jerseys so that the smoke does not go into the sky. If there is only one entrance to the hole, then the hose must not be sealed very tightly so that the fox can knock out the plug. As soon as smoke comes out of any vent, it must immediately be plugged. The last otnorok can not be closed, but if the fox does not come out for a long time, then they plug it too. Periodically, the tractor driver must do a re-gassing. The essence of the method is that all diesel smoke remains in the hole. From its abundance, the fox becomes insane and eventually comes out in such a state that it is very easy to kill it.

Finally, the last way is to set traps near the hole and visit in three or four days. If the trap is well camouflaged, then the fox will definitely fall into it. However, this method is heavily criticized by those who prefer to hunt with dogs.

There are several other ways to smoke a fox out of a hole, but they are either too exotic (such as using thread from an old woolen sock), or they belong to the arsenal of poachers, so we will not talk about them.

Conclusion

Summing up, we can say the following: it is easier to prevent the fox from going into the hole than to smoke it out later. The fox is a cunning, intelligent and patient animal, and hunting for it requires no less intelligence, cunning, quick wit and patience from a person. The difficulty is also in the fact that for a person there are some generally accepted norms of humanity and hunting ethics, while foxes are completely deprived of this. Therefore, to all those who are annoyed by foxes, or those who hunt them, we can only wish good luck in their hard work.

There is hardly any other place where you can feel such security as in a bunded building. The secret is simple and I learned this secret on the pages of the site www.ibrus.ru - energy and the spirit of the earth literally permeate the structure under the turf dome. The natural grounding of the building relieves stress, removes electromagnetic fields, caused by stray currents, which is typical for multi-storey reinforced concrete structures.

Here, shutdowns of heating plants and power outages are not terrible, since in order to maintain comfortable temperature enough elementary wood hearth. Habitually monotonously flicker outside the window of the electric train holiday villages. Booths, huts, houses, houses, houses ... And behind all this pile of construction, the main thing is not visible - the beauty of the cultivated land. And the houses themselves (or rather, cases) are empty for most of the year. In cold weather, warming them up for an overnight stay (15-16 ° C) is problematic: while the walls warm up, it's time to get ready for the city.

In a bunded house, water in pipes or in a kettle will never freeze, and at a minimum of costs it is easy to create comfortable living conditions. The lack of natural light can be compensated by the installation of transparent roof elements (antiaircraft lamps), the efficiency of which is much higher than traditional windows.

Fig. 1 Plan of a house of the "Fox hole" type for a small area:
1 - veranda (14.0 m2);
2 - kitchen (12.0 m2);
3 - room (20.0m2);
4 - vegetable store (18.0 m2);
5 - greenhouse (18.0 m2);
6 - pantry (1.3 m2);
7 - bench-locker;
8 - pit-water absorber

Modern bunded structures can be of very different purposes: these are livestock rooms, garages for agricultural machinery, etc. Houses built using the simplest materials ( expanded clay concrete blocks, sandbags, logs, soil blocks) can help solve the acute housing problem of many categories of the population - refugees, migrants, etc.

This type of bunded houses received our code name "Fox hole". Our architectural studio is ready to help develop projects for both small buildings and entire public complexes (sports, cultural, etc.). Let's see how for a small garden plot can be built small house, lined with earth.

Manufacturing jobs. At the first stage, a common pit is torn off with a depth of 0.5-0.8 m and a size of 0.5 m more than the dimensions of the future building. The soil is piled around the perimeter of the embankment. On the bottom of the pit they make strip foundation 400 mm thick and 250 mm deep made of M300 concrete reinforced with a mesh of ZF6A-1. A preparation 150 mm thick from a sand and gravel mixture is laid under the strip foundation. On the top of the foundation - waterproofing from two layers of roofing material on bitumen.

The walls of the house are erected from red brick Ml00 on a cement-sand mortar M50: up to the mark of 0.00 - 380 mm thick, above - 250 mm thick. Walls can be made from other materials, for example, from concrete blocks, or made from monolithic expanded clay concrete. The outer surfaces of the walls in contact with the ground must be insulated by coating with hot bitumen (two to three times) or roofing material.

Overlapping is arranged from hollow reinforced concrete slabs type PK63-15-8, on top of which a leveling screed is made. The ceiling is insulated with polystyrene foam boards 50-70 mm thick, which are laid on cold bituminous mastic. The insulation layer is covered with two or three layers of roofing material (hydroisol) on bituminous mastic with waterproofing of junctions with walls.

On top of the structure- clay castle with a layer of 10-15 cm, followed by bunding with soil taken out of the pit. Subsequently, ornamental grass can be sown at this place, a flower garden, etc. can be arranged.

