How To Make Improvised Mattress Shelters:

Cold-weather survival skills should be part of everyone’s knowledge base. Knowing how to make a debris hut, snow cave, or igloo, can save your life in a winter emergency, and it is easy to find instructions for constructing these shelters in survival manuals, or on the internet.

These types of shelter work well in the outdoors, but for urban winter survival scenarios, you can use man-made materials to construct cold-weather shelters, which I like to call mattress shelters.

Please note that it is better to have quality equipment (such as a good arctic sleeping bag, a heavy parka, etc.) on hand as your Plan A, but knowing how to make crude improvised substitutes is a must, if your equipment is lost or stolen, or if ten or twelve ill-prepared relatives show up at your house, during a long-term crisis.

Mattress Shelters:

A mattress shelter is the urban equivalent of a debris hut. It is a warm shelter built indoors, using mattresses, any other bedding that is available, and similar items, such as pillows and couch cushions.

Sadly, people die from exposure (hypothermia) every winter, during blizzards and power outages, and many of them could have used shelters like these to survive, if they knew how to make them. City-dwellers who live in large apartment buildings can’t usually heat them with wood stoves, but they can make these shelters, using materials from their apartments.

The basic idea is to make a well-insulated shelter space where you and your family can sleep and rest, when you are in an extreme cold-weather situation where utilities are not available, and where making a fire for heat is not practical, such as in an apartment building.

There are several types of mattress shelters, and which kind you make will depend on how many people need shelter, and how much material is available to make them with. They should all be made on top of a regular bed, to keep you above floor level, as the air at floor level will be the coldest air in the room (20 degrees colder, or more). You can also improvise a similar elevated platform, using available materials, such as planks set on crates, or doors set on chairs, etc..

If the building you are sheltering in has broken windows, letting cold wind inside, you can block them off using doors removed from closets, or from any other unoccupied rooms.

Mattress Pad Shelter:

Check the beds in your building, and if you find one with a foam mattress pad, you have the simplest form of mattress shelter already available to use. You just get in between the regular mattress and the foam pad, and the extra insulation of the foam pad above you will help trap your body heat. This “foam pad” mattress shelter will keep one or two adults warm, depending on the size of the mattress. King size mattresses can hold three adults, or two adults and one or two children.

Any available bedding can be used to add more insulation, if needed. The pad can be placed on top of normal bedding, and more than one mattress pad can be used, if available. Memory foam mattress toppers are the best, if you have a choice, but use whatever is available to get warm first, and then upgrade your gear as much as possible. (Foam pads have a number of other uses, so collect all that you can, when survival scrounging.)

Sandwich Shelter:

The next type of mattress shelter is made starting with one bed, and then placing a second mattress on top of it. The second mattress is elevated 18 to 24 inches (or so) above the bed, using a line of objects down each side, so that you and your family can fit between the upper and lower mattress, like the meat in a sandwich.

The objects used to elevate the upper mattress can be anything with insulating value, such as couch cushions, pillows, rolled-up blankets, etc. You can use cardboard boxes that have been stuffed with crumpled newspapers, if nothing better is available. Dresser drawers will work, especially if they are filled with clothes or books. Blankets or pillows should be placed between the boxes or drawers and the shelter’s occupants, and the shelter should be enclosed on all four sides, leaving only a small entry and exit opening, that can be blocked off with pillows, to trap more body heat.

A-Frame Shelter:

The next type of mattress shelter is made starting with one bed, and then placing two more mattresses on top of it, so that they form an A-shaped shelter. The mattresses are tied in place using cordage, to keep the A shape stable. The cordage can be anything available, such as rope, or extension cords cut from appliances, or strips of bed sheets. One end of the A-shaped shelter is blocked with blankets or pillows, then you get inside, and finally the other end is blocked off as well. This mattress shelter design creates enough space that you can sit up inside.

Blankets can be used to seal drafts in mattress shelters. Heavy wool blankets can also be made into warm improvised coats, called capotes. See the info below on improvised clothing, for instructions on making capotes. Don’t use air mattresses for shelters (they don’t insulate well enough) but the mattresses in sleeper sofas work ok.

Cube Shelter:

The next larger type of mattress shelter is made starting with one bed again, and then four more mattresses are used to enclose it on all four sides, leaving a small gap for entry and exit. Another mattress is placed on top, creating an insulated box shape, and the mattresses are tied in place with cordage. A mattress shelter of this type will hold three or four people, and the occupant’s body heat keep it comfortable, once the entry is blocked off with blankets or pillows. This design allows you to sit up, and do things (like change clothes) inside the shelter.

If you have larger numbers of people in your group, you can make larger mattress shelters, or several of the smaller ones already described. Larger mattress shelters are made by tying several bed-frames together, placing mattresses around these beds to form walls, and then adding more mattresses on top, to roof off the shelter. Rope is used to hold the mattresses in place, and some support planks may have to be added, to hold up the mattresses on the roof. The body heat from several people may force you to leave ventilation gaps, in these larger shelters.

If the roof of your building was damaged and is leaking, the mattress shelters can be covered with tarps or plastic sheeting (such as shower curtains), to keep the shelter area dry.

Other items that have insulation value can be used to make mattress shelters, if actual mattresses are not available. Examples include quilted mover’s pads, and gym pads, or wrestling mats. These items can also be used to improvise cold-weather clothing, when nothing better is available.

If you find yourself trapped in an extreme cold-weather survival situation, use whatever materials you have available to construct a mattress shelter, when building a fire is not an option. Once you have shelter, then you can make improvised cold-weather clothing, for going outside to gather food, fuel, or supplies.