HexaYurts

[kman]

So I am ready to start doing some pre-assembly, and am trying to figure out the best way. I know I am going to do the semi-folding option with tape hinges for the roof. But I am building a yurt with 6' high walls and to make that semi-folding I would need to make my transport 'package' 6'x8' and that is more precarious to move not to mention more difficult to protect with plywood. I am wondering if I should just tape all of my edges for the walls at home and wait until I am on the playa to add the 2' to the walls and assemble them. Or should I leave one 8' section of each wall piece untaped on the edge since it might make a slightly more stable to put two raw sides together and then tape them on both sides? Thanks in advance for any advice..

Do not put two raw sides together, particularly not on the playa. Moop danger. Exposed fiberglass is bad... especially that much of it.

[stack]

So findtape.com is backordered on the 6" tape. I've got some leftover from my last burn, but am thinking that 4" might do the trick for the majority of the yurt....any thoughts?

[lucky420]

i get my 6 inch from goodbuyguys.com. express shipping might get it to you in time...

[big baby jesus]

I went throughout them as well. No issues

[yp983]

I am sure this has been addressed a bunch of times, but I still need to ask:

For a standard 8 ft hexayurt, is it sufficient to use just a total of 6, 18inch, J-shaped rebar stakes? It would be one at each corner tied down through the tape anchor method. I have seen others that use 12 of these, but is 6 sufficient? I am just worried because once bent, there is only about 13 or 14 inches of stake left to be actually driven into the ground....

[lucky420]

i use 6 18" rebar stakes. One at every corner using the tape anchor method. I don't bend my rebar but use funoodles taped down over the rebar and then I light every rebar stake with solar lighting.

[stack]

i get my 6 inch from goodbuyguys.com. express shipping might get it to you in time...

I'll give em' a shot, thanks!

[Elderberry]

Same thing happened with them last year. We always order early.

So findtape.com is backordered on the 6" tape. I've got some leftover from my last burn, but am thinking that 4" might do the trick for the majority of the yurt....any thoughts?

[Fidget Wigglesworth]

Hey yurters,
I inherited a nice 8' hexayurt this year and am doing the necessary preparations + repairs this weekend... and then the practice setup on sunday.

I noticed that quite a bit of the foil on a few of the walls is torn off and some parts with no foil at all...
- what is the best way to repair / patch this? Is that completely necessary to patch up as long as the edges are covered and taped?

Do i need to patch these outer walls where there is no longer the foil or can i leave it just the board (its not showing foam but more like cardboard) or do i need to cover it to keep it rainproof. My main concern is rain leaking in these spots where the foil layer has been torn off.

What would you recommend patching it with?
- Is there a spray that would seal it?
- Can i just use some foil tape from homedepot or lowes?

just about a week!! thanks for the help!
peace in
- fidget

[kman]

I am sure this has been addressed a bunch of times, but I still need to ask:

For a standard 8 ft hexayurt, is it sufficient to use just a total of 6, 18inch, J-shaped rebar stakes? It would be one at each corner tied down through the tape anchor method. I have seen others that use 12 of these, but is 6 sufficient? I am just worried because once bent, there is only about 13 or 14 inches of stake left to be actually driven into the ground....

That's been sufficient for the past 4 years, with our group.

More than that, we cannot promise.

[Elderberry]

We repair every dent or tear in our panels every year with foil tape. You can get it at home depot, but we order it with all our other tape (gaffers tape, bidirectional tape both 6" and 2", and foil tape) from findtape.com

Hey yurters,
I inherited a nice 8' hexayurt this year and am doing the necessary preparations + repairs this weekend... and then the practice setup on sunday.

I noticed that quite a bit of the foil on a few of the walls is torn off and some parts with no foil at all...
- what is the best way to repair / patch this? Is that completely necessary to patch up as long as the edges are covered and taped?

Do i need to patch these outer walls where there is no longer the foil or can i leave it just the board (its not showing foam but more like cardboard) or do i need to cover it to keep it rainproof. My main concern is rain leaking in these spots where the foil layer has been torn off.

