Just one thing, the dung has to be horse dung... Cows chew their plants too well, but horses don't, so you end up with a dung that is much more rich in small fibers. You can tell just by looking at it. Fibers are everything... the theory is that the straw keeps the dirt from developing large cracks, wile the dung (smaller fibers) keep the smaller cracks from forming. It would be better to use yellow clay rather then just dirt. And you might need to give the house a smoother glaze of sand and horse dung before whitewashing. And best to do it in the autumn, so the walls dry out slowly, this way it's more likely not to get cracks.
you don't build it in autumn so it dries out slowly, you build it in autumn so that it dries out at all. it's a common misconception that warm air dries out walls quickly, this is not the case since the walls are actually colder than the surrounding air, you get condensation on the walls, making them more moist. it's a common problem in modern times, when people who do not know this, start building houses in spring, expecting to move in later the same year, they're asking to get mold. during winter the cold dry air, that central europe gets around january, dries out walls which is why traditionally, building a house would take two to three years, depending on whether or not you wanted a cellar. if you're building a cellar you'd spend one year digging out and building the cellar, let it dry over winter, then build the rest of the house up to the roof, let it dry over winter again and then you finish with plaster, installing doors and windows and then all the internal stuff.
@@windhelmguard5295 I understand what you are trying to say, but you don't take into consideration the increased evaporation that summer with it's warm air brings. Condensation on walls might be occurring on an inside part of an uninsulated wall during winter... But that's because the inside air is at about 23 celsius, which can hold a lot of moisture... It's that increased insides moisture in the warm air that condenses on the colder wall... But, the same warm air (surely hotter in the summer) has the capacity to absorb moisture more and faster from a wet wall then the cold air in autumn or winter... Cold air is generally dryer, yes, but that's because it can't hold too much water... And naturally won't take away much of the moisture in your wall.
@@purpleldv966 i see you didn't get what i' talking about at all, yes warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, but that is only the case if said warm air isn't already moist to begin with, which it usually is because most of the warm air we get in central europe comes from the atlantic ocean. second problem is that moist air is heavy (meaning it sinks) and dry air is light, so it rises, similarly warm air rises and cold air falls. what this does to a building is that, during summer, the moist air sinks and collects in the lower rooms of the house, where it cools off and then just sits there. that's why your cellar is more comfortable than your attic during summer. during winter on the other hand the cold dry air from outside will sink into the lower stories where the walls (receiving warmth from the soil below) are warmer than the air, the cold air goes in, heats up from the walls and the rises back out, the moisture doesn't stay inside. you can trust me on how stuff dries in cold weather, i can hang my laundry outside at -20°C and it'll dry over night, whereas during summer it needs sunlight to dry at all.
yes, horse is not a ruminant like the cow (or a deer... or a giraffe, you know, a very medieval european animal, lol)... horse lacks the "multipe stomachs" (actually a multi-chambered single stomach) of a cow, horse's digestive system is similar to the one humans have - a simple one... In my language, horse dung is (colloquially) called "doughnut" (the holeless "berliner" kind) >:D
I just realized something. RUclipsrs like this- Who spend the bulk of their channel talking about some topic and trying to educate us about it, complimented with visuals to help us along- There's no difference at all between them and a college professor giving a PowerPoint lecture. Now the professor is generally more knowledgeable, that's understandable, but by-and-large these RUclipsrs know their stuff. It's amazing that we are so willing to spend literally hours watching these videos, and it's exactly like sitting through a lecture. And WE ARE LEARNING. I really think this is education of the future.
I heartily agree, but be advised, not much on youtube is peer reviewed for accuracy. Then again, I've had some professors who were clearly presenting their own personal ideas as facts and I could have called them out on it, but I wanted an A and didn't want another silly tit for tat contest so I yes sired my way through to my A. So in a formula: Learning = College Education - Personal Submission. But Usually Pure Learning adds experience to your life. If you haven't tested your ideas to see if they're correct or not, you haven't learned, you've just speculated. That's just my opinion though. There's unlimited room in the comments section to write your own and see if you can do better. Show me a college with unlimited class time to fully consider everyone's thoughts. Moral of the story = go to college if you must, but not an expensive one.
In fact, you can learn a career that is self sufficient (home business) completely from information that is freely available on the internet. The hard part would be trying to get employment from a company, though a home business wouldn't need that. My personal focus is on video game design.
6 лет назад+52
The difference is a professor needs to have his stuff properly sourced, but on RUclips there is no quality control worth mentioning. Reliability suffers as a result. Excellent example: Anti-vax 'documentaries' that try to persuade you to harm or kill children.
Professors and other Academics tend to have other thing on the side to then just hold lectures. Often they do other stuff then teaching to on the side. In fact the teaching for many is just the side gig. Personally I think that the future of education is a mixture of different sources. In the not so distant future guided by advanced software that keeps you engage and helps you find good sources. (Call then teaching AIs or Algorithms). The future will likely be decentralized learning available at no cost. The Utility of having a educated population is just far to great in the post-information era.
Here in germany we actually have companies that build these houses today. But since they insulate so freaking well and look really good they are actually very expensive
@@purpleldv966 I'm just spit-balling here, but they may be using another material that doesn't use dung. Not only could it prevent the spread of illness, but also may potentially be better in some way.
@@andrewmurray9701 today maybe... but back in the day, it was horse shit all around! :D But i'm very curious for what price people are willing to buy a primitive house today...
I reckon they would be. I only saw new houses in a new district being built in a humble little place in Fegersheim, FR. As always, I saw tagging relating to the checking of the archeologist report prior to construction. Adds so much expense... but necessary do you not think? I always liked visiting the möbile and immöbile windows for fun and inspiration 😊😊😊
I don't know why I just noticed this after so many videos, but I wanted to point out how much I appreciate the "interaction" with the put-up pictures, Shad. Saying "Here's [x] thing" and turning to actually look at where it's going to be in the video really does a fantastic job in selling the friendliness and authenticity of the lecture. It's a little detail that goes a long way.
And in norwegian "bindingsverk." You can perhaps immagine how that the languages have a common origin, and actually was almost the same 1000 years ago; the woodWORK ("treVERK") is bound ("binding") together by other material
Maybe something else interesting to mention: because timber wasn't cheap you were actually able to tell how rich a person was by looking at their homes, the more visible timber they were able show build into the structure the deeper the pockets.
One point you didn't touch on, is the fact that wattle & daub houses were easy and cheap to repair. If a stone wall breaks, it sort of crumbles in a large area, and takes a lot of time to repair, and you can have a catastrophic collapse. When a log in a log cabin rots, you have to take the building apart a bit, and replace the whole log .. very difficult. You don't have to take the building entirely apart, but it is a lot of work. When a waddle & daub section broke, you just knocked it out and rebuild that section. And since the timber was partly exposed, you could add some rows of hooks, and hang straw cladding, to insulate further, during winter, which could make quite a difference .. then in the spring when the straw cladding started rotting, you threw it away, so it would not damage the timber.
@@Mihoshika True, he did ... though I would have liked to see him dig into it a bit more, ease of maintenance, and cost of maintenance, is an important part of a building after all.
Back in school we made a day trip to a "medieval village" in construction (probably an archaeological experiment of some sorts) where we helped to make the daub and plaster the braided walls with it. Needless to say it was very exhausting but in retrospect also kinda fun.
I actually live in a renovated old wattle and daub farmhouse (countryside of north rhine westphalia), so I love this architectural style. When my parents bought the (abandoned) house they had to promise the previous owners to not change the exterior overly. My father adhered to it so much he bought loam to repair holes in the walls. The house was so rundown though, they only had to pay for the over 400 year old oak beams in the house (I still have them holding up the ceiling of my room - they're super bent!). In recent years our street has been added to a hiking trail in the area specifically for showing off old historical buildings in the wattle and daub style. :D
Maleha: I live in the same region. Our house was built in 1920. The outward walls are stone to basement height, above that bricks plastered. But all the interior walls are halftimbered with a wattle and daub filling. I found that out when I was replacing the electrical wiring.
Thanks Shad, as a first year Civil Engineering student wanting to go into Structural Engineering your medieval engineering/architecture videos give a lot more passion for what I study
In German, the walls inside a house are actually called "Wand" (plural "Wände"), which is a word coming from the verb "winden" (very closely related to the English verb "to wind"). So as you can see, in German the idea that the walls of a house are "wound" or as you would rather say in English "woven", as in a wattle and daub house, has survived in the language until modern times, showing just how common this type of constuction used to be. Just a small fact in case anybody is interested. Edit for spelling.
So when I'm house hunting, and my wife points out a house and asks, "Do you like this waddle and daub?", and I retort... "No no no honey.... Its WATTLE,. not waddle. The spelling police on Shad's channel told me so....", then I can expect to be sleeping on the couch for being a jerk. Got it.
I've always known this as Tudor box-frame. Never heard of the other terms. The town of Chester has the most amazing concentration of these buildings (plus a Roman wall) and is well worth a visit.
They are also known as "post and beam". The same framing is used in straw bale buildings. The English name for dirt houses is "cob construction", but Americans use the Spanish term adobe.
