How An Igloo Keeps You Warm 

Regarding use of the word "Eskimo" in this video: We are now aware, thanks to many polite comments from our audience, that this is viewed as a derogatory term among many native peoples of Canada, as well as in some Arctic regions. Several of our references centered on Alaskan natives, among whom this term is more commonly accepted. Additionally, we used the term in reference to native languages, which are more commonly referred to as Eskimo or Eskimo-Inuit, and not the people, but we should have been more clear and sought out another term. We apologize to those we offended, and have learned a lot. We'll do better in the future, as we always aim to do.

"There's no such thing as cold!" You sound like my Landlord when I ask him to turn the heat up.

*My brain at 3 AM* : Let's find out why Igloos keep us warm.

It's amazing how survival and hunger can push the boundaries of human innovation. Building a house out of SNOW and surviving in some of the most harshest climates on Earth is pure genius and madness! Hats off to the Eskimos man...it's a way of life out there.

it always felt natural to me to know that isolated structures of snow is kind of warm, ive played so much in the snow (I live in the north of quebec it snows 6 - 7 months a year and it always felt somewhat warm when we'd build tunnels and mini size igloo and stuff

My friends moved into their new igloo. All was going perfectly for them up until the housewarming party.

Imagine the first person to built a house out of ice. People called him crazy, but he had the last laugh.

As a veteran mountaineer who has slept in his share of snow caves, when it's -20F outside and a balmy 32F inside, it seems like the tropics. I've gone climbing without a bivy or tent, just a shovel and sleeping bag is all you need.

so as a Canadian who grew up learning about this. polar bears did it first. they dig holes in snow banks. the Inuit copied it. snow and ice are very good insulators because when it gets cold enough, stuff starts repelling heat. several people huddled in a small space where all the heat is reflected back into the space, is quite cozy.

“How to keep an igloo warm” 13 million people: I don’t need sleep I need answers

I think ice puns are cool and all, but ya'll need to chill out with them.

The fastest, easiest and best way to keep yourself warm and protect yourself from the weather is just to dig in The snow. Dig down, find a hill and dig side ways into the snow. Its alot faster and easier. Dig a hole and when The weather clears either get going or make a proper shelther (wouldent bet on making a igloo since its quite hard to make it right and very tireing but it is possible) where you can try and make a fire or Light your "portable kitchen" (dont know what its called in english 😂)

A good layer of snow is what keeps most water mains from freezing and bursting during winter. Hence hope for lots of snowfall to keep the frost from penetrating to the pipes.

In my chemistry class when we found out there is no such thing as cold, throughout anytime it was freezing outside we would say “damn it’s less hot outside”

In the military we did a field operation for a month in the mountains during winter and it got to -30f some nights, well one of those nights was survival night. We got dropped off in pairs with minimal food, water, or clothing. Basically just you your partner and a shovel and you had to be as comfortable as possible for about 12 hours over night. The only person who managed not to get frost bite or be extremely cold was someone who found a hill and dug out a whole cave to sleep in. You would go in there and start sweating it was pretty cool

When I was a kid I use to build an igloo in the backyard when we would get a heavy snowfall. I found out if you would light a candle and leave it in there it will create a hard layer of ice. Believe it or not you are so much warmer in that igloo than you are outside of it. No wind and quiet.

This actually all makes sense to me because when i was a kid, i used to play in a foot of snow with a ton of clothes on. However, when I would “bury” myself in the snow and just lay down in it, I noticed I was actually getting warmer despite being covered in snow. Strange phenomenon

My dad taught me how to build one, though it was pretty rough. The ones our ancestors and some of our elders would build were carved and shaped to be surprisingly smooth. Building it this way was better for keeping it warm and nicer to look at. And also, Inuit had a qulliq, a traditional stove fueled by seal blubber to help keep the igloo warm during the night.

Who the hell first invented an igloo, anyway? "This ice is too cold. To protect myself I will surround myself with it."

Reminds of one of my Far Side favorites where 2 polar bears are munching away at an igloo and one says to the other “I just love these things. Crunchy outside and chewy center !”