What would you recommend patching it with?
- Is there a spray that would seal it?
- Can i just use some foil tape from homedepot or lowes?

just about a week!! thanks for the help!
peace in
- fidget

[Hondovious]

Got my roof sections completely done and assembled today. I used the Camp Danger tape hinge method listed on appropedia and several other places. It went perfectly. Watch the videos, print the pdf, and always go through the motions of what you are about to do twice before you actually do it. I was able to do most of it alone, but it went much quicker once I had an extra set of hands. Walls tomorrow, but that part will be easy compared to today. I am also sandwiching my door panel in 1/2" plywood and bolting it through so I can hang a 'real' door with hinges and a lock. Can't wait to get to the playa and only have 4 pieces to put together.

Fucking hell... ARE WE THERE YET?!?!?!

[Fidget Wigglesworth]

Thanks JK!
One more question...

I got my bi-directional filament tape from goodbuys... but didn't get any foil tape.

Based on your expertise, does it matter what brand/type of foil tape? I see that homedepot has a huge range of different types of the foil tape.
Any recommendations on what to go for here? Do we need to splurge and get the best one, or will a more basic foil tape work? (we spent the $$ on the bifillament) so if we can go with the cheaper one, that'd be good for the books. Here are the options i found thru homedepot...

* Reflectix: 2 in. x 30 ft. Reflective Foil Tape (Model FT210) is $3.25
* Nashua Tape 322 1-57/64 in. x 150 ft. Aluminum Foil Tape Model 3220020500 is $6.58
or
* Nashua Tape Extreme Weather 2-7/8 in. x 150-7/8 ft. Foil-Backed Tape Model 652064 is $19.89

Thoughts?
- so so freaking soon! thanks

[Korwedge]

The extreme weather foil tape is strongest. But the other stuff works great too.

[Key Man]

Hey yurters,
I inherited a nice 8' hexayurt this year and am doing the necessary preparations + repairs this weekend... and then the practice setup on sunday.

I noticed that quite a bit of the foil on a few of the walls is torn off and some parts with no foil at all...
- what is the best way to repair / patch this? Is that completely necessary to patch up as long as the edges are covered and taped?

Do i need to patch these outer walls where there is no longer the foil or can i leave it just the board (its not showing foam but more like cardboard) or do i need to cover it to keep it rainproof. My main concern is rain leaking in these spots where the foil layer has been torn off.

What would you recommend patching it with?
- Is there a spray that would seal it?
- Can i just use some foil tape from homedepot or lowes?

just about a week!! thanks for the help!
peace in
- fidget

I have foil tape but for tears and damaged areas I just use aluminum foil patches, held with light weight clear 2" packing tape, completely covering the patch. It's easy and may work better than foil tape because there are no rough edges to snag on things.

[Elderberry]

We use the expensive stuff, but if cost is an issue all I can say is try it. Most of what I post here is knowledge gained from reading and then trial and error. Because the Yurt is our home on the playa we don't feel comfortable on skimping on materials for it.

Regarding the rough edges, we have never experienced that. Maybe it's because we use the more expensive, thicker foil tape. Putting aluminum foil under packaging tape would never be an acceptable repair for us. The foil needs to be attached to the yurt. Maybe if you first glued the aluminum foil then taped over it, but still not the most elegant solution IMHO.

Again, I'm not knocking what others do; only commenting on what we would do. I wouldn't want to spend a week in the desert homeless because we cut corners on construction or repair. Again, just me.

Thanks JK!
One more question...

I got my bi-directional filament tape from goodbuys... but didn't get any foil tape.

Based on your expertise, does it matter what brand/type of foil tape? I see that homedepot has a huge range of different types of the foil tape.
Any recommendations on what to go for here? Do we need to splurge and get the best one, or will a more basic foil tape work? (we spent the $$ on the bifillament) so if we can go with the cheaper one, that'd be good for the books. Here are the options i found thru homedepot...