I don't know why English has no proper name for this style of building. In German it's called "Fachwerk", which roughly equates to "Crafted from compartments".
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 No it is not, tudor describes the time period only. Half-timbering has been done for much longer. Tudor is a variation on half timbering and is usually much more decorative.
we do, the aesthetic is called half timbering, which literally means the same as "Fachwerk" and directly translate to one another. The material used varies, so this particular one is called wattle and daub.
You did leave out one major advantage that log cabin style construction has over wattle and daub construction. While it does require substantially more timber and labor, the labor it requires is substantially less skilled. You need someone with architectural or carpentry knowledge to build the timber frame for a wattle and daube house, while most people could build a log structure themselves. This is why log cabins were so common on the American frontier, while wattle and daub never made it past the east coast colonies.
I was thinking about a preserved cabin I saw at Grande Teton National Park while watching this video. The construction was certainly much less sophisticated... Even assuming that something like daub was used to patch the extensive gaps (you could look through the cabin in some places), it had to have been a rather drafty build in a place where the winters aren't forgiving.
Most cabins like that would have been sealed with mud between the gaps while the home was inhabited, but because it was literally just jamming some dirt in the holes without any preservation, once no longer maintained it erodes.
11:19 is, I think, the reason it is called the ground floor and first floor. The ground floor was just that: a floor of ground. It was used for work, to house cattle in some cases and other things you don't need a wooden floor for.
I love medieval history; I'm large on the armour, weapons, who'd ruled, what wars are happening, fashion, food... so on. But you know what videos are hard to find on RUclips? Structural videos on the 11th-13th century. Castles? lots of content! Other places of living and culture? Hard... hard to find. You've gone into excellent detail on the purposes behind medieval architecture and for that I am very grateful! Subscribed!
THANK YOU, SHAD! All recent videos on castles and medieval buildings - absolutely amazing. And your manner of presenting the material - with a nice proportion of humour and dynamics of speech - just wonderful!
Can you make a video about Walls? I mean Walls like "Hadrian's Wall", "The Wall of China" etc. Walls that were built to keep people out of certain areas instead of being part of a castle.
The fecies in the Stuff also makes the Result harder but also more flexible - has something to do with the Carbonide in it iirc. Also, it "foams" the result, so it gets better in thermal insulation and also it regulates humidity inside.. And it is not "just Dirt or Mud" - it is Claybased and a Mixture as even Clay is Expensive plus Mixing in Stuff makes it better. The Whiting was not so much to prevent Whithering away, it was more to prevent Fungii to take root - but yeah, the alkaline Property also helps against it withering. Sorry for not knowing the specific english Terms, learned about it in Germany.
Love this! I never really gave it much thought, but when the title appeared in my list of suggested videos, I thought, "Yeah, why is that?" I'm glad Shad's here to answer those questions!
I've worked in construction most my life by trade, built houses from the ground up and everything in between and you've done a good job on explaining these types of buildings!! cool and accurate informational video, love it!
@@Alexandra_Hill Yeah, but it wasn't originally a Tudor style. It was being used long before anyone ever heard of Henry Tudor, and it was used in lots of European countries. The Victorians started building in this style again and called it Tudor Revival or Mock Tudor. But, if we're talking historically, the first several centuries it was used, no one called it Tudor at all.
@Илиан Алексиев Dragons don't pair well with thatched roofs: the thatching too often catches fire when the dragons sneeze or cough, and the dragons accidentally drag the thatching off the house when they take off. A lot of interspecies hard feelings got started this way. The dragons are better off living in the treeless hills of Scotland (there's also less air traffic up there).
@Илиан Алексиев Yeah, many baby dragons get sucked into jet engines, so they are better off in areas with less traffic. Expulse your dragons to the scottish mountains today - Think of the baby dragons!
I love the aesthetic of Medieval wattle and daub (half-timber) construction. I have wanted to build my own home in this style for years. It would be nice to mimic this style with a facade on a modern frame, but it would be much nicer to actually build an authentic structure.
I'll be honest,. I clicked on the video because I saw it my recommended section and thought the title was stupid. "Made of white rectangles? Yeah, right. That guy seems to be a real expert." Then it turned out to be a really good and informative video. Then I subscribed. The End.
My grandparents in Romania build their homes using the dirt bricks mixed with straws and dung you mentioned in the video except the only wood used for the home was for the roof.
Have you ever thought about doing a series of life in medieval times? Everything from building a house to clothing, cooking even materials used and so on? I think that would be really interesting.
If you visit Suffolk in England you will often find many of the wattle and daub homes are painted what is known as Suffolk Pink where the white wash was mixed with pigs blood or blackcurrant juice (have had both given as dyes) to make it pink. My grandmothers house, wattle and daub dating from the early 14thC, was painted yellow but the old coach buildings, which had been turned into another home, were painted white. And I must admit, if I could ever get planning permission (and the money) I would like to have a wattle and daub house built for me to live in - can no longer do it myself unfortunately - but instead of the usual thatched roof I would like a living roof instead. And I will vouch that that my grandmothers house wasn't ever really cold. She heated it with an electric 3bar heater in the living room and another one at the foot of the stairs which came on early in the morning. The coldest part, by far, was the much later addition of the kitchen and bathroom out the back, built from brick and absolutely freezing cold in winter. But the wattle and daub part was lovely and toasty. And cool in summer.
EWe have a lot of ply-wood tents in the USA which try to look as if they are something special by adding an attempt to look classy by adding a few Fachwerk features. they usually fail to dress up the cheap overall appearance of Fake Fachwerk. The way to see a difference is by noticing the rigidly straight lines in the careless American reproductions. The European originals often use naturally irregular pieces of wood which take a little more work but add the beautiful curved lines we see at the beach. If ladies were shaped with straight lines there might never be a next generation.
A interesting fact is that in medieval times you would not have seen the Fachwerk. To prevent the wood from decaying because of the weather the whole wall was covered in a layer of mortar. The wood only got exposed in later times because people like the look.
I never heard of it before, but it makes some sense. However, AFAIK covering the wood can cause sweating and rot from within, which is something people experienced after the German government forced them to dump isolation material on their historic houses. PS: I wonder how churches looked back then. I saw a few with paint residues indicating that they were completely covered in some kind of painting. Shad referenced that fact in his video on Kingdom. It really pisses me off, seeing some churches where the paintings are allowed to peal off over time, while the church swims in money.
TheExplodingChipmunk Not true for every region. I think in northern Germany the Fachwerk is more rectangular and plain, but in other regions, Baden Württemberg for example the Fachwerk is often very elaborate and fancy because it was visible. I be heard a part of a radio interview with an expert on that topic who explained that they also examine the properties of the old houses for earthquake prove houses. The Fachwerk is often so interlocked that it won't give in, even if you remove large beams, it gets crocked bit it will stay functional
Great video. However I'm an energy auditor and stone does not have good insulation properties. It has high thermal mass, when thick, thereby allowing it to retain temperature. This however works both ways as when stone is cold it can take allot of energy to heat up. I would say that the best insulation of all three of these types of homes is the home with mud and fiber as insulation. I would say this would be the essiest to bring up to temperature and maintain that temperature.
I remember you've mentioned (in the "why homes were round", if I recall it right) that this video will come up and it got me curious enough to make my own googling on the topic in the same day. Regardless, a very infromative vid, particularly on the dung part x) If I could make a humble request, I'd really like to see a video on the whitewash, how it was made and it's uses. Thanks for your content, Shad =)
Ravensburger: One simple technique to make whitewash was to use milk! Milk would never be used on the inside of a building, but was often used to "paint" the outside of the building. And there was not much smell associated with said walls since the water evaporated away, leaving the less smelly solids on the walls. I would suspect that chalk was either added to the milk, or used by itself sometimes.
Wish we brought back a modern version of this style en mass to reclaim some European culture. Too often houses are lifeless brick husks. I want more of this!
Thanks for sharing your videos. The first picture of the tudor house is a house at the weald and downland museum in Singleton, West Sussex UK. It was saved from destruction when a reservoir was being built and taken down and re assembled at the museum. I was married in the building in 2010.
One thing about cow dung is that they will stay places sometimes up to years, literally we’ve Berried stuff and marked it with cow dung ( after about a month it is clean to pick up) and we’ll come back to it years later and it will still be there
8:05 they "pollarded" the trees. learned that from lindybeige. the amount of knowledge i gained from you, lindy and Skal is simply astonishing. Time to give back. Shad: Did you know that in germany people say "Er ist Steinreich" literally: "he is stone-rich". this originates from the mix form you mentioned in the end. So someone who is wealthy enough to have the first floor build from stone in a medieval city was "stone-rich"
TheWampam later on, yes. Although i can't think of any houses here i my area from the medieval period that are completely made of stone, apart from town halls, churches and defensive structures of course. All the rich merchants houses that enrich our town centres are from the Renaissance era.
Usually it is way easier to build stone houses in mountainous regions, there is stone lying around everywhere, while in the low lands it's much harder to find.