I remember watching a Magic School Bus about this: Basically ice/snow is always 32oF or close to it for whatever reason, so the interior of the igloo stays slightly above, so while it's not necessarily warm, it's a LOT warmer than the sub zero temps outside, and with the proper clothing you can even stay comfortable.

I can't wait for Apple to release the iGloo

My snow house kept falling apart so *igloo* it together again.

I was stationed in Alaska, Fort Wainwright, for four plus years in the eighties and we had to go to arctic survival school if we were aircrewman and pilots. We learned how to build a shelter using pine tree boughs and snow. Room for only one! Dang thing kept us warm enough at 30 below to sleep comfortably.

I've spent the night in a snowhouse during a blizzard, and the most impressive feature was how deadly quiet it was inside.

Inuits have just as many words for snow as we do, because their language allows for many compound words. We say, "don't eat the yellow snow", they say "don't eat the yellowsnow".

I've heard that in some Inuit cultures huskier women are considered more desriable as wives because they keep an igloo warmer.

Igloos are the new quicksand. Something I'm fascinated by, gets talked about a lot, but I will never have to deal with in my real life.

Amazing video, but you did miss a step, in order to allow better insulation, they had to melt it slightly with a campfire, and refreeze it. That would add a much better layer of insulation.

Simply: Air is a good insulator and the traped air in the snow work as a barrier and tends to keep the inside temperature at the temperature where water turns into snow/Ice. So the zero degree C inside an iglo would be a heaven when the outer air temp is minus40.

I remember making fairly sizable igloos in the Midwest as a kid. We would make them with five gallon buckets with packed snow. My dog and I spent many nights in these snow buildings/rooms, and always stayed nice and warm with a comfortable coat and insulated undergarments. I’ll never forget those wonderful memories. Never got cold in there, and used my German Shepard as a pillow.

I was telling my wife about a similar thing the other day. When a hard freeze is coming, farmers will saturate their crops with water. Ice then builds up on the crops creating an insulator, which in turn, protects the crops.

in New Jersey we would get three months of snow probably around 6 feet. All the kids made igloos. our friend made a triple one with a big one in the middle. The coolest thing I’ve ever seen. They’re actually quite comfortable. If your clothes are dry and you put some thing on the ground, you can actually hang out for quite a while we used to do mean things to each other, though we used to take usually coffee, grinds and spaghetti and throw it inside each other’s igloo walls as a prank. You always knew what somebody had the night before for dinner.

"40 degrees warmer than the surrounding air" so it's still below freezing.

I remember building a igloo with a couple of friends when I was a kid I was surprised how warm it was in there compared to how cold it was outside.

When I was a kid every time there was a major blizzard I would find a snow drift close to my house and make a fort in it . It would be cozy inside and you could hardly hear any wind from the storm

I will never put this information to use but hey, it's 4 am and I can't sleep.

Just so you know, the word igloo is actually the Inuktitut (Inuit language) word for house, so it doesn't only refer to a snow house. A permanent wood or brick dwelling would also be called an igloo in Inuktitut.

I’m glad you mentioned the lower level where the cold air goes! You got a dig a trench or something to have the cold air go somewhere! I saw that in a episode of man vs wild

I remember during the winter months living in New England, collecting all of the snow that built up on the porch and making a packed-snow-hut to go outside and hotbox in XD I'd learned nearly all of this information during the "prep time" for that little project... but any excuse to LEARN is always appreciated, even if it's just minutia about otter biology XD

