A Propane Heater for the Yurt

On this particular trip we were in the Mojave Preserve in January.  Elevation of the camp ground was roughly 4000 feet and temperatures at night went below freezing.  These are photos of the propane stove in action.

The stove just to the right of the door and up against the wall.

The stove pipe exits the tent through the wall.  I did not want to make a hole through the roof and the horizontal exit made for some additional stove pipe inside the tent.  A minimum of 4 feet of stove pipe indoors was recommended by the manufacturer. The pipe heats up and radiates heat.  Too short a length of pipe inside the yurt makes for too much heat being lost to the outdoors.

View of the damper control  which controls the flow of  exhaust out the pipe.

View of the stove pipe outside the tent.  The pipe is supported by a length of wood.  The propane tank stays outside.

The pipe exits through a hole cut in the side wall.  Flashing cut from a sheet of aluminum isolates the tent wall from the hot stove pipe. Arrows painted on the pipe in yellow paint help with proper assembly.

10 Foot Yurt Interiors

Some photos of the interior of the ten foot yurt in action.  Although the twelve foot diameter yurt has only two feet more diameter than the 12 foot diameter yurt, it has 44 percent more floor space.  See previous post for comparison.

The kitchen area is just to the right of the door and butts up right against the sleeping area without any intervening space.

Another view of the cooking are in the direction of the sleeping area.

And a closeup of the heating stove.  It keeps water warm but is not designed for cooking on.

12 Foot Yurt Interiors

I thought I would post some shots of the interior of the 12 foot yurt as it was when we pitched it in the Mojave Preserve at Kelso Dunes.  The main thing about the yurt is that it looks bigger from the inside than from the outside.  Might be the circular layout that creates that illusion.  In any case, it feels plenty spacious from the inside.  I suppose that part of it may be that we sit on the floor which puts the ceiling at a greater distance than in a normal western house where you stand up or sit on chairs and at tables, all of which consume space and make interior space seem more cramped.

Sleeping bags folded up against the wall and pillows piled on top of them to make a couch for daytime lounging, turning the bedroom area into a living room.

A view from the door with the couch toward the right.

The kitchen area up against the far wall opposite the door and to the left of the couch.

The living room in use as a reading area.

And to the left of the kitchen area is a storage and work area.

The floor of the yurt is covered with an assortment of rugs. We had one large ground cloth that covered the whole floor of the yurt with the rugs on top of the ground cloth, but we ended up leaving the perimeter of the floor uncovered which made it easier to sweep sand and gravel off the rugs. 

The yurt interior on an overcast day. Coats and hats hang off the wall trellis.  Hand crank sewing machine in the wooden box  to the right.

Keeping the Yurt Cool

Last time we camped in the Mojave Preserve with the yurt was April sliding into May and the days were starting to get warm, not summertime hot yet, but getting up to 90 degrees F.  90 in the Mojave is pleasant if you have shade but even 70 feels hot when you are in the direct shade.  The trick, in other words is to find shade.  A yurt has plenty of shade with the roof on but a lack of ventilation.  To remedy that, we pulled back the roof canvas for additional ventilation.

Pulling back the roof canvas gives us more ventilation. The view is from the north . 

The view from the inside with the roof canvas pulled back.

For even more ventilation, we pulled the roof canvas off completely. Here's some photos of the roof with various fabrics, artfully arranged on the roof to cast some shade.

Chenille bedspread arrayed on the southern quarter of the roof for daytime shade.

And from the inside.

Add a sari.

And at another time we used what may have been a tablecloth.

Yurt Metrics, Intro

When designing a yurt for yourself or others, it helps to have some idea of its metrics.  What I call metrics are all the data that will help you to decide what sort of yurt to build before you start the design. The problem is that you will probably have no idea of what these metrics are until after you have done your design and some building.  For instance, if you want to figure out how much your rafters are going to weigh, you first have to figure you long they are going to be and what diameter and what sort of wood.  Then you have to make a rafter to your specs, weigh it and  multiply by the total number you will need.  In my case, I built a prototype yurt first, the largest yurt I have built to date and never bothered measuring or weighing any part of it.

A page from my notebook recording various yurt metrics like sizes and weights of components.

I have never taken that first yurt down and so I don't know what it weighs.  The metrics I do have are overall dimensions of the yurt but no weights.
In subsequent posts, I will share metrics for the yurts I have built so that if you want to build one, you will have some idea what to expect before you start building yours.

Yurt Inside a Yurt

I took these pictures after I built my ten foot diameter camping yurt.  I had earlier built a 16 foot diameter yurt as a prototype to get some experience with construction problems before commiting to a design for a yurt that I would actually take on the road.  So here I was setting up the ten foot yurt inside of the framework of the 16 foot and it being a sunny day and the shadows of the two frameworks creating interesting overlaps, I took some photos.

I made the ten foot yurt a lot less tall than the 16 foot yurt since I needed a twelve foot ladder to get at the center ring of the 16 footer and I knew that I wouldn't be taking a long ladder camping.

Overlapping doors.

This picture gives a good indication of the difference in volume between the ten and sixteen foot yurts.