In the states, this is usually called the Tudor style. It has gone in and out of fashion for years. The last big Tudor revival was in the 1920s but it also had a slight resurgence in the late 60s and early 70s. The only big differences were that most people opted for expanded metal instead of wattle and stucco instead of dab. Also they went with shingle roofs instead of thatch. Most of these homes had craftsmen interiors with a lot of built ins and somewhat unmatched swing out (or in) windows.
I lived in Germany for 5 years, and even today they are still building homes in this style. Infact, I loved this style so much that if I ever build my own home I will not accept anything less then at the very least this look on the outside. In my opinion it's just one of the most beautiful designs ever and I hope it never goes away.
whitewash may not have any effect on physical erosion, but trees around the world are whitewashed up to around waist height to protect the wood from bacterial infections, and from insects laying eggs. as an extra perk, layers of whitewash eventually exfoliate making it less necessary to wash the walls.
@@samikay9599 Actually, a good layer of whitewash (made properly) is a very good waterproofing. One of the reasons adobe buildings are whitewashed is to prevent rain erosion. (Grew up in rural South America, first hand experience!)
@@samikay9599 When allowed to harden properly, and as the layers build up, it is very resistant to water and normal rain and wind erosion so will protect cob and daub pretty effectively. I have quite a bit of experience with it :)
10:22 That would actually be a frame saw. It's being used as a rip saw in the image (apparently). But to know if the blade was of a rip saw type for certain, we would have to take measure of the angle the teeth are cut at (which is not possible unfortunately). thereabout of 90° cut to the teeth would make it a rip saw (ideal for cutting with grain). Thereabouts of 20° cut to the teeth would back it a crosscut saw (ideal for cutting against grain). Likely given the type of frame and way it's shown to be used, it is a rip saw type of blade. But it's first and foremost a frame saw. You might say that a frame saw of this type might as well be called a rip saw because frame saws of this type are invariably rip saw bladed. But that's not necessarily true. There are odd ball examples that throw things off and make it a far less accurate assertion than one would like. For instance I own a Disston back saw. But what is it exactly? Well the blade is 12" x 3½" and it's teeth are crosscut. So you would naturally assume it's a small carcase saw. Until I break the wingnut at the end, and drop the tension lever on the handle allowing me to remove the blade and flip it around to the spine where it has another set of teeth that were hidden by the back (which is in actuality not just a stopper and rigidity reinforcer but a clamp as well). I insert it at an angle a little further back and after tightening back down the saw effectively becomes 10" x 2½" with rip saw teeth...Guess it's a large dovetail saw now. The size of the blade and tooth set type is what normally distinguishes between different backsaws. But here that's a variable factor. So all I can really say is that it's a backsaw. But I wouldn't call it a ripsaw or cross cut. Universal wouldn't even be right because each side has a single ppi.
I'd like to point out that rain was still an issue. That's why many framework houses rest on a 30cm/1ft of stone, if not an entire floor. Moreover, the roofs are oversized acting as an umbrella. As a sidenote: it was invented when people moved north where dried earth homes didn't survive the regular rain. Since framework homes rely on the strength of timber and not dried earth, they could adapt quickly.
In fact all baserris ( basque classical houses/cottages) are made from a layer of stone in the bottom and working upwards with this type of usage of timber and clay, it's so pretty yet so efficient.
In Finland it was most common to build houses from wood. There were made those kind of houses in cities but the common people usually used wood couse Finland was basicly a big forest and wood was very easy to move on water( In Finland there is ovet 180 thousend lakes). There may been houses made of brick also, but wood was most common.
Funfact: it has been suggested to reintroduce this method after the earthquake in Haiti. Wooden structures are very resilient to earthquakes and you can see in these structures immediately, if they saved beams. Moreover, if you got cheap labour, the building costs are _dirt_-cheap...
Fun fact, this method of building is thousands of years old and preceeds the middle ages longer as one may think. Have a look at Stilt-Builders during the stone age as an example. Nice Vid btw.
I actually missed this in the video. You don't need timberframe for wattle and daub, simple posts rammed into the ground do just as good if you only want one floor.
@Ricashbringer You're absolutely right. I've chosen the example of stilt-builders just because they've been present in the area where i live in and their techniques have been really advanced. @TheWampam To be fair he did mention it at 1:48, he just didnt go into detail.
yeah, wattle and daub is caveman-era stuff. well, not really, since they live in houses not caves but you get what I mean shad's talking more about how they filled out a timberframe, a thing we do even today, with this very cheap method to make a modern house out of basically dirt
@alnoso To be fair, nobody was talking about a "caveman-era". I actually don't see what argument you're trying to make, sorry. I personally mentioned the stuilt builders during the Stone age which precedes even the earrly middle ages by about 7000 years or more where the same building methods were used. Maybe not as "shiny" as in the middle ages onwards but the same principle. People do live in what can be described as houses since thousands and thousands of years, it's not like we lived in caves and the next thing was the medieval timberframe house. Btw my initial comment was not meant as criticism of his video but solely as an addendum.
I wonder why this style wasn't used as much in the early US. Seems like the stereotypical log cabin was much more common. Although, I am aware that dugout homes were also widely used in the midwest due to lack of timber/cost of having it imported.
Its called "Bauhaus" in German. These houses are everywhere here in southern Germany. Many people actually cover up the pattern on their old houses because it is so common and generally seen as "boring" or just old.
No, it's not called "Bauhaus" in Germany. In no way! It's called "Fachwerkhaus". Bauhaus is a term for a very modern style (blocky, steel, concrete, glass, flat roof). Just google that 2 terms and klick on pictures to get an impression.
Every region of Europe that had a lot of timber preferred Log cabins over wattle and daub (Scandinavia, Russia, Eastern Europe). American settlers also preferred log cabins. Even the British settlers adopted the building style overtime. Fact is that log houses are simpler to build. Building the timber frame itself involves quite a bit of work and a level of craftsmanship that stacking logs simply doesn´t. building a log house can be physically hard, but labor wasn´t exactly something our ancestor where afraid of.
I had no idea that the "white-panelled" buildings (I always thought of them as being Tudor style) were wattle-and-daub. Always thought of that construction method as being exclusive to village hovels rather than these nice houses. Thanks for educating me, Shad.
Very nice video; on point and well explained. This topic is so interesting that I even made a presentation about it last Friday. You really need to look up the three major styles of the half-timbered houses in central Europe (lower saxon, frankish and the alemannic style). You're going to love it! You only showed pictures of the english style. There is so much to discover on how they build those houses in certain areas an how those styles developed. The german word for half-timbered house really pin points it: "Fachwerkhaus" translates to "Fach" which is the part of a shelf in which you put the books; "werk" which is work and "haus". So the Fachwerkhaus could be called a shelf-worked house which is in my opinion a more precise term than half-timbered.
Super interesting I learned something today few of these houses in Winchester near me. Explains now why the walls bow out if it's only a wattle with dirt in it
This is also the reason brick building became so common during the Industrial revolution, the update allowed way more squares than before so people could make lots of little squares we now refer to as bricks. The Egyptians used a very early version which is why the pyramids have such a simple shape.
Interesting side note: They updated the mesh of Cologne Cathedral a few years ago, replaced one of the original windows with a new one that is just hundreds and hundreds of little clorful squares. They got it wrong though: They call the squares pixels. Technically, these are polygons. Except of course, it really is just a new texture with a bumpmap, that may well be.
Another wonderful video! As a structural engineer, I'm impressed by how much you generally understand about structural engineering and building physics. And even if some of your statements here and there lacked a bit of substance, you definitely didn't say anything wrong... But I would like to note a few things in spite of everything. "Dirt" was not and still is not used to insulate timber frameworks. Here it needs the application of fine-grained soil, preferably clay or loam (mixture of sand, silt and clay). This distinction is important because dirt can be virtually anything (including sand, gravel, scurf and so on). Moreover, although the use of dung within the insulation of half-timber houses has been scientifically proven, its integration in later houses has appeared less frequently. This is probably due to the fact that experience showed that the addition of organic material within the building fabric led to greater disadvantages (formation of cavities, cracking, possible stench, etc.) than advantages, due to the natural decomposition of the material. By the way, the wooden struts of half-timber houses serve to brace against wind loads, redirect loads or distribute larger loads. In modern wood frame constructions high-density fiberboard or drywall is commonly used to transfer wind loads. And I don't want to burst your bubble, but the towers of your dream house definitely need to have windows removed in the lower level... ^^ This comment is in no way meant to be mean or accusatory, but to help clarify some things, just as you are helping us to better understand things around the Middle Ages. I really love and appreciate your work!
Very similar to "plaster and lathe" wall construction. Very common USA interior walls in the through 1950s. Overall idea, get a bunch of thin wood to make a mesh, and fill in the gaps with dirt or plaster.
Wow the timing on this one, I was just recently looking up information about this construction method because one of the Minecraft mods I play with features it and all of a sudden you post a video all about it XD I learned a lot from this, thank you :)
10:18 Saw are not the only way to make planks, axes would have been used as well, or instead. For instance acording to the Baueaux tapestry: the fleet that invaded England in 1066 was made pretty much only using axes. Axes and wedges would also make the production of planks less labour intesive, in the absence of powered saws, as the split the wood.