There’s no such a thing as cold There’s hot’nt

That is nothing make up factories has over 1000 words for light Brown

Very interesting fact about keeping warm. Deer and moose in the forest for example will crouch down and let the snow fall on top of them with their body heat a type of enclosure of snow will form over them. Their body heat against the snow enclosure helps for them to stay warm during the snow storm. -- From my studies in history the native people who live in the far north of North America over 20,000 years ago crossed over from East Russia via the bearing strait. Back then the strait was joined. Over the many generations some of these native people migrated more south all the way down through to South America. I never thought Eskimo would be an insult to these people. Eskimo means, "eater of raw meat." These people ate their fish and meat raw. They had no means to roast it especially during the winter months. To help heat their igloo and supply light they would have oil lamps using whale oil. These lamps were kept burning and never put out. Fire was not easy for them to light especially during the winter months. Most of modern day Eskimo people cook their food. In today's world, the native people use igloos more for tourism. Very few of them live traditionally today. They now have heated homes with electricity, running water internet, satellite TV, and etc. They drive around on snow mobiles during the long winter months and use off road trucks during the summer months. Most of their food is locally hunted and fished. Imported food from the south is very expensive. When I was a kid I spent some visiting time in the far north of Canada. My father was doing wild life photography, and he used to take me with him at times. When he went out with the guide I stayed in the cabin area with the others. I was not permitted to go outside on my own without an escort. These people were very friendly and were very hospitable to guests. Was a good experience for me.

In the '80s our teacher showed us a BBC David Attenborough nature doco series, I think it was The Living Planet. In it they showed an Eskimo/Eskimaux/Inuit (Alaskan, I think) family building an igloo, but the voice-over specified that the film was already 20 years old at that point and none lived that harsh, nomadic life anymore. Having grown up partially in the desert, I don't blame them.

The person who discovered this was like “ha ha I’m going to be freezing in here, woah it’s warm”

"wanna study for tomorrow's exam?" "Meh" "Hey wanna know why people build igloo on the other side of the world where you're never gonna go" "Hell yeah"

One salient point, and probably the most important: A proper igloo must be built to accomodate a ceratin number of people. Too big, you freeze. The natives knew this, and built them for maybe three at most, and built a second or third for a larger group to split up. When an entire extended family was on the move, sometimes a very large igloo would be built, complete with a fire inside, but that was not the norm.

Inuits really don't have many words for different types of snow, it's just that they have lots of different languages and dialects. English actually has more different words for snow. Far more if you include all types of precipitation.

God I miss my Igloo

Not really wanting to start a heating argument with anyone, but Eskimo languages are agglutinative, meaning you glue words together to make a sentence or phrase. German is similar, but not the same. Eskimo languages glue their word for snow and add more information to the front and/or ends of the base to create a new word with more information. I'm not sure you would consider this a new word technically, but if so, they do have multiple words for snow.

Man, i had the phone blacked out listening to a playlist and ilas soon as heard this man utter the words "you might even say, its ice cold" i knew what reference he was making. Just as i hear "YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH" in my mind, i hear him play it. This has brung a smile to my face and i thank you kindly sir.

I work construction with the innus … they are really happy hunters and fishermen and they are amazing shots!! I’ve worked in -65 degrees with 70 km/h winds so many times… but they don’t build igloos anymore

I’ve been winter mountain camping where we built igloos to sleep in. It’s amazing the temperature difference as you crawl inside. The tunnel in below the platform inside is pretty close to outside temp, for us about 0 degrees F. Once two of us were inside the temp was about 78 degrees F to point of sweating inside. They’re incredibly strong structures as well. We had to dig down a significant depth to find hard enough packed snow to cut blocks. So our igloo was essentially built into a pit for extra wind protection, with a sort of dug in patio area outside. The first night we had heavy snowfall that filled in around the igloo and the pit it was in. The top of the igloo was basically at ground level and completely covered with new snow. We literally built a 2nd igloo on top of it and cut a hole between them to have a two story igloo. When we left it took sledge hammers and a couple hours to knock them down.

There. I finally watched it RU-vid. Are you happy now?

0:14-0:18 Loved CSI Miami, and now I wanna watch it all again. Thanks for that.

Always wondered how a house of snow and ice could keep you warm, now I know, and knowing is half the battle GI JOOEEEEE!

🎶 Do you wanna build a snow-house? 🎶

You guys gotta chill out with the ice puns,, they're snow bad...

I was playing Dark Souls, and the slicing sound at 4:00 is exactly the same as the "something nearby died" noise, which startled me lmao

When I die I want this guy to narrate every great idea I ever had. ❤

This video has no chill

1:04 Actually, they're not really words, it's just a product of how the language works that means if you want to describe an object, then the description of the object goes withing what we would consider a word: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xW4hI_METac.html

I had the idea recently to build a sort of snow gingerbread house, but ended up just going for an igloo and now I'm suddenly wanting to learn all about igloos.

