Centrally heated snow fort

This is how we amuse ourselves in Vermont when the snow flies. The snow was piled up with a skid steer bucket loader, and the snowbank was hollowed out by hand into a cavern with seating for 6 and enough headroom to stand up in. We put an old open fireplace hood in the ceiling with a 4' section of stovepipe, and added a raised fire pit made from an old wheel. A support pillar was made from 5 gallon bucket ice cubes to keep the ceiling from sagging overnight. We made port-hole windows by ramming a stovepipe through the wall and used more 5 gallon molded ice for windows. It looked particularly spectacular at night especially with the sparks from the fire flying out of the chimney.

Comments

[poikilotherm]

I would love to do this! Too bad I live in Florida. :(

[letstormdufield]

Move to Wisconsin! Up here we measure snow in feet, not inches

[ride on toy dude]

In Arkansas we measure snow in centimeters!!!!

[nickolaiisoe]

In denmark we mesure in meter (about 2foot)

[Enjoying Electronics]

Down here in georgia, we measure snow in flurries :D

[letstormdufield]

Haha we had a blizzard last February with 2 feet of snow and 10 foot drifts.
It was awesome for snow forts!

[letstormdufield]

Haha we had a blizzard last February with 2 feet of snow and 10 foot drifts.
It was awesome for snow forts!

[letstormdufield]

Haha we had a blizzard last February with 2 feet of snow and 10 foot drifts.
It was awesome for snow forts!

[M.C. Langer]

AWESOME!!!! :-)

[maboy]

I love how this comment just happens to be right after Oicu81shoe's comment :P

[That One Eegit]

I just love it when snow plows pile up massive amounts of snow! Im gonna start doing this.

[urtlesquirt]

Oh whoops. Didn't see the chimney.

[urtlesquirt]

cool, but dangerous. I know about how it turns to ice under its own pressure, yada yada yada, but the fire could still form weaknesses.

[logitech537]

that is so cool! i love the ice pillar in the centre of the main chamber

[Darthscout]

that is awesome. where did you get the snow for it?

[andrew.spencer.2]

It just fell from the sky, believe it or not ; ) That's my driveway there in the foreground of the first pic; we have to plow it with a bucket loader otherwise by the end of winter there's no place left to put the snow.

[bnsfwarbonnet]

hey what winter was that? I live in Vermont too. I love it when the snow flies

[the_burrito_master]

The last picture is so contradictory i love it.

[pinkyheyheyhey]

That is sickly omg wow awesome

[Colne Fawkes]

what happens when it collapses?

[andrew.spencer.2]

when it collapses, you've got exactly what you started with; a pile of snow. Once this one froze good & solid, it stuck around until the spring thaw.

[mrbedlamman]

What happens when it clapses and your inside

[Oicu81shoe]

your dead

[posiemoo81]

my son says your so awesome- he nearly blew my ears off screaming at the computer! you suck, no your cool.

[Jaymz121]

Wow. We have something like this in Krakow, Poland =)

[Eviil~~PikmiN__{7}]

fire + snow... = this is gonna turn out real good when you melt your fort :)

[andrew.spencer.2]

Actually snow is a splendid insulator. I made this fort a couple winters back, and had quite a few fires in it. It didn't melt until springtime

[iminthebathroom]

We used to do this in scouts when i lived out east in Quebec. Out west we don't have the same humidity levels so the snow freezes in nasty unpredictable layers of ice, compact and powder snow so doesn't lend itself well to this. Tried to tell people about this in the past, now I can show them. Awesome!

[Biggsy]

You know what, your very welcoem to make me a snowhome ext time we get THAT much snow in the uk ;)

[joejoerowley]

That's badass!