Awesome video! One bone to pick: stone is actually a very poor insulator and those homes, to my knowledge, were cooooold...But the big bad wolf can't blow it down. And wood is also a poor insulator, but it has great thermal mass, which keeps your home cozy anyway.
Here's a vid of the Primitive Technology guy making a wattle & daub hut & hearth in Australia, using only tools he made and in-situ materials: ruclips.net/video/nCKkHqlx9dE/видео.html The whole series/channel shows how much can be done with independent traditional skills. However, if you compare the wattle & daub construction to his "Tile Roof Hut" video, you can see what Shad meant about how much extra labor it can take to build at a next higher level of tech.
Excellent video, very interesting and well presented. I do love the look of these buildings. A few years ago, my wife and I visited the UK, and one of the places we went to see was Chester, where there are a lot of really beautiful buildings which share many visual elements of medieval cottages, although I suspect they may not actually be that old.
Sometimes they aren't. Especially with materials that are... less durable. Though I've seen plenty of really old things in Europe. I used to live in the Netherlands, and go into one of the cities that's been around a while and a lot of buildings have construction years listed on them. A fair few of the buildings in most old parts of cities are between 300-600 years old. Granted these are made of brick or stone, but still... As for things made of weaker materials, yeah, authenticity is unlikely. even if the building is technically that old there's a fair chance much of it has been replaced at one point or another over the years... Still very interesting to look at, though.
Some things in Chester really are very old, however I think (this is based on information learnt from my parents as a kid, so it's accuracy may be questionable), that those white walled houses have a real timber frame, but use a brick fill, instead of wattle and daub. The bricks are then painted white to emulate the old style. The design was really popular for a period in (I believe) the 1800s.
TheSwiftFalcon, it's easy to tell if the're old or not, the real ones have misshapen beams, no straight lines, the floors are not in anyway flat, where as modern copies have perfectly sawn timbers, spirit level built perfection. www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/pictures/8832378/Quirky-properties-around-the-world-would-you-live-in-a-house-like-this.html?image=5 mysteriousfacts.com/the-crooked-houses-of-englands-lavenham/ www.cubebreaker.com/strolling-among-the-crooked-houses-of-lavenham/
@@sionjones1675 Some people think they are smart if they take out the wattle and daub and replace it with bricks. But they aren´t, they destroy the construction! The wattle and daub is more flexible and in the same time sturdy because of the interconnection of the wattle. Bricks and mortar are not very flexible, but the timber framework is - and needs flexibility. Even repairing the wattle and daub is very easy: You take the daub that broke off, pulverize it, mix it with water and throw it to the wall again. So you see, new ideas are not always better!
I am fortunate to see and have stayed in many buildings like this living in the UK they are fairly common if not the majority still in some rural areas. Another building material to check out is "cob" which is what was used before timber frames became popular. I find cob particularly interesting because despite it being just a sand clay straw mix, some examples of buildings made with it have survived for hundreds of years and are still around today and because it doesn't have any particular frame the buildings made with it are far more natural and smooth in shape. I plan to make a pizza oven out of the material and maybe a garden wall one day since it is so cheap and easy to source.
The wattle is actually quite similar to the lath in the lath and plaster style... Lath and plaster used to be the main method in homes in America (and I imagine most of Europe) over the past century or two... It's only quite recently (50 years?) people have moved to drywall. The interesting bit with doing lath and plaster is that the plaster is typically pushed into the gaps between the lath, called the keys. Having the wall completely covered in lath would cause the plaster to just fall right off. The wattle is very similar, since it has such large gaps. I wouldn't expect that mud to be stable without being pushed into those gaps to some degree.
From what I understand, it is pressed in on both sides to form a solid mass of wood and mud. I imagine there was a fair amount of variety since construction was a lot less standardized back then. I have seen examples elsewhere on RUclips of people forming ropes instead of wads and weaving them through the wattles. That seems like it would be a great way to compensate for mud with too much clay/too little sand...
In Lincolnshire UK - it isn’t wattle and daub, that strictly is the infilling of the framing, but “mud and stud”. The internal sub framing is thinner wood to largely fill the gap - with a thick layer of clay on top. Animal faeces are not used here. We have lots of boulder clay here - subsoil is used. The whole panel is waterproofed with lime wash. You need hazel or willow to make wattle… limestone is available so it looks much the same with a lime coating. The comment about the difficulties of stone is somewhat different for farmers too. You need to clear fields of large stones and rocks to work them effectively. So what do you do with them? Build stuff, because it has to go somewhere… hence drystone walls in Derbyshire etc. Putting stones into foundations isn’t a bad option.
Just one thing, the dung has to be horse dung... Cows chew their plants too well, but horses don't, so you end up with a dung that is much more rich in small fibers. You can tell just by looking at it. Fibers are everything... the theory is that the straw keeps the dirt from developing large cracks, wile the dung (smaller fibers) keep the smaller cracks from forming. It would be better to use yellow clay rather then just dirt. And you might need to give the house a smoother glaze of sand and horse dung before whitewashing. And best to do it in the autumn, so the walls dry out slowly, this way it's more likely not to get cracks.
you don't build it in autumn so it dries out slowly, you build it in autumn so that it dries out at all.
it's a common misconception that warm air dries out walls quickly, this is not the case since the walls are actually colder than the surrounding air, you get condensation on the walls, making them more moist. it's a common problem in modern times, when people who do not know this, start building houses in spring, expecting to move in later the same year, they're asking to get mold.
during winter the cold dry air, that central europe gets around january, dries out walls which is why traditionally, building a house would take two to three years, depending on whether or not you wanted a cellar.
if you're building a cellar you'd spend one year digging out and building the cellar, let it dry over winter, then build the rest of the house up to the roof, let it dry over winter again and then you finish with plaster, installing doors and windows and then all the internal stuff.
@@windhelmguard5295 I understand what you are trying to say, but you don't take into consideration the increased evaporation that summer with it's warm air brings. Condensation on walls might be occurring on an inside part of an uninsulated wall during winter... But that's because the inside air is at about 23 celsius, which can hold a lot of moisture... It's that increased insides moisture in the warm air that condenses on the colder wall... But, the same warm air (surely hotter in the summer) has the capacity to absorb moisture more and faster from a wet wall then the cold air in autumn or winter...
Cold air is generally dryer, yes, but that's because it can't hold too much water... And naturally won't take away much of the moisture in your wall.
@@purpleldv966
i see you didn't get what i' talking about at all, yes warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, but that is only the case if said warm air isn't already moist to begin with, which it usually is because most of the warm air we get in central europe comes from the atlantic ocean.
second problem is that moist air is heavy (meaning it sinks) and dry air is light, so it rises, similarly warm air rises and cold air falls.
what this does to a building is that, during summer, the moist air sinks and collects in the lower rooms of the house, where it cools off and then just sits there. that's why your cellar is more comfortable than your attic during summer.
during winter on the other hand the cold dry air from outside will sink into the lower stories where the walls (receiving warmth from the soil below) are warmer than the air, the cold air goes in, heats up from the walls and the rises back out, the moisture doesn't stay inside.
you can trust me on how stuff dries in cold weather, i can hang my laundry outside at -20°C and it'll dry over night, whereas during summer it needs sunlight to dry at all.
yes, horse is not a ruminant like the cow (or a deer... or a giraffe, you know, a very medieval european animal, lol)... horse lacks the "multipe stomachs" (actually a multi-chambered single stomach) of a cow, horse's digestive system is similar to the one humans have - a simple one... In my language, horse dung is (colloquially) called "doughnut" (the holeless "berliner" kind) >:D
@@ArinJager1 Yes. But why am I sensing irony or that you imply that I do not know that, in your explanation?
I just realized something.
RUclipsrs like this- Who spend the bulk of their channel talking about some topic and trying to educate us about it, complimented with visuals to help us along- There's no difference at all between them and a college professor giving a PowerPoint lecture. Now the professor is generally more knowledgeable, that's understandable, but by-and-large these RUclipsrs know their stuff. It's amazing that we are so willing to spend literally hours watching these videos, and it's exactly like sitting through a lecture. And WE ARE LEARNING.
I really think this is education of the future.
I heartily agree, but be advised, not much on youtube is peer reviewed for accuracy. Then again, I've had some professors who were clearly presenting their own personal ideas as facts and I could have called them out on it, but I wanted an A and didn't want another silly tit for tat contest so I yes sired my way through to my A.
So in a formula: Learning = College Education - Personal Submission. But Usually Pure Learning adds experience to your life.
If you haven't tested your ideas to see if they're correct or not, you haven't learned, you've just speculated. That's just my opinion though. There's unlimited room in the comments section to write your own and see if you can do better. Show me a college with unlimited class time to fully consider everyone's thoughts.
Moral of the story = go to college if you must, but not an expensive one.
In fact, you can learn a career that is self sufficient (home business) completely from information that is freely available on the internet. The hard part would be trying to get employment from a company, though a home business wouldn't need that. My personal focus is on video game design.
The difference is a professor needs to have his stuff properly sourced, but on RUclips there is no quality control worth mentioning.
Reliability suffers as a result.
Excellent example: Anti-vax 'documentaries' that try to persuade you to harm or kill children.