* Reflectix: 2 in. x 30 ft. Reflective Foil Tape (Model FT210) is $3.25
* Nashua Tape 322 1-57/64 in. x 150 ft. Aluminum Foil Tape Model 3220020500 is $6.58
or
* Nashua Tape Extreme Weather 2-7/8 in. x 150-7/8 ft. Foil-Backed Tape Model 652064 is $19.89

Thoughts?
- so so freaking soon! thanks

[Elderberry]

I'll second this. We only use six tie-downs per yurt as well. We don't use rebar though. I posted a picture of the stakes we use somewhere in this forum, but rebar is good. Also, we put our stakes in very close (within 3") to the yurt corners. Just make sure you tape your yurt to the floor tarp. You're not fighting lift with the rebar so lateral wind force won't pull out the stakes. (At least that's been our experience for the last three years.

I am sure this has been addressed a bunch of times, but I still need to ask:

For a standard 8 ft hexayurt, is it sufficient to use just a total of 6, 18inch, J-shaped rebar stakes? It would be one at each corner tied down through the tape anchor method. I have seen others that use 12 of these, but is 6 sufficient? I am just worried because once bent, there is only about 13 or 14 inches of stake left to be actually driven into the ground....

That's been sufficient for the past 4 years, with our group.

More than that, we cannot promise.

[kman]

Actually, we DID fight lift last year in the storms that went through during the build, and on Monday. On the one yurt that wasn't staked down quite firmly enough, the wind actually snuck under the yurt and lifted the entire thing. The stakes held fine, however, the yurt did lift a couple of inches, and it caused some structural damage on that one yurt. The others were fine.

Use a trucker's hitch to STRONGLY hold those yurts down! Go to animated knots and learn to tie it before you go. The 18" candy-caned Rebar stakes will hold... make sure your rope is strong and not too stretchy. (This last isn't too tough... we used the standard colored rope (looks like climbing rope but it's not) from Home Depot, and it's fine... but something more like bungie would be terrible.)

I'll second this. We only use six tie-downs per yurt as well. We don't use rebar though. I posted a picture of the stakes we use somewhere in this forum, but rebar is good. Also, we put our stakes in very close (within 3") to the yurt corners. Just make sure you tape your yurt to the floor tarp. You're not fighting lift with the rebar so lateral wind force won't pull out the stakes. (At least that's been our experience for the last three years.

I am sure this has been addressed a bunch of times, but I still need to ask:

For a standard 8 ft hexayurt, is it sufficient to use just a total of 6, 18inch, J-shaped rebar stakes? It would be one at each corner tied down through the tape anchor method. I have seen others that use 12 of these, but is 6 sufficient? I am just worried because once bent, there is only about 13 or 14 inches of stake left to be actually driven into the ground....

That's been sufficient for the past 4 years, with our group.

More than that, we cannot promise.

[Elderberry]

Interesting. One more thing to worry about.
Actually last year was pretty bad, especially if you arrived early. We had an entire yurt that was still wrapped up almost go flying down the playa. That was Saturday--temp dropped about 20 or more degrees within seconds, wind came up fast and strong. Two of us had to sit on the thing until people came over with heavy things to set on top of it. We didn't even get to build the yurts until after the rain, I think on Monday. We spent a night or two sleeping in the back of the box truck.

One thing about those yurts is that they can be like kites (each panel and the entire structure because they are so light); and they have no stability until they are fully assembled and tied down.

Actually, we DID fight lift last year in the storms that went through during the build, and on Monday. On the one yurt that wasn't staked down quite firmly enough, the wind actually snuck under the yurt and lifted the entire thing. The stakes held fine, however, the yurt did lift a couple of inches, and it caused some structural damage on that one yurt. The others were fine.

Use a trucker's hitch to STRONGLY hold those yurts down! Go to animated knots and learn to tie it before you go. The 18" candy-caned Rebar stakes will hold... make sure your rope is strong and not too stretchy. (This last isn't too tough... we used the standard colored rope (looks like climbing rope but it's not) from Home Depot, and it's fine... but something more like bungie would be terrible.)

[kman]

Yeah. The weather was BAD last year, for the early builders and those who arrived Monday. And COLD for the first day or so!

That's the thing about Burning Man, though, you have to be prepared to ANYTHING!

We did get that amazing double rainbow, however. That rocked!

