We built a stair with branches and saved ourselves 83 dollars in a few hours

in ecoTrain2 years ago

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We've been making some progress with our new construction, though it might not look like much, it is a lot to get your basic structure put together with hand tools. And unlike most YouTubers that build things for show, we intend to live there, so there are many details to pay attention to.

With many of the main pillars in place, we wanted to check if the main beams we had cut would fit the scheme. That's when we found out that the weight didn't allow us to lift them comfortably all the way up, and that normal ladders didn't allow us to do it well either. We decided to modify a small one built by @choli, and add enough structure so that it would be able to support itself wherever we needed to place it.

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No, wait, rewind. First we thought of buying a metal folding stair, but the prices begin at approximately 83 USD. Obviously that's not very expensive but we're trying to save money for the rooftop materials which are the ones that are most needed in a cold region such as this one. We would love to go bushcraft all the way, but that would take an enormous amount of time to gather enough stuff that could do a solid job at making the house impermeable. In the future things can be done differently as we will already have somewhere to sleep comfortably in. For now we put the our time into building the stair that will save us quite a few bucks.

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The first thing was to add the two support sticks, we looked for dry sticks and the straightest thing we could find. Although we cut them the same size, when joining them at the top they were uneven, later we fixed the problem... we tried to give the base the angle of the ground, they were not perfect but it still helped to stabilize.

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We tried it out but @fenngen almost had an accident as one of the steps gave in, and the stairs also swayed from one side to the other as they were not properly balanced. We almost gave up on the project since it had been done with poor materials in hope of getting something built fast. But you know how they say: "lazy folk work twice".

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@choli thought about discarding the stair, but @fenngen thought it just needed more reinforcements. One option was to put more nails on it, but it was not going to be enough, so the other was to put these little boards under each ladder, so that it would be able to hold on well.

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We also added a pair of diagonal branches to stop the swaying from side to side. Obviously it would have been better to put perpendicular branches but we wanted to be able to place the stairs very close to the pillars and this allowed some space to fit them in.

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Also a recycled board to add stability and useful to hold tools or mini workbench.

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And to help with the balance a cut out piece of board:

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Finally, this is how our improvised staircase on the road turned out.

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@fenngen seeing and testing if it was firm.
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Our conclusion is that it serves what we need at this time.

We will add reinforcements if we do not feel safe. This is the last one we did because with the weight of the beams that we are putting up, it was saw that this step was bending a lot.

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Hope you enjoyed the post. Join us in our regenerative living project on @rukeros. If you wish to support a Nature conscious lifestyle feel free to vote, comment, reblog, and/or donate. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

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Have fun guys!
Looking forward to seen more ;)

@tipu curate

Thanks! You too!

I’m in the same mind set at the moment…
Looking to find my place in nature, to build my house….

My companion Guru (the dog with me)
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I also teach yoga 🧘‍♀️ so called

Namaste 🙏

And the best part: Once you've used the stair, you can dismantle and recycle. Won't have a bulky item to store away either. if you ever need a stair, can just build a new one. Win win.

Btw, I would've used a rope to tie the thing together instead of nails.

True, Earth will be paradise if we abandon the disposable culture... It would be awesome to use only rope instead of nails, right now we're racing against the winter to lift a decent room to live in, after that there's a lot we'd like to experiment on regarding bioconstruction and regenerative agriculture.

 2 years ago  

Wow this is awesome, you guys have really done a great job.

Thanks! Glad you liked it 🙌

 2 years ago  

You're welcome

Yay! 🤗
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