How to solve a housing problem for only $5,000?
Simon Dale from Wales knows the answer. He decided not to pay rent or deal with bank loans, but to build his own “hobbit house” in the forest on the hillside, like in the movie “The Lord of the Rings”.

During the construction, only natural materials were used. This project was completed in just 4 months - a much shorter time than waiting for the completion of the construction of his apartment in modern high-rise buildings.

Simon Dale is neither a builder nor a carpenter. He built this house with his father-in-law and friends.

View from the window:



It took only about $4900, 4 months and 1000-1500 man-hours to create it.

During the construction of the house, they dug a pit right in the hill. The stone and soil from the excavation was used for the retaining walls and foundations. The tree was taken from the surrounding forests, and the insulation of the floor, walls and roof was made with straw.

Architectural project:




The main tools were a chainsaw, a hammer and a chisel.

Foundation:

Frame construction:


The frame of the future oak house:


The house has a natural refrigerator - always a cool cellar; water from the nearest source; solar panels generate electricity for lighting, a small music center and a computer. During the day, light enters through the glass dome in the roof of the house.

View from the balcony on the 2nd floor:


Another option for lighting the “hobbit house” in the evening is candles.

Beautiful and romantic


Entrance:


Kitchen:


The house is plastered with lime plaster, so the walls breathe.

The house is heated by a wood burning fireplace. The chimney passes through a large stone, which heats up and gives off heat for a long time inside the house.

This is a project of an earthen structure of the “fox hole” type.
Note that such houses are being built to this day, for example, by the Old Believers in Altai, and in almost any region you can find structures of this type.
Please do not confuse this building with a dugout, as these are not the same thing. "Fox hole" is an earthen hill. Depending on the wishes of the owner, it can be built with any depth or even be at the level of an ordinary house.

We decided with Svetlana that the first dwelling on the estate would be a dugout or a house like "Fox Hole". And all because while we have open spaces and the wind is blowing, a traditional ground-based house will be strongly blown and lose heat faster than a house protected by trees or earth. And the soil excavated when digging a hole becomes the walls of the above-ground part. A kind of savings on building materials.

Digging a hole for a dugout began in 2008. The test hole was about 1x2 m, about 1 m deep. It was already inconvenient to dig further because of the small size of the hole. In 2009, according to the plan, markings were made. The main room is a hexagon 4x3.5 m, the corridor is 2x3 m. It was more convenient to dig in such areas - there is where to wave a shovel. However, they did not have time to finish before the winter.

In the spring of 2010, the edges of the pit crumbled, so it was decided to increase the size of the dugout by half a meter in each direction. By mid-August, the pit under the dugout was ready for construction, only an earthen staircase remained. Now, looking back, I can say with confidence that it is faster and cheaper to dig a hole with an excavator. Manual excavation still remains, but the time savings will be significant.

They dug a hole under the central pole with a crowbar, installed it. According to the drawing, the ends of six logs were sawn out, which will rest on the central pillar. Installed logs to check how everything fits together. Checked and removed all logs.

They dug holes in which the ends of the roof logs would rest. Svetlana carefully cleaned all the logs from the bark. Halves of chocks were attached to the logs to increase the area of ​​\u200b\u200bsupport, they were burned on a fire. The timber structure was installed again. With the help of a water level, the reference ends were brought to one mark. To do this, in some places they poured gruss under the support. After that, the pits were covered with grus to the top, wetting and carefully tamping.

We put corner posts, a corridor frame, a window structure. Logs differ from lumber in their individuality. Each node has to be finalized manually, adjusting the parts to each other. Although it takes more time, but in the end it turns out sincere. Apparently, therefore, in old houses, energy is better than in modern ones.

For sheathing, the boards were planed on one side and treated with the “Favorite Dacha” impregnation. Planed in the village, on the machine at Sergei. We express our gratitude to him! Sheathed in rows, trying to keep the horizontal seams. In the future, when the seams dry out, we will make decorative flashings. To prevent long boards from bending, a plank was screwed across them in the middle, connecting several boards into a single shield.

Outside, at the corners, boards 200 mm wide were attached to the edge. And a cut was nailed on top of them, which served as a crate. Straw was rammed into the space between the sheathing boards and the cut. This step must be carried out very quickly so that the exposed straw does not get wet in the rain. Lyudmila Koreshkova helped us in this, and for this we express our deep gratitude to her.

From above they covered the straw with roofing material, attaching it to the crate. At the bottom, a gutter was made from roofing material, along which water should flow around the dugout and go to the side. The gutter at the bottom of the dugout was lined with clay, tamped down with feet and covered with gruss.

And then frosts hit, a pile of gruss soaked in rain froze. Therefore, the work decided to postpone until next season. One wall at the entrance remained uninsulated. They hung a temporary door on it so that the snow would not be swept away. Pulled over the windows polyethylene film. Now the dugout is ready for wintering.