Interesting. One more thing to worry about.
Actually last year was pretty bad, especially if you arrived early. We had an entire yurt that was still wrapped up almost go flying down the playa. That was Saturday--temp dropped about 20 or more degrees within seconds, wind came up fast and strong. Two of us had to sit on the thing until people came over with heavy things to set on top of it. We didn't even get to build the yurts until after the rain, I think on Monday. We spent a night or two sleeping in the back of the box truck.

One thing about those yurts is that they can be like kites (each panel and the entire structure because they are so light); and they have no stability until they are fully assembled and tied down.

Actually, we DID fight lift last year in the storms that went through during the build, and on Monday. On the one yurt that wasn't staked down quite firmly enough, the wind actually snuck under the yurt and lifted the entire thing. The stakes held fine, however, the yurt did lift a couple of inches, and it caused some structural damage on that one yurt. The others were fine.

Use a trucker's hitch to STRONGLY hold those yurts down! Go to animated knots and learn to tie it before you go. The 18" candy-caned Rebar stakes will hold... make sure your rope is strong and not too stretchy. (This last isn't too tough... we used the standard colored rope (looks like climbing rope but it's not) from Home Depot, and it's fine... but something more like bungie would be terrible.)

[Elderberry]

That's a great pic. That rainbow was the most intense I have ever seen. Sort of reminded me of the one in the skittles commercial! I have it in my sig below too.

Yeah. The weather was BAD last year, for the early builders and those who arrived Monday. And COLD for the first day or so!

That's the thing about Burning Man, though, you have to be prepared to ANYTHING!

We did get that amazing double rainbow, however. That rocked!

Interesting. One more thing to worry about.
Actually last year was pretty bad, especially if you arrived early. We had an entire yurt that was still wrapped up almost go flying down the playa. That was Saturday--temp dropped about 20 or more degrees within seconds, wind came up fast and strong. Two of us had to sit on the thing until people came over with heavy things to set on top of it. We didn't even get to build the yurts until after the rain, I think on Monday. We spent a night or two sleeping in the back of the box truck.

One thing about those yurts is that they can be like kites (each panel and the entire structure because they are so light); and they have no stability until they are fully assembled and tied down.

Actually, we DID fight lift last year in the storms that went through during the build, and on Monday. On the one yurt that wasn't staked down quite firmly enough, the wind actually snuck under the yurt and lifted the entire thing. The stakes held fine, however, the yurt did lift a couple of inches, and it caused some structural damage on that one yurt. The others were fine.

Use a trucker's hitch to STRONGLY hold those yurts down! Go to animated knots and learn to tie it before you go. The 18" candy-caned Rebar stakes will hold... make sure your rope is strong and not too stretchy. (This last isn't too tough... we used the standard colored rope (looks like climbing rope but it's not) from Home Depot, and it's fine... but something more like bungie would be terrible.)

[yp983]

Thank you EVERYONE for your input regarding staking the yurt down.

I also wanted to share an idea I came up with regarding door latching.....not sure how well it will work yet, but I will be implementing this weekend and can update based on my success/failure:

I have built 4 semi-folding yurts for my camp (4 hinged pieces) and want to keep everything as 2 dimensional as possible so that everything stacks and there is very little on-playa assembly. I have been tossing around latch designs and couldn't settle on one. Then, it hit me...MAGNETS!!!! Home Depot sells these magnets in different sizes, and my plan is to "imbed" magnets into the cut faces of the door and door jamb so that the suface of the magnet is flush with the edge of the door. Then, I'll run one layer of the BF tape over it to keep it in place, and also seal the door edge. I figure one or two of these strong magnets around the center of the "normal door" (not flap that opens upwards, but sideways like a normal door) will be sufficient to hold it closed, and also not require any moving parts or special assembly. I'm also going to cut the vertical part of the door at a 45 degree angle to keep it from closing into the yurt from wind, and there should be no way that the wind
can open the door. Hm...we'll see.

Not sure if anyone else has already thought of or tried this, but let me know and I can share what I find this weekend!

[ConnieH]

Thank you EVERYONE for your input regarding staking the yurt down.