At least in Germany a university professor could tell hwat he wants and nobody could do something about it.
Professors and other Academics tend to have other thing on the side to then just hold lectures. Often they do other stuff then teaching to on the side. In fact the teaching for many is just the side gig.
Personally I think that the future of education is a mixture of different sources. In the not so distant future guided by advanced software that keeps you engage and helps you find good sources. (Call then teaching AIs or Algorithms). The future will likely be decentralized learning available at no cost. The Utility of having a educated population is just far to great in the post-information era.
Here in germany we actually have companies that build these houses today. But since they insulate so freaking well and look really good they are actually very expensive
You mean houses made of durt and straw and branches and dung? How expensive? For how much do the companies sell them for?
@@purpleldv966 I'm just spit-balling here, but they may be using another material that doesn't use dung. Not only could it prevent the spread of illness, but also may potentially be better in some way.
@@andrewmurray9701 today maybe... but back in the day, it was horse shit all around! :D
But i'm very curious for what price people are willing to buy a primitive house today...
Shit is not an officially approved building material in modern Germany.
You'd have to find alternative insulation, I'm sad to say.😀
I reckon they would be. I only saw new houses in a new district being built in a humble little place in Fegersheim, FR. As always, I saw tagging relating to the checking of the archeologist report prior to construction. Adds so much expense... but necessary do you not think? I always liked visiting the möbile and immöbile windows for fun and inspiration 😊😊😊
I don't know why I just noticed this after so many videos, but I wanted to point out how much I appreciate the "interaction" with the put-up pictures, Shad. Saying "Here's [x] thing" and turning to actually look at where it's going to be in the video really does a fantastic job in selling the friendliness and authenticity of the lecture. It's a little detail that goes a long way.
I don't believe for a second that's your real dream home.
I mean, come on. There isn't a single machicolation on it!
and; what about Dragons?
lol
he can still say "i miss my MACHICOLATIONS!" every day in his dream home.. ;)
MACHOLATIONSSSZZDBBGCJBU
my medieval dream home would have a moat with a drawbridge, to keep out surprise visitors.
Machicolatiooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon
In Holland the homes are called "Vakwerk" and in Germany "Fachwerk" . Vak or Fach refers to the building method but can also mean square surface
It can also mean something profane.😏 Now-a-days, anyway.
@@ecneicsPhD4554 what-
That was my first thought, too :)
And in norwegian "bindingsverk." You can perhaps immagine how that the languages have a common origin, and actually was almost the same 1000 years ago; the woodWORK ("treVERK") is bound ("binding") together by other material
@@Overlegen they are all Germanic languages I think
Maybe something else interesting to mention: because timber wasn't cheap you were actually able to tell how rich a person was by looking at their homes, the more visible timber they were able show build into the structure the deeper the pockets.
One point you didn't touch on, is the fact that wattle & daub houses were easy and cheap to repair.
If a stone wall breaks, it sort of crumbles in a large area, and takes a lot of time to repair, and you can have a catastrophic collapse.
When a log in a log cabin rots, you have to take the building apart a bit, and replace the whole log .. very difficult.
You don't have to take the building entirely apart, but it is a lot of work.
When a waddle & daub section broke, you just knocked it out and rebuild that section.
And since the timber was partly exposed, you could add some rows of hooks, and hang straw cladding, to insulate further, during winter, which could make quite a difference .. then in the spring when the straw cladding started rotting, you threw it away, so it would not damage the timber.
He didn't say it in so many words, but he did refer to them as being 'cost effective'.
@@Mihoshika
True, he did ... though I would have liked to see him dig into it a bit more, ease of maintenance, and cost of maintenance, is an important part of a building after all.
Well said, good to know.
Back in school we made a day trip to a "medieval village" in construction (probably an archaeological experiment of some sorts) where we helped to make the daub and plaster the braided walls with it. Needless to say it was very exhausting but in retrospect also kinda fun.
Me and the boys are going to make wattle and daub houses in the woods who's with me
I'm in!
ok ,I'm late ?
AYE!!
I'm late to the party, but I literally just shared this to a friend, who wants to build a timber cabin, as an alternative idea.
I’ve got the woods, and a whole paddock full of horse manure.
I actually live in a renovated old wattle and daub farmhouse (countryside of north rhine westphalia), so I love this architectural style. When my parents bought the (abandoned) house they had to promise the previous owners to not change the exterior overly. My father adhered to it so much he bought loam to repair holes in the walls. The house was so rundown though, they only had to pay for the over 400 year old oak beams in the house (I still have them holding up the ceiling of my room - they're super bent!). In recent years our street has been added to a hiking trail in the area specifically for showing off old historical buildings in the wattle and daub style. :D
Maleha: I live in the same region. Our house was built in 1920. The outward walls are stone to basement height, above that bricks plastered. But all the interior walls are halftimbered with a wattle and daub filling. I found that out when I was replacing the electrical wiring.
This would actually be pretty fun summer project to make with kids as a little club house or something.
I'm in my twenties, but can you adopt me?
Me two?
Thompsonator469 Found a rare pokemon!
The fun part is of course going be the dung!
Where would you get the poop from tho?
So many cute couples in architecture:
Wattle & Daub
Motte & Bailey
Mortise & Tenon
Post & Lintel
Brick & Mortar
Merlon & Crenel
PhilBagels
Moe or ship ?
Straw & Shite
I 'ship 'em.
shad & machiculations
Rod & Beam, don't forget these!
Thanks Shad, as a first year Civil Engineering student wanting to go into Structural Engineering your medieval engineering/architecture videos give a lot more passion for what I study
In Sweden we still have quite a lot of these historical buildings. We call them korsvirkeshus directly translates to "cross timber houses".
In German, the walls inside a house are actually called "Wand" (plural "Wände"), which is a word coming from the verb "winden" (very closely related to the English verb "to wind"). So as you can see, in German the idea that the walls of a house are "wound" or as you would rather say in English "woven", as in a wattle and daub house, has survived in the language until modern times, showing just how common this type of constuction used to be.
Just a small fact in case anybody is interested.
Edit for spelling.
So when im house hunting, and my wife points out a waddle and daub that she likes, than i can say, “That house is shit... Literally.” Got it.
Wattle not Waddle.
+Fran Ohmsford he said they put the hay-fed animal shit in there for the fibers.
Wattle and daub is usually called "Tudor style" by most architects.
So when I'm house hunting, and my wife points out a house and asks, "Do you like this waddle and daub?", and I retort... "No no no honey.... Its WATTLE,. not waddle. The spelling police on Shad's channel told me so....", then I can expect to be sleeping on the couch for being a jerk. Got it.
So you like having bruises?
*throwing some dung to a random hovel
"PETER!!! what are you doing to my home!!??"
"I'm insulating it!!!"
*inshulating
I've always known this as Tudor box-frame. Never heard of the other terms. The town of Chester has the most amazing concentration of these buildings (plus a Roman wall) and is well worth a visit.
They are also known as "post and beam". The same framing is used in straw bale buildings. The English name for dirt houses is "cob construction", but Americans use the Spanish term adobe.
I don't know why English has no proper name for this style of building. In German it's called "Fachwerk", which roughly equates to "Crafted from compartments".
Dutch analogue: vakwerk
Aetrion depending on the age of the building it is either called Tudor (ancient) or mock-Tudor (Victorian era or later).
In the USA we call that style hu
house English Tudor
@@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 No it is not, tudor describes the time period only. Half-timbering has been done for much longer. Tudor is a variation on half timbering and is usually much more decorative.
we do, the aesthetic is called half timbering, which literally means the same as "Fachwerk" and directly translate to one another. The material used varies, so this particular one is called wattle and daub.
I’ve been building structures of all types for 39 years and I never tire of watching the techniques of early times. Great video!
You're really into building eh?
You did leave out one major advantage that log cabin style construction has over wattle and daub construction. While it does require substantially more timber and labor, the labor it requires is substantially less skilled. You need someone with architectural or carpentry knowledge to build the timber frame for a wattle and daube house, while most people could build a log structure themselves. This is why log cabins were so common on the American frontier, while wattle and daub never made it past the east coast colonies.
or, we could just say rammed earth construction is easier than both
If you look at it, log cabins where common where there was enough wood to justify building a house of massive wood.
Well of course, but that has little to do with my point.
I was thinking about a preserved cabin I saw at Grande Teton National Park while watching this video. The construction was certainly much less sophisticated... Even assuming that something like daub was used to patch the extensive gaps (you could look through the cabin in some places), it had to have been a rather drafty build in a place where the winters aren't forgiving.
Most cabins like that would have been sealed with mud between the gaps while the home was inhabited, but because it was literally just jamming some dirt in the holes without any preservation, once no longer maintained it erodes.
11:19 is, I think, the reason it is called the ground floor and first floor. The ground floor was just that: a floor of ground. It was used for work, to house cattle in some cases and other things you don't need a wooden floor for.
I love medieval history; I'm large on the armour, weapons, who'd ruled, what wars are happening, fashion, food... so on. But you know what videos are hard to find on RUclips? Structural videos on the 11th-13th century. Castles? lots of content! Other places of living and culture? Hard... hard to find. You've gone into excellent detail on the purposes behind medieval architecture and for that I am very grateful! Subscribed!
