Monkey hut and Rebar questions

[ottomanrobot]

Thanks for the tip on the aluminet tarp. I think that's an excellent choice, but I have t agree on the cost and getting skinned I ordered a heavy duty tarp from PTM tarps, with 18 inch apart grommets. Let's see how it works out. The reason for choosing a solid tarp was to minimize the dust flow and maximize sun shading.

As far as rebar placement, how far apart from one and to the other did you end up placing them? I'm doing the rib spacing 5 feet apart. Also using a 24 feet wide tarp but only 20 feet long.

BTW, I got my 24x30 foot 70% aluminet tarp, banded and grommeted, from GrowersSolution.com. It came to $453 including tax and shipping, and I'm wondering if I got skinned along with the monkey hut. Hope you find better pricing-- and please let us know if you do!

[Strata]

I'm doing the width of the arches as 15 feet. That gives me room for 14 foot diameter shiftpod underneath. Note that I've extended each rib by 3 feet for 13 foot ribs. I think a regular 10 foot rib monkey hut would be fairly low inside with a 15 foot spread.

[BaudEByter]

How did this work out on the Playa? Did you use 7.5 for the ribs? How did it hold up?

Well, it took about 4.5 hours to pack the things, build the hut (with a few false starts), and take it all down and get the heck outta Baylands Park before it closed at sunset--- made it by 20 minutes.

Skeleton of hut-- 30 feet long, 15 feet wide, 3 foot 1-inch PVC "extenders" within a 4 foot sleeve of 1.25-inch PVC at the rib bases.


Spine sections are 7.5 feet long. Too long for the bungies I had, so I used ratchet straps. Might switch to bungies, ratchets were a pain to set up on ladder.


Here is the hut skinned with my aluminet 24 foot x 30 foot tarp. Notice I ran paracord along the long edges, for two reasons-- helps with something to tie down the sides if needed, and I can tell the long sides from the short sides during setup.


Finally, the proof that I got the measurements right-- my shiftpod fits inside with about 8 inches to spare on each side at ground level, and generous airflow space on the sides and top.


On-playa, I plan to put shadecloth across the back arch by the shiftpod, about 2/3 of the way down the arch. That way the breeze can still come through but the main part of the 'pod should be shaded. I'll also be bungeeing up those trailing ratchet straps (if I stay with ratchets), and already have bright orange-n-yellow tennis balls to put over the tiedown stakes at the front and back.

I have a pair of ratchet straps sized to throw over the ribs, if I need more "hold it down" force on-playa as well.

What's your experience with the amount of time it "should" (ha ha, that word) take to build a monkey hut of that size? Now that we figured out how we are doing the layout and some other things, it should go faster, but playa time slows stuff down too. I'm guessing it would go faster if we had a second ladder and a crew of 3 or 4 instead of just the 2 of us.

cheers,
Strata

[Strata]

I decided that 7.5 foot spine sections would be too unstable on the Playa, so I added extra ribs and used 5 foot spine sections. The Hut held up well, and even survived the brief storm squall that came through Tuesday afternoon. Although it went from being fully upright to kind of a wind tunnel streamlined look!

This year, I have another long aluminet section that I'm going to use for extra shade. I'm also going to actually use the long tie downs that I brought last year and neglected to put up. I think with the extra aluminet there may be more wind loading, so better safe than sorry. I'm also switching from 3/8 in lag bolts to half inch lag bolts. The 3/8 in bolts bent in the wind storm, 6 out of the 10 bolts are not usable again. So as long as I'm buying new bolts, I will size up.

Feel free to come around and visit, I'll be camped again with poly Paradise, and while there are other monkey huts, ours is pretty noticeable! Look for the chakra flags and the doubled aluminet!

Cheers,
Strata

[BaudEByter]

You used lag bolts instead of rebar? If so then you would lose a lot having to have them stick out halfway. I would imagine you hav 14” volts?

I decided that 7.5 foot spine sections would be too unstable on the Playa, so I added extra ribs and used 5 foot spine sections. The Hut held up well, and even survived the brief storm squall that came through Tuesday afternoon. Although it went from being fully upright to kind of a wind tunnel streamlined look!

This year, I have another long aluminet section that I'm going to use for extra shade. I'm also going to actually use the long tie downs that I brought last year and neglected to put up. I think with the extra aluminet there may be more wind loading, so better safe than sorry. I'm also switching from 3/8 in lag bolts to half inch lag bolts. The 3/8 in bolts bent in the wind storm, 6 out of the 10 bolts are not usable again. So as long as I'm buying new bolts, I will size up.

Feel free to come around and visit, I'll be camped again with poly Paradise, and while there are other monkey huts, ours is pretty noticeable! Look for the chakra flags and the doubled aluminet!

Cheers,
Strata

[Strata]

I used 18 inch lags, 9 above and 9 below.

[BaudEByter]

I used 18 inch lags, 9 above and 9 below.

Would these be better?
https://www.fastenersuperstore.com/prod ... ?pid=17498

[BBadger]

They probably don't make a huge difference either way. Just make sure your impact driver can handle the load though.

[OgdenM]

To people that have done Monkey huts

I have two questions:

1) Tie downs.

It looks like most people just do one on the front and one on the back. Should I actually do more? Like throughout the length of the hut? I know the rebar being inside the PVC pipe has a lot of tension but, I really don't want to have it end up flying away.

---If I should do more tie downs, I'm thinking of doing them on the inside between the ribs in Xs . Probably heck, bend 4 pieces of rbar into a horseshoe, drive them into the ground in 4 places inside and tie the guy lines to that.

2) Covering the whole thing or leaving a gap on both sides of the spine?

I already have a heavy duty 10 x 20 silver tarp. I could run it down the length of the hut and end up having 5' opening along both sides towards the ground. Part of me wants to have the whole thing covered but... I don't know if it's worth buying another tarp.

I know having gap lets air flow through which is great to keep it from getting bent out of shape.

But, what would be cooler during the day? Tarp all the way to the ground or opening on the side?

---I probably WILL make a flap or something on one side of the hut to block out the setting sun (If my opening ends up facing east, it's nice to have something shading the western side (EG, the back of the hut) since my tent is going back there.

Thanks!!