8' igloo built on company campus!

[Banff Martin]

Hello,

In March after returning from vacation in BC and my 1st solo build (2nd build with tool) we had a heavy snowfall in Banff. Two days before the weekend I advertised a staff igloo build on the Banff Centre campus. I had 3 staff plus a mother and her two sons come out. There were moments of doubt in the timing of people showing up, but an 8' igloo was built!

While the igloo was built up to the 6.5th level that day and finished the next evening, it illustrated that we must have been making many technical errors to not have finished it on the first day; after the pad was built we spent 6hrs building that day. I packed all but two of the blocks; on the 3rd level I had one of the other builders try to pack but after two blocks I decided that we'd be building too slowly. We only had a few broken blocks, so it is a matter of efficiency?

Our Grounds department kindly used thier equipment to deposit a pile of snow in the outdoor aphitheatre. It took us about 90 minutes to make it into a 10' wide packed pad. While there was some dirt & rocks in it, it was a very deep pad that allowed for entering the igloo with stooping over and not crawling. We then used 'clean' snow from the immediate area to build the igloo. It was interesting to see what happens when there is a pebble in a block; the sun conducts heat into the snow, and the rock sinks straight down..!

As we were running behind schedule we did not make a point of cleaning the floor as we built, which made for an uneven floor later on. Much harder to level the floor after it has been packed & re-frozen. Lesson learned!

We stopped using the outer panel after the 5th level. I think without it we did not pack the blocks as high as we should have; at the final 8th level I had to use the 7th level pole settings to get the form to fit properly. Not a big issue, but this 8' igloo was a bit shorter than standard.

It was quite neat to build the igloo on campus, and a lot of staff & guests checked it out. Some staff used it for lunch! It wasn't quite standard; for security reasons there was a viewport cut into the wall opposite the door. This allowed the security staff to check if anyone was present at night, and eliminated the risk of asphixiation.

The igloo stood up to warm temperatures for a while! We cut away the sunny side after holes started to appear. This was first for safety reasons, so no one may be inside and lean on a wall and maybe have the roof fall in on them. Second becuase it looks neat and let less mobile people easily see the inside layout of an igloo.

At this point I'd like to learn how to pack better; we had good snow but still proceeded slowly. Ed, Would it be possible for me to e-mail you my picture archive of this, perhaps you could pick out some errors? One of the builders had a camera on a tripod set to auto-shoot through the build. There are a total of 57 pictures. Alas, I've none of the finished igloo the day after the main batch.

Thanks!

[Banff Martin]

In this build a few regular-looking shovels were used, and again a large rubbermaid bucket.

The red color in the snow to the left of the half-igloo is from red chalk; an attempt was made to put the company logo onto the side of the igloo. It worked in a way, but not quite as desired. =) Diluted food coloring in a spray bottle was also tried. I made a cardboard stencil for the logo and it was held against the wall for the above coloring attempts.

Any thoughts on a way to put a 2.5 circular logo on an igloo wall?

[Igloo Ed]

Any thoughts on a way to put a 2.5 circular logo on an igloo wall?

We had a thin stretchy white fabric sewn into a banner shape with loops in the corners and then painted our logo on the banner. With it being white fabric, the logo stands out very well.
You have questions on your build time and usually incorrect packing is the cause, leaving the block broken and having to wait for it to sinter. If you are able to move the form IMMEDIATELY after packing the block, then this is not the reason for the long build time.
If the packer is waiting for snow to pack, then it is the technique in gathering the snow. The Rubbermaid tub will certainly be slower than having enough snow close so it can be rounded up easily and put into the form efficiently.
It looks like you had enough snow to not use the tub but it requires making efficient use of ALL the snow before it gets trampled.
When I build with an experienced team, it takes me up to three hours to build with low snow conditions but with inexperienced people it can really get carried away if they don't learn quickly. In the teaching, I've taught a lot of people and the experience helps.
You are certainly welcome to email me pictures and I will have a closer look: iglooinfo@grandshelters.com

[Banff Martin]

I misplaced the usb thumb drive for a while with the pictures on it..!

Upon reviewing them, the angle of the shot really isn't good for review. I'll review the tips here again before my next build.

Thanks though!