Wattle and daub construction was also very common in Mississippian culture in the Americas. Love the videos, Shad!
THANK YOU, SHAD!
All recent videos on castles and medieval buildings - absolutely amazing.
And your manner of presenting the material - with a nice proportion of humour and dynamics of speech - just wonderful!
Don’t know how I stumbled upon this channel but as a history buff I totally dig it. Good show, Sir.
*firm handshake*
Can you make a video about Walls? I mean Walls like "Hadrian's Wall", "The Wall of China" etc. Walls that were built to keep people out of certain areas instead of being part of a castle.
I think I can.
@Srithor lol
Don't forget the Limes.
Srithor lol, the exploitation of illegal immigrants as slave labor is so funny!
Oh boy, here we go getting political.
When you said dirt houses, I immediately thought of Minecraft.
me too, instantly imagined a dirt box with a door
Ever heard of mud bricks?
The fecies in the Stuff also makes the Result harder but also more flexible - has something to do with the Carbonide in it iirc. Also, it "foams" the result, so it gets better in thermal insulation and also it regulates humidity inside.. And it is not "just Dirt or Mud" - it is Claybased and a Mixture as even Clay is Expensive plus Mixing in Stuff makes it better.
The Whiting was not so much to prevent Whithering away, it was more to prevent Fungii to take root - but yeah, the alkaline Property also helps against it withering.
Sorry for not knowing the specific english Terms, learned about it in Germany.
Love this! I never really gave it much thought, but when the title appeared in my list of suggested videos, I thought, "Yeah, why is that?" I'm glad Shad's here to answer those questions!
someone should really consult with you if they ever make a medieval themed game
I would if i could~ but me and my friend are still practising with modeling and coding before doing anything like this
I've worked in construction most my life by trade, built houses from the ground up and everything in between and you've done a good job on explaining these types of buildings!! cool and accurate informational video, love it!
I've heard many people call the white walls with brown beams called "Tudor" style
That's exactly what it is called, how is it that no one knows this????
@@Alexandra_Hill Yeah, but it wasn't originally a Tudor style. It was being used long before anyone ever heard of Henry Tudor, and it was used in lots of European countries. The Victorians started building in this style again and called it Tudor Revival or Mock Tudor. But, if we're talking historically, the first several centuries it was used, no one called it Tudor at all.
@@LynxSouth Ah right, didn't know that, thanks for the info.
@Илиан Алексиев Dragons don't pair well with thatched roofs: the thatching too often catches fire when the dragons sneeze or cough, and the dragons accidentally drag the thatching off the house when they take off. A lot of interspecies hard feelings got started this way. The dragons are better off living in the treeless hills of Scotland (there's also less air traffic up there).
@Илиан Алексиев
Yeah, many baby dragons get sucked into jet engines, so they are better off in areas with less traffic.
Expulse your dragons to the scottish mountains today - Think of the baby dragons!
I love the aesthetic of Medieval wattle and daub (half-timber) construction. I have wanted to build my own home in this style for years. It would be nice to mimic this style with a facade on a modern frame, but it would be much nicer to actually build an authentic structure.
I'll be honest,. I clicked on the video because I saw it my recommended section and thought the title was stupid.
"Made of white rectangles? Yeah, right. That guy seems to be a real expert."
Then it turned out to be a really good and informative video. Then I subscribed.
The End.
My grandparents in Romania build their homes using the dirt bricks mixed with straws and dung you mentioned in the video except the only wood used for the home was for the roof.
I really love how you explain stuff. You make it very easy to digest. Thanks for all the great content.
Have you ever thought about doing a series of life in medieval times? Everything from building a house to clothing, cooking even materials used and so on? I think that would be really interesting.
If you visit Suffolk in England you will often find many of the wattle and daub homes are painted what is known as Suffolk Pink where the white wash was mixed with pigs blood or blackcurrant juice (have had both given as dyes) to make it pink. My grandmothers house, wattle and daub dating from the early 14thC, was painted yellow but the old coach buildings, which had been turned into another home, were painted white.
And I must admit, if I could ever get planning permission (and the money) I would like to have a wattle and daub house built for me to live in - can no longer do it myself unfortunately - but instead of the usual thatched roof I would like a living roof instead. And I will vouch that that my grandmothers house wasn't ever really cold. She heated it with an electric 3bar heater in the living room and another one at the foot of the stairs which came on early in the morning. The coldest part, by far, was the much later addition of the kitchen and bathroom out the back, built from brick and absolutely freezing cold in winter. But the wattle and daub part was lovely and toasty. And cool in summer.
That was genuinely fascinating. I feel like I've learned something I won't forget five minutes later today.
In the UK, a lot of people refer to more modern attempts at this aesthetic as "mock-Tudor".
EWe have a lot of ply-wood tents in the USA which try to look as if they are something special by adding an attempt to look classy by adding a few
Fachwerk features. they usually fail to dress up the cheap overall appearance of Fake Fachwerk. The way to see a difference is by noticing the rigidly straight lines in the careless American reproductions. The European originals often use naturally irregular pieces of wood which take a little more work but add the beautiful curved lines we see at the beach. If ladies were shaped with straight lines there might never be a next generation.
@@williamwigham7866 I love me some Fachwerk ladies. Sturdy and curved, oh my!
It's called Fachwerk in German. We have many houses like that, and people love them. Both my neighbours have Fachwerk-houses, too.
I love them. It pisses me off, that some were forced to cover it up due to isolation or fire hazard regulations.
In french it's Colombage. There are a lot of those in rural villages.
A interesting fact is that in medieval times you would not have seen the Fachwerk. To prevent the wood from decaying because of the weather the whole wall was covered in a layer of mortar. The wood only got exposed in later times because people like the look.
I never heard of it before, but it makes some sense. However, AFAIK covering the wood can cause sweating and rot from within, which is something people experienced after the German government forced them to dump isolation material on their historic houses.
PS: I wonder how churches looked back then. I saw a few with paint residues indicating that they were completely covered in some kind of painting. Shad referenced that fact in his video on Kingdom.
It really pisses me off, seeing some churches where the paintings are allowed to peal off over time, while the church swims in money.
TheExplodingChipmunk Not true for every region. I think in northern Germany the Fachwerk is more rectangular and plain, but in other regions, Baden Württemberg for example the Fachwerk is often very elaborate and fancy because it was visible.
I be heard a part of a radio interview with an expert on that topic who explained that they also examine the properties of the old houses for earthquake prove houses. The Fachwerk is often so interlocked that it won't give in, even if you remove large beams, it gets crocked bit it will stay functional
but the real question is what about dragons?
That's why they stopped using thatched roofs
@@charlesholmgren679 BUT... BUT.... WHAT ABOUT THE DRAGONS?
That’s just Sybil Shepherd
The dragons set your home on fire. The dung in the daub makes the fire burn hotter. So the dragon gets a well done lunch.
Simple Solution: Do not marry one.
Great video. However I'm an energy auditor and stone does not have good insulation properties. It has high thermal mass, when thick, thereby allowing it to retain temperature. This however works both ways as when stone is cold it can take allot of energy to heat up. I would say that the best insulation of all three of these types of homes is the home with mud and fiber as insulation. I would say this would be the essiest to bring up to temperature and maintain that temperature.
I remember you've mentioned (in the "why homes were round", if I recall it right) that this video will come up and it got me curious enough to make my own googling on the topic in the same day. Regardless, a very infromative vid, particularly on the dung part x)
If I could make a humble request, I'd really like to see a video on the whitewash, how it was made and it's uses.
Thanks for your content, Shad =)
Ravensburger: One simple technique to make whitewash was to use milk! Milk would never be used on the inside of a building, but was often used to "paint" the outside of the building. And there was not much smell associated with said walls since the water evaporated away, leaving the less smelly solids on the walls. I would suspect that chalk was either added to the milk, or used by itself sometimes.
Wiki it like I did. It was a mixture of slaked lime & chalk that cured after applying & drying to give better weather resistance, to simplify.
It was hard to install Windows in the Medieval Period, they didn't have computers.
kill me
No, no, that was funny.
Genius. Have you ever considered comedic writing?
Starts unscrewing pommel.
Santiago Nogueiras ... they had apples
I laughed. ^_^
Wish we brought back a modern version of this style en mass to reclaim some European culture. Too often houses are lifeless brick husks. I want more of this!
Thanks for sharing your videos. The first picture of the tudor house is a house at the weald and downland museum in Singleton, West Sussex UK. It was saved from destruction when a reservoir was being built and taken down and re assembled at the museum. I was married in the building in 2010.
One thing about cow dung is that they will stay places sometimes up to years, literally we’ve Berried stuff and marked it with cow dung ( after about a month it is clean to pick up) and we’ll come back to it years later and it will still be there
A quite shockingly interesting video. I am quite glad RUclips recommended it to me.