I also wanted to share an idea I came up with regarding door latching.....not sure how well it will work yet, but I will be implementing this weekend and can update based on my success/failure:

I have built 4 semi-folding yurts for my camp (4 hinged pieces) and want to keep everything as 2 dimensional as possible so that everything stacks and there is very little on-playa assembly. I have been tossing around latch designs and couldn't settle on one. Then, it hit me...MAGNETS!!!! Home Depot sells these magnets in different sizes, and my plan is to "imbed" magnets into the cut faces of the door and door jamb so that the suface of the magnet is flush with the edge of the door. Then, I'll run one layer of the BF tape over it to keep it in place, and also seal the door edge. I figure one or two of these strong magnets around the center of the "normal door" (not flap that opens upwards, but sideways like a normal door) will be sufficient to hold it closed, and also not require any moving parts or special assembly. I'm also going to cut the vertical part of the door at a 45 degree angle to keep it from closing into the yurt from wind, and there should be no way that the wind
can open the door. Hm...we'll see.

Not sure if anyone else has already thought of or tried this, but let me know and I can share what I find this weekend!

That sounds very intriguing! I have a bunch of strong magnets at home about the right size, I may try this also - thanks for the tip My current latch system is pretty lame, I glued and taped velcro patches on the inside and outside of the door frame, and have a "floating" lock made out of a piece of canvas with opposing velcro patches. It allows us to open and "lock" it from either side, but it's a bit of a PITA when drunk. Adding some magnets with our current system may give it a little more closure. I know there are better closure systems than mine out there, but haven't felt the need to go to much effort to change it now. But the magnets would be easy to imbed into the foam. Brilliant! Now let's see if it works

[Aviax]

What I did with mine was to create a ridge of tape around the door frame, so when the door is shut, there is a 1" thing of folded tape on either side of it.


|----- (tape)
| [======= (door)
|------ (tape)

Had no problem with it at all during any dust storm last year.


It keeps the door in place quite well.

Thank you EVERYONE for your input regarding staking the yurt down.

I also wanted to share an idea I came up with regarding door latching.....not sure how well it will work yet, but I will be implementing this weekend and can update based on my success/failure:

I have built 4 semi-folding yurts for my camp (4 hinged pieces) and want to keep everything as 2 dimensional as possible so that everything stacks and there is very little on-playa assembly. I have been tossing around latch designs and couldn't settle on one. Then, it hit me...MAGNETS!!!! Home Depot sells these magnets in different sizes, and my plan is to "imbed" magnets into the cut faces of the door and door jamb so that the suface of the magnet is flush with the edge of the door. Then, I'll run one layer of the BF tape over it to keep it in place, and also seal the door edge. I figure one or two of these strong magnets around the center of the "normal door" (not flap that opens upwards, but sideways like a normal door) will be sufficient to hold it closed, and also not require any moving parts or special assembly. I'm also going to cut the vertical part of the door at a 45 degree angle to keep it from closing into the yurt from wind, and there should be no way that the wind
can open the door. Hm...we'll see.

Not sure if anyone else has already thought of or tried this, but let me know and I can share what I find this weekend!

[ConnieH]

What I did with mine was to create a ridge of tape around the door frame, so when the door is shut, there is a 1" thing of folded tape on either side of it.


|----- (tape)
| [======= (door)
|------ (tape)

Had no problem with it at all during any dust storm last year.


It keeps the door in place quite well.

Now that just gave me an idea - combine the magnet idea and the ridge idea - gonna play with it tonight. One ridge would probably be enough, tape a magnet into the ridge, another inset into the wall next to the door.

[kman]

Winds blow HARD on the playa.

Those magnets had better be REALLY strong.

[Elderberry]

I'll be curious to hear how the magnet door latch works out. Please post your experience with this here after the burn.

Thank you EVERYONE for your input regarding staking the yurt down.

