Anyone here living in a yurt? My partner and I have been seriously considering it for the near future. I'd love to eventually build my own home on my own land, but until I have the financial capability to do that, a yurt seems like a relatively inexpensive and somewhat portable way to go. Any comments from yurt-dwellers or wannabe-yurt-dwellers would be great! Thanks!
Our campground at the marina here has yurts for rent. Excellent form of shelter. http://www.yurts.com/ http://www.spiritmountainyurts.com/ http://www.rainieryurts.com/ http://www.yurtinfo.org/yurtinfo.php http://www.yurtliving.com/ x
Thanks so much for the links - very inspiring! :O) Is the campground you're talking about a Parks & Rec campground? I remember seeing something about yurts for rent in national parks, sort as an alternative camping situation. Thanks again!!!
Is it possible to have a toilet, at least running water inside of a yurt?!? I know that almost everything is possible but for a common yurt. Me and my girlfriend are too saving money to buy a piece of land and build a log cabin so that could be great in the beginning of the process.
Some friends of mine lived in a yurt in noCal for years. After they built the deck a half dozen of us put the yurt up in a day. It was a really cool living space. I think the portability of the yurt is a key consideration when it come to purchasing a yurt. When I bought our land I looked into putting up a yurt as a temporary dwelling while I was building our house. In the end I figured I could build a framed cabin for the same cost. A new Pacific Yurts 20 foot yurt costs about $7k and you still have to build the deck for it. Had I thought I would want to put the yurt up somewhere else or sell it when I was done I would have gone that direction, but I spent my money on a more permanant cabin that is now being lived in by one of my kids. I also had our weather to contend with (like -45 this morning), so were a yurt able to be a year round dwelling up here I may have been more likely to go that way.
There are people in Northern Cali recycling those big old satellite dishes and using them for yurt roofs. Sounds like fun to try. It would be small but I thought if you built a circle of small ones with a garden space in the middle that would be cool.
One way to initially straighten solid wooden poles is to tie them tightly into a bundle while they are still green, carefully aligning each pole. When the bundle is dry, the poles will keep thier new shape. www.shelterpub.com
I too plan on homesteading and starting out with a yurt for the first year or two while things get rolling and I can build a permenant structure. I definatly wouldn't bother with any sort of plumbing but I would spend the cash to get a well drilled with a simple hand pump. The yurt would likely sit on a rammed earth slab which I would either insulate with clay slipped strawbales (in full knowledge they'll rot in 3 years or so)or perhaps spend the cash on some EPS. The hand pump for the well would come up through the slab into the yurt to aboid the problem of freezing up. I'd probably try to rig up a holding tank above a wood stove so water could heat radiantly for dishes and showering. A good ol' steel wash basin would be placed next to the stove and under the holding tank to serve as the dish washing and showering/bathing area. Water would be gravity fed obviously and a PVC drainpipe trenched outside below the frost line to a garden area, to allow for drainage. As for the privy, I'd likely go with an outhouse or a simple compst toilet in the yurt.
I've built several yurts. They're fun to build, with a little extra structure can hold up under 15 pounds per square foot of snow load (that's about two feet deep) and when you compare the cost of building over buying, building your own 24' yurt will save you about $7000.00. The last one I built was a 16 footer, I think it cost me about $600.00 and took five days (but I build stuff for a living so your time may vary). That didn't include a platform deck or other foundation, but I build mine for portability, not long-term living. There are pics in my gallery. PM me if you have questions.