8:05 they "pollarded" the trees. learned that from lindybeige. the amount of knowledge i gained from you, lindy and Skal is simply astonishing. Time to give back. Shad: Did you know that in germany people say "Er ist Steinreich" literally: "he is stone-rich". this originates from the mix form you mentioned in the end. So someone who is wealthy enough to have the first floor build from stone in a medieval city was "stone-rich"
Stone Rich meant that you could build you house completly out of stone. The first floor was kinda standard at least in the south.
TheWampam later on, yes. Although i can't think of any houses here i my area from the medieval period that are completely made of stone, apart from town halls, churches and defensive structures of course. All the rich merchants houses that enrich our town centres are from the Renaissance era.
Franz Bauer Same expression about "stone rich" exists in Swedish.
Usually it is way easier to build stone houses in mountainous regions, there is stone lying around everywhere, while in the low lands it's much harder to find.
Nie drüber nachgedacht, danke!
This was one of those questions I didn't know I wanted the answer to until the question was asked. Thank you kindly sir!
In the states, this is usually called the Tudor style. It has gone in and out of fashion for years. The last big Tudor revival was in the 1920s but it also had a slight resurgence in the late 60s and early 70s. The only big differences were that most people opted for expanded metal instead of wattle and stucco instead of dab. Also they went with shingle roofs instead of thatch. Most of these homes had craftsmen interiors with a lot of built ins and somewhat unmatched swing out (or in) windows.
I lived in Germany for 5 years, and even today they are still building homes in this style. Infact, I loved this style so much that if I ever build my own home I will not accept anything less then at the very least this look on the outside. In my opinion it's just one of the most beautiful designs ever and I hope it never goes away.
You forgot to tell us what “white wash” actually is. Why does it stop erosion? What is it made of?
Whitewash, or...lime paint is a low-cost type of paint made from slaked lime and chalk, sometimes known as "whiting".
It doesn't stop erosion but having that extra layer between the dirt and the weather probably didn't hurt.
whitewash may not have any effect on physical erosion, but trees around the world are whitewashed
up to around waist height to protect the wood from bacterial infections, and from insects laying eggs.
as an extra perk, layers of whitewash eventually exfoliate making it less necessary to wash the walls.
@@samikay9599 Actually, a good layer of whitewash (made properly) is a very good waterproofing. One of the reasons adobe buildings are whitewashed is to prevent rain erosion. (Grew up in rural South America, first hand experience!)
@@samikay9599 When allowed to harden properly, and as the layers build up, it is very resistant to water and normal rain and wind erosion so will protect cob and daub pretty effectively. I have quite a bit of experience with it :)
10:22 That would actually be a frame saw. It's being used as a rip saw in the image (apparently). But to know if the blade was of a rip saw type for certain, we would have to take measure of the angle the teeth are cut at (which is not possible unfortunately). thereabout of 90° cut to the teeth would make it a rip saw (ideal for cutting with grain). Thereabouts of 20° cut to the teeth would back it a crosscut saw (ideal for cutting against grain).
Likely given the type of frame and way it's shown to be used, it is a rip saw type of blade. But it's first and foremost a frame saw. You might say that a frame saw of this type might as well be called a rip saw because frame saws of this type are invariably rip saw bladed. But that's not necessarily true. There are odd ball examples that throw things off and make it a far less accurate assertion than one would like.
For instance I own a Disston back saw. But what is it exactly? Well the blade is 12" x 3½" and it's teeth are crosscut. So you would naturally assume it's a small carcase saw. Until I break the wingnut at the end, and drop the tension lever on the handle allowing me to remove the blade and flip it around to the spine where it has another set of teeth that were hidden by the back (which is in actuality not just a stopper and rigidity reinforcer but a clamp as well). I insert it at an angle a little further back and after tightening back down the saw effectively becomes 10" x 2½" with rip saw teeth...Guess it's a large dovetail saw now.
The size of the blade and tooth set type is what normally distinguishes between different backsaws. But here that's a variable factor. So all I can really say is that it's a backsaw. But I wouldn't call it a ripsaw or cross cut. Universal wouldn't even be right because each side has a single ppi.
I'd like to point out that rain was still an issue. That's why many framework houses rest on a 30cm/1ft of stone, if not an entire floor. Moreover, the roofs are oversized acting as an umbrella.
As a sidenote: it was invented when people moved north where dried earth homes didn't survive the regular rain. Since framework homes rely on the strength of timber and not dried earth, they could adapt quickly.
In fact all baserris ( basque classical houses/cottages) are made from a layer of stone in the bottom and working upwards with this type of usage of timber and clay, it's so pretty yet so efficient.
In Poland we still build timber homes. They're very popular in the mountains. Also there are lots of new inns built this way.
Shad this is why I love your content.
The reason windows became so big was to give batman something to bust through because he can't use doors for some reason.
Then tell your "friend" to not do that bruce v_v
Loved this video! Great to have all the terminology for this now. Thank you, Shad!
There's not all that much difference between the structure of these walls and the plastered walls of my (pre sheetrock) 1940's era house.
@Rayane Larchmont It's all about that peach bass.
yeap, plastered battens/slats were the industrial evolution of wattle and daub.
In Finland it was most common to build houses from wood. There were made those kind of houses in cities but the common people usually used wood couse Finland was basicly a big forest and wood was very easy to move on water( In Finland there is ovet 180 thousend lakes). There may been houses made of brick also, but wood was most common.
Canada's got wood....
Tommy O Donovan So? I dont think Canada had any mediavel era, and their colonial history starts from the 16th or 17th century, pretty late.
@@tommyodonovan3883 and lakes, and builds chiefly out of wood when off the grid. Log cabins galore.
shad i think you should give your patreons a nickname like your chevaliers or your knights of the machiculations
the Knights of Shad. machicolations is their battle cry.
The Knightly Order of Shadiversity!
marebbpc Jesus Christ, I thought there was nothing lamer than Chadley's blazer, then I read this comment.
I like that second one
@Sith'ari Azithoth i like that idea~
Funfact: it has been suggested to reintroduce this method after the earthquake in Haiti. Wooden structures are very resilient to earthquakes and you can see in these structures immediately, if they saved beams. Moreover, if you got cheap labour, the building costs are _dirt_-cheap...
The problem is that Haiti has suffered from extreme deforestation. Not a lot of usable timber is available.
Fun fact, this method of building is thousands of years old and preceeds the middle ages longer as one may think. Have a look at Stilt-Builders during the stone age as an example.
Nice Vid btw.
Matthias Gut American Indians of the Mississippian period also. There is a picture of one in the Wattle and Daub article on Wikipedia.
I actually missed this in the video. You don't need timberframe for wattle and daub, simple posts rammed into the ground do just as good if you only want one floor.
@Ricashbringer You're absolutely right. I've chosen the example of stilt-builders just because they've been present in the area where i live in and their techniques have been really advanced.
@TheWampam To be fair he did mention it at 1:48, he just didnt go into detail.
yeah, wattle and daub is caveman-era stuff. well, not really, since they live in houses not caves but you get what I mean
shad's talking more about how they filled out a timberframe, a thing we do even today, with this very cheap method to make a modern house out of basically dirt
@alnoso To be fair, nobody was talking about a "caveman-era". I actually don't see what argument you're trying to make, sorry.
I personally mentioned the stuilt builders during the Stone age which precedes even the earrly middle ages by about 7000 years or more where the same building methods were used. Maybe not as "shiny" as in the middle ages onwards but the same principle. People do live in what can be described as houses since thousands and thousands of years, it's not like we lived in caves and the next thing was the medieval timberframe house.
Btw my initial comment was not meant as criticism of his video but solely as an addendum.
I really think this architecture of medieval times is so nice looking and I’d take a medieval house like that over any modern house.
Step one: buy a cow.
I wonder why this style wasn't used as much in the early US. Seems like the stereotypical log cabin was much more common. Although, I am aware that dugout homes were also widely used in the midwest due to lack of timber/cost of having it imported.
I love videos going into how things were done back in THE DAY. It really helps me enhance the fantasy or historic realms I make to play games in :D
You are better than a history teacher
I think he technically is a history teacher, I mean he teaches me a lot of thing about historical subjects
The cool and very smart guy
Vry cool
Well... he is a history teacher. All he does is talk about history. :)
Its called "Bauhaus" in German. These houses are everywhere here in southern Germany. Many people actually cover up the pattern on their old houses because it is so common and generally seen as "boring" or just old.
No, it's not called "Bauhaus" in Germany. In no way! It's called "Fachwerkhaus". Bauhaus is a term for a very modern style (blocky, steel, concrete, glass, flat roof). Just google that 2 terms and klick on pictures to get an impression.
Every region of Europe that had a lot of timber preferred Log cabins over wattle and daub (Scandinavia, Russia, Eastern Europe). American settlers also preferred log cabins. Even the British settlers adopted the building style overtime.
Fact is that log houses are simpler to build. Building the timber frame itself involves quite a bit of work and a level of craftsmanship that stacking logs simply doesn´t. building a log house can be physically hard, but labor wasn´t exactly something our
ancestor where afraid of.
I had no idea that the "white-panelled" buildings (I always thought of them as being Tudor style) were wattle-and-daub. Always thought of that construction method as being exclusive to village hovels rather than these nice houses.
Thanks for educating me, Shad.