I also wanted to share an idea I came up with regarding door latching.....not sure how well it will work yet, but I will be implementing this weekend and can update based on my success/failure:

I have built 4 semi-folding yurts for my camp (4 hinged pieces) and want to keep everything as 2 dimensional as possible so that everything stacks and there is very little on-playa assembly. I have been tossing around latch designs and couldn't settle on one. Then, it hit me...MAGNETS!!!! Home Depot sells these magnets in different sizes, and my plan is to "imbed" magnets into the cut faces of the door and door jamb so that the suface of the magnet is flush with the edge of the door. Then, I'll run one layer of the BF tape over it to keep it in place, and also seal the door edge. I figure one or two of these strong magnets around the center of the "normal door" (not flap that opens upwards, but sideways like a normal door) will be sufficient to hold it closed, and also not require any moving parts or special assembly. I'm also going to cut the vertical part of the door at a 45 degree angle to keep it from closing into the yurt from wind, and there should be no way that the wind
can open the door. Hm...we'll see.

Not sure if anyone else has already thought of or tried this, but let me know and I can share what I find this weekend!

[Key Man]

We use the expensive stuff, but if cost is an issue all I can say is try it. Most of what I post here is knowledge gained from reading and then trial and error. Because the Yurt is our home on the playa we don't feel comfortable on skimping on materials for it.

Regarding the rough edges, we have never experienced that. Maybe it's because we use the more expensive, thicker foil tape. Putting aluminum foil under packaging tape would never be an acceptable repair for us. The foil needs to be attached to the yurt. Maybe if you first glued the aluminum foil then taped over it, but still not the most elegant solution IMHO.

Again, I'm not knocking what others do; only commenting on what we would do. I wouldn't want to spend a week in the desert homeless because we cut corners on construction or repair. Again, just me.

Thanks JK!
One more question...

I got my bi-directional filament tape from goodbuys... but didn't get any foil tape.

Based on your expertise, does it matter what brand/type of foil tape? I see that homedepot has a huge range of different types of the foil tape.
Any recommendations on what to go for here? Do we need to splurge and get the best one, or will a more basic foil tape work? (we spent the $$ on the bifillament) so if we can go with the cheaper one, that'd be good for the books. Here are the options i found thru homedepot...

* Reflectix: 2 in. x 30 ft. Reflective Foil Tape (Model FT210) is $3.25
* Nashua Tape 322 1-57/64 in. x 150 ft. Aluminum Foil Tape Model 3220020500 is $6.58
or
* Nashua Tape Extreme Weather 2-7/8 in. x 150-7/8 ft. Foil-Backed Tape Model 652064 is $19.89

Thoughts?
- so so freaking soon! thanks

Maybe I misunderstood the original question. I thought the poster was asking about small superficial repairs, where some of the thin foil layer has peeled away from the panel, but the panel is still intact. (That's what I've run into.) If chunks of panel are missing or damaged, that's another story!

[Elderberry]

You understood correctly. But adding tape to the panels for repairing those superficial tears adds strength to them, sort of like taping your windows before a hurricane.(at least in my mind it does!

Maybe I misunderstood the original question. I thought the poster was asking about small superficial repairs, where some of the thin foil layer has peeled away from the panel, but the panel is still intact. (That's what I've run into.) If chunks of panel are missing or damaged, that's another story!

[yp983]

Winds blow HARD on the playa.

Those magnets had better be REALLY strong.

Right. Well, there are two things to worry about, the door blowing in, and the door blowing out. To prevent the door blowing in, I cut the door jamb at a 45 degree angle, so that the structure of the door jamb itself will keep the door from blowing in. Along with this, I taped thin, 4ft aluminum bars across the top and bottom edges where the 2 ft wide door are, so there is no concern of the door jamb opening and spreading. Therefore, the wind would essentially have to be strong enough to bust open any of the other 5 solid side panels to blow the door into the yurt. No problems here.

The only way for the door to blow open would be for the wind to generate pressure inside of the yurt sufficient to exceed the force it created on the outside of the door. I didnt build any windows, so the only way to build pressure would be to leak into the seams of the door. Since the surface are fo the seams is much less that that of the door, the wind force will work much harder at keeping the door closed, than opening it. Of course there is always the chance that the bernoulli principle will take effect, and the door will be sucked open, but being just a flat surface I doubt this will happen. Plus if it does, that means the wind is pulling away from the door, so no dust will get it, and so be it!