Meanwhile the hut was rising very quickly, and Davies, who was Chippy Chap, the carpenter, deserves much credit.  He was a leading shipwright in the navy, always willing and bright, and with a very thorough knowledge of his job.  I have seen him called up hour after hour, day and night, on the ship, when the pumps were choked by the coal balls which formed in the bilges, and he always arrived with a smile on his face.  Altogether he was one of our most useful men.  In this job of hut-building he was helped by two of our seamen, Keohane and Abbott, and others.  Latterly I believe there were more people working than there were hammers!

A plan of this hut is given here.  It was 50 feet long, by 25 feet wide, and 9 feet to the eaves.  The insulation, which was very satisfactory, was seaweed, sewn up in the form of a quilt.

“The sides have double [match-] boarding inside and outside the frames, with a layer of our excellent quilted seaweed insulation between each pair of boardings.  The roof has a single match-boarding inside, but on the outside is a match-boarding, then a layer of 2-ply ruberoid, then a layer of quilted seaweed, then a second match-boarding, and finally a cover of 3-ply ruberoid."[103]

The floor consisted of a wooden boarding next the frame, then a quilt of seaweed, then a layer of felt upon which was a second boarding and finally linoleum.

We thought we should be warm, and we were.  In fact, during the winter, with twenty-five men living there, and the cooking range going, and perhaps also the stove at the other end, the hut not infrequently became fuggy, big though it was.

The entrance was through a door in a porch before you got to the main door.  In the porch were the generators of the acetylene gas, which was fitted throughout by Day, who was also responsible for the fittings of the ventilator, cooking range, and stove, the chimney pipes from these running along through the middle of the hut before entering a common vent.  Little heat was lost.  The pipes were fitted with dampers, and air inlets which could be opened or shut at will to control the ventilation.  Besides a big ventilator in the top of the hut there was an adjustable air inlet also at the base of the chamber which formed the junction of the two chimneys.  The purpose of this was also ventilation, but it was not successful.

The bulkhead which separated the men’s quarters, or mess deck, from the rest of the hut, was formed of such cases as contained goods in glass, including wine, which would have frozen and broken outside.  The bulkhead did not go as high as the top of the hut.  When the contents of a case were wanted, a side of the box was taken out, and the empty case then formed a shelf.