Very nice video; on point and well explained. This topic is so interesting that I even made a presentation about it last Friday. You really need to look up the three major styles of the half-timbered houses in central Europe (lower saxon, frankish and the alemannic style). You're going to love it! You only showed pictures of the english style. There is so much to discover on how they build those houses in certain areas an how those styles developed. The german word for half-timbered house really pin points it: "Fachwerkhaus" translates to "Fach" which is the part of a shelf in which you put the books; "werk" which is work and "haus". So the Fachwerkhaus could be called a shelf-worked house which is in my opinion a more precise term than half-timbered.
"shelf-worked house" - Oh, great, trying to translate and explain a term of BACK THEN with word meanings of TODAY. You fail linguistics forever.
Super interesting I learned something today few of these houses in Winchester near me. Explains now why the walls bow out if it's only a wattle with dirt in it
It's just how early versions of Blender worked. And all squares is easier on the graphics card, too. Tech just wasn't that far back then after all.
This is also the reason brick building became so common during the Industrial revolution, the update allowed way more squares than before so people could make lots of little squares we now refer to as bricks. The Egyptians used a very early version which is why the pyramids have such a simple shape.
Interesting side note: They updated the mesh of Cologne Cathedral a few years ago, replaced one of the original windows with a new one that is just hundreds and hundreds of little clorful squares. They got it wrong though: They call the squares pixels. Technically, these are polygons. Except of course, it really is just a new texture with a bumpmap, that may well be.
I suck at blender ;-;
Another wonderful video! As a structural engineer, I'm impressed by how much you generally understand about structural engineering and building physics. And even if some of your statements here and there lacked a bit of substance, you definitely didn't say anything wrong...
But I would like to note a few things in spite of everything. "Dirt" was not and still is not used to insulate timber frameworks. Here it needs the application of fine-grained soil, preferably clay or loam (mixture of sand, silt and clay). This distinction is important because dirt can be virtually anything (including sand, gravel, scurf and so on). Moreover, although the use of dung within the insulation of half-timber houses has been scientifically proven, its integration in later houses has appeared less frequently. This is probably due to the fact that experience showed that the addition of organic material within the building fabric led to greater disadvantages (formation of cavities, cracking, possible stench, etc.) than advantages, due to the natural decomposition of the material.
By the way, the wooden struts of half-timber houses serve to brace against wind loads, redirect loads or distribute larger loads. In modern wood frame constructions high-density fiberboard or drywall is commonly used to transfer wind loads.
And I don't want to burst your bubble, but the towers of your dream house definitely need to have windows removed in the lower level... ^^
This comment is in no way meant to be mean or accusatory, but to help clarify some things, just as you are helping us to better understand things around the Middle Ages. I really love and appreciate your work!
Very similar to "plaster and lathe" wall construction. Very common USA interior walls in the through 1950s. Overall idea, get a bunch of thin wood to make a mesh, and fill in the gaps with dirt or plaster.
Wow the timing on this one, I was just recently looking up information about this construction method because one of the Minecraft mods I play with features it and all of a sudden you post a video all about it XD I learned a lot from this, thank you :)
10:18 Saw are not the only way to make planks, axes would have been used as well, or instead. For instance acording to the Baueaux tapestry: the fleet that invaded England in 1066 was made pretty much only using axes. Axes and wedges would also make the production of planks less labour intesive, in the absence of powered saws, as the split the wood.
Indeed, but you won't get straight edges. Which doesn't really matter if you let them overlap like in shads example.
*Bayeux
I love this topic. It's really cool, even traditional Japanese homes/buildings are wattle and daub 'but of a different aesthetic style'
...especially the Japanese kura. The main advantage is that they are fireproof.
I never actually KNEW what the term for that type of walling was, thank you.
I love the RUclips button framed and up on the wall like a degree lol
Primitive Technology has already build wattle and daub huts, but a half timbered wattle and daub hut would be the next level!
Great video! These homes are gorgeous and it's fascinating to know how and why they're made like this.
Interesting, I never imagined they were made this way.
Here in Brazil this method is called "pau a pique", and it's common to this day.
Question; How well constructed would the three homesteads from Skyrim's Hearthfire DLC be?
Awesome video! One bone to pick: stone is actually a very poor insulator and those homes, to my knowledge, were cooooold...But the big bad wolf can't blow it down. And wood is also a poor insulator, but it has great thermal mass, which keeps your home cozy anyway.
Here's a vid of the Primitive Technology guy making a wattle & daub hut & hearth in Australia, using only tools he made and in-situ materials:
ruclips.net/video/nCKkHqlx9dE/видео.html
The whole series/channel shows how much can be done with independent traditional skills. However, if you compare the wattle & daub construction to his "Tile Roof Hut" video, you can see what Shad meant about how much extra labor it can take to build at a next higher level of tech.
I was thinking about him (PT) when Shad focused on and shown a photo (7:19) of the wattle & daub.
... in-situ
Or you can upgrade Laboratory, or use spies to steal the enemies' Research.
Excellent video, very interesting and well presented.
I do love the look of these buildings. A few years ago, my wife and I visited the UK, and one of the places we went to see was Chester, where there are a lot of really beautiful buildings which share many visual elements of medieval cottages, although I suspect they may not actually be that old.
Sometimes they aren't. Especially with materials that are... less durable.
Though I've seen plenty of really old things in Europe.
I used to live in the Netherlands, and go into one of the cities that's been around a while and a lot of buildings have construction years listed on them.
A fair few of the buildings in most old parts of cities are between 300-600 years old.
Granted these are made of brick or stone, but still...
As for things made of weaker materials, yeah, authenticity is unlikely. even if the building is technically that old there's a fair chance much of it has been replaced at one point or another over the years...
Still very interesting to look at, though.
Some things in Chester really are very old, however I think (this is based on information learnt from my parents as a kid, so it's accuracy may be questionable), that those white walled houses have a real timber frame, but use a brick fill, instead of wattle and daub. The bricks are then painted white to emulate the old style. The design was really popular for a period in (I believe) the 1800s.
TheSwiftFalcon, it's easy to tell if the're old or not, the real ones have misshapen beams, no straight lines, the floors are not in anyway flat, where as modern copies have perfectly sawn timbers, spirit level built perfection.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/pictures/8832378/Quirky-properties-around-the-world-would-you-live-in-a-house-like-this.html?image=5
mysteriousfacts.com/the-crooked-houses-of-englands-lavenham/
www.cubebreaker.com/strolling-among-the-crooked-houses-of-lavenham/
@@sionjones1675 Some people think they are smart if they take out the wattle and daub and replace it with bricks. But they aren´t, they destroy the construction! The wattle and daub is more flexible and in the same time sturdy because of the interconnection of the wattle. Bricks and mortar are not very flexible, but the timber framework is - and needs flexibility.
Even repairing the wattle and daub is very easy: You take the daub that broke off, pulverize it, mix it with water and throw it to the wall again. So you see, new ideas are not always better!
Your dream house needs more meticulations.
In the US building industry, it's just called 'Tudor', and it's common with stucco houses still. My own personal house is like that, and I love it.
I am fortunate to see and have stayed in many buildings like this living in the UK they are fairly common if not the majority still in some rural areas. Another building material to check out is "cob" which is what was used before timber frames became popular. I find cob particularly interesting because despite it being just a sand clay straw mix, some examples of buildings made with it have survived for hundreds of years and are still around today and because it doesn't have any particular frame the buildings made with it are far more natural and smooth in shape. I plan to make a pizza oven out of the material and maybe a garden wall one day since it is so cheap and easy to source.
Damn, now I want one :/
The wattle is actually quite similar to the lath in the lath and plaster style... Lath and plaster used to be the main method in homes in America (and I imagine most of Europe) over the past century or two... It's only quite recently (50 years?) people have moved to drywall.
The interesting bit with doing lath and plaster is that the plaster is typically pushed into the gaps between the lath, called the keys. Having the wall completely covered in lath would cause the plaster to just fall right off. The wattle is very similar, since it has such large gaps. I wouldn't expect that mud to be stable without being pushed into those gaps to some degree.
From what I understand, it is pressed in on both sides to form a solid mass of wood and mud. I imagine there was a fair amount of variety since construction was a lot less standardized back then. I have seen examples elsewhere on RUclips of people forming ropes instead of wads and weaving them through the wattles. That seems like it would be a great way to compensate for mud with too much clay/too little sand...
1.3k likes to 1 dislike... this is the best ratio I've seen in years
Please make a vid on building Medieval stone homes too.
Love your architectural videos.
In Lincolnshire UK - it isn’t wattle and daub, that strictly is the infilling of the framing, but “mud and stud”. The internal sub framing is thinner wood to largely fill the gap - with a thick layer of clay on top. Animal faeces are not used here. We have lots of boulder clay here - subsoil is used. The whole panel is waterproofed with lime wash. You need hazel or willow to make wattle… limestone is available so it looks much the same with a lime coating.
The comment about the difficulties of stone is somewhat different for farmers too. You need to clear fields of large stones and rocks to work them effectively. So what do you do with them? Build stuff, because it has to go somewhere… hence drystone walls in Derbyshire etc. Putting stones into foundations isn’t a bad option.