You are very much right, "cold" itself is nothing, actually it is the "lack of heat" we term as "cold".

It’s more accurate to say “how igloos keep you from getting too cold”

Well, that was interesting ! Now I want to build an giant igloo with a bunch of friends and organize a party in it..

I like coming on RU-vid and getting recommended videos that actually teach me something for the day. Keep it up:)

Another great feature of igloos (or igluit in Inuktitut (I think)) is that they create their own mortar/insulation. There's a temperature gradient from the inside (let's say 20C) to the outside (let's say -50C). Somewhere in between, inside the wall, the temperature will reach 0C and at that point any melting snow's water will turn to ice. That will then bind the snow blocks together, seal up any holes or cracks and provide the mortar for the igloo.

Everyone: Corona-virus!!! RU-vid: wanna know how igloos work?

I love the David Caruso/CSI Miami reference soooooooooo mucho! Also, the science, as always, is amazing!

Thanks for the information. Now I'm going to make an otter fur coat.

Snow is an insulator. That's why when you see snow covering the tops of telephone poles the power doesn't short out.

4:33 "..where you'd eat, sleep and *CHILL*." YEEEEEAAAAAAAA-

Basically it keeps you out of the wind, and the body heat is trapped within the enclosure

0:12--you can tell they filmed that 20 times but hey that's the humor in my educational videos that I live for 😂

This information does doesn't relate to my everyday life, and i love it!

It’s 5am & here I am laying in bed watching a video of how an igloo keeps you warm

It was so nice, the way you said "Ice Cold"

I was on my way to work asking myself the same question and now this popped up in my feed

Igloos are cool. ❄️

2:21 "you are adorable" while touching its dead body

i think it's an architectural wonder, it's seriously amazing that this is possible

I grew up in Alaska, and after living there most my life I gotta say I grew a deep respect for the Inuit peoples of Northern Alaska. Such badasses!

wait... so what's the average temperature range in an igloo with one and with multiple people? Why'd he skip this significant question?

Haha as an Alaskan resident, ever time I visit the lower 48 states, they always ask me if I live in one of these...

It's funny how so many people think that we still live in igloos, and we don't get cold. Lol. Thanks for acknowledging that we aren't all Eskimos, I'm Aleut, born on the Aleutian chain. Eskimos come from up north in Alaska, but not all live in just that region.

Imagine having a party in a igloo and saying “Guys it to hot lemme remove some ice.”

He's going on about how strong catenary curves are. You don't have to get all hyperbolic about it!

The igloo doesn’t keep you warm. It keeps you less cold.

Snow being warm? My first contact with the idea was a Soldier waking up, warm, in a Virginia woods covered in a light snowfall during the night.

Me- I need to try and sleep Also me- let’s watch a 5 minute video on how an igloo keeps me warm knowing I won’t ever need this information

When I was a kid, I though penguins built igloos lol. As I got older, I learned the truth :

I went from a search for hairstyles to why a igloo are warm, well done RU-vid well done

04:00f: Praise the hyperbolic cosine for being the function a catenary is the graph of! Fun fact: In some math books, it's mistaken for a parabola, and it indeed resembles it. This is no coincidence: If we expand the hyperbolic cosine to a power series, we get cosh(x) = 1 + ½x² + ¹⁄₂₄x⁴ + … which is the even terms of the power series which stands for exp(x). And the leading term here - apart from the constant 1 which just shifts everything upwards - is ½x² whos graph is a parabola.

Nothing as warm as an ice brick cave house. Gr8.

Me: reads title *WHY YES RU-vid, I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW RIGHT NAO*

There's no such thing as cold.. Say that when you get up in the morning

Before I watch this this is my theory: The igloo keeps the heat in your body in the igloo, therefore keeping it slightly warmer than outside.

I figured it out when I was 10. It snowed a lot, so I tunneled into it. Way nicer inside than out!

Fun fact: The word "short" is longer than the word "long".