HexaYurts

[Ratty]

Where can I see the weather report. MY weather link says clear, no rain. I need better info.

[lucky420]

accuweather it looks clear today, so far.

the big fluffy clouds that were hanging around reno seem to have disperesed and floated away...

like my brain cells

[FIGJAM]

Looks like another nasty one just hit em!

http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/black- ... ar/2292483

[lucky420]

So that's where they went (the clouds not the brain cells)

[eLPea]

We usually do multiple yurts on big tarps. Thinking about putting a second tarp inside of my yurt, up the walls on the inside... Should be solid protection, hopefully can get away with not taping it just holding it up to the walls with bins, mattress, etc.

Lucky, how do you deal with the corners of the tarp when you wrap it around the outside? Fold 'er up like wrapping a present?

[lucky420]

Pretty much yeah. We cut the tarp in a little at the corners sometimes

[hellolinds]

Again my search abilities on eplaya fail me. None of the posts that came up addressed my ?, or maybe it's just that obvious, but give me a break as an eager birgin?

Airflow holes!

My problem is that we don't know which way our yurts will have to go until we get there. Plenty of people have mentioned having your doors facing a certain way, and appropedia stresses cross breeze. We don't have the luxury of accounting for yurt set-up direction as part of a 60 person theme camp. We'll arrive on Monday a.m. Since the panels are moopy mothers, we're going to have to make the cuts before we arrive.

We can't swing a swamp cooler or AC. Between 3 six foot stretch yurts we are relying on 3 batteries, a 30 W solar panel to charge said batteries, and little fans of some sort, furnace filters on the outside.

I am nervous to cut holes. With a fan, do I care as much which sides they are on?? eeep. Not sure which walls to cut the holes on!!

So to make the rambling post easy to reply to.

1. Any advice for how to approach airflow holes on a 6' stretch yurt?

2. Am I cutting the hole to the size of the furnace filter, or the size of the fan? I say cut the hole to the size of the fan, and tape the furnace filter to the outside of the yurt with overlap. My campmate says to cut the hole to the size of the furnace filter.

[FIGJAM]

Cut 4 holes the size of the fan at the cardinal points on the yurt, then it won't make any difference which way you set up.

[maladroit]

Cut holes, tape inside edges of holes, tape outside edges of plugs, retape plugs back in the holes with foil tape on both sides. On playa, all you have to do is slit the last pieces of tape at the desired locations.

[Ratty]

The wind blows towards the man. Your door will face towards the man. EVERYTHING CENTERS ON THE MAN. yES, i'M A BIT IN MY CUFFS. Hey, it's happy hour in Ca. 3:43 P.M. Close enough.

Do you realize how many times I have to correct my typing to make it acceptable to ME?

[theCryptofishist]

yES, i'M A BIT IN MY CUFFS.

Hey, keep your sex life private!

[CFresh]

oh my God I just got sucked in for hours on researching DC swamp cooler builds. I've got packing to attend to!

Before I start another project, will a 6' stay reasonably cool on it's own or should I really explore the swamp cooler option. I can maybe shade the yurt a little with a tent tipi i'm bringing. Space getting out there is an issue. Thanks!

[lucky420]

I've never used a swamp cooler with my yurt. It does stay cooler although it can get a little stuffy in the afternoon. We use a battery operated fan (the kind that take 8 D cells) and use a garden sprayer to cool ourselves down.

IMHO you don't need the swamp cooler but then I'm from n.nv and am used to the climate.

[CFresh]

yeah! thanks for all the advice here and on other threads! much appreciated.

[BurnerBunny]

Today I got my h12 all cut and taped up to be semi-folding! Took my partner and I about 7 hours. Would have did a test run setting it up but a storm rolled in here in Tahoe, I wonder if it rained on the playa too?

doing the setup tomorrow so I can get my air conditioning and generator plumbed in and verified working. Woohoo, getting close to being ready! oh, I better remember to cut a door too, that would have been embarrassing.

[Ratty]

Nope. No rain today. http://65.161.206.29/brcweather/

[maladroit]

My first hexayurt worked great this year. I used 2" thick walls and 1.5" thick roof panels. It got warm after noon when the swamp cooler couldn't keep up, but it was always very comfortable. A little TOO comfortable, actually...last year, I'd be driven out of my tent by 9am. This year we missed around 15-18 hours of Burning Man due to staying in the yurt

I have a small utility trailer and wanted to fill it with cargo while also carrying the yurt. I did not want to put a giant thing on the roof of my Jeep. This was my rig, ratchet straps, plywood, and some 2x4s kept it stable and my MPG around 18 for the trip.

[GreyCoyote]

Maladroit: In your experience, were the thicker walls a worthwhile investment? What was the cooler? (a Figgy Special or other?) finally, did you have a floor tarp or capet/other?

Very curious about your thoughts.

[maladroit]

I don't have experience with thinner walls. Not sure if the better R value made enough of a difference, but the increased durability was evident. No question, will be able to use all the panels next year. The cooler was FIGJAM-inspired with parts sourced along the trek to the playa, and constructed in the hexayurt one night. Not sure if it was optimal, but I had an excellent fan in it and it could polish off a gallon of water per day. I had a poly ground tarp, as well as an 8' round wool rug in the center (which might have added to the warmth inside during the day).

By happy accident...for a 6+ foot person like me, the 8' round rug turned out to exactly indicate where I could stand up without hitting the ceiling.

It was the first direct experience with a hexayurt for all of our camp members, and comments ranged from "it's a freaking giant HOUSE" to "Shangri-La!"

[hellolinds]

Super thankful to everyone in this thread! I did a ton of research, and was pretty hesistant as I don't consider myself very 'construction-minded' and everything turned out a-okay!

Our little 6' stretch yurt was like a dust-free palace! Very spacious inside. We had a queen airmattress, with room on each side for smaller items and fit 2 large bins on the end, with a spot for a hanging multi-level basket to put our 'quick grab' items. (We had another area to store a costume bin and our coolers etc...)

We taped up the tarp to the inside of the yurt & I think this contributed a lot to the lack of dust inside. Most people in our camp just had the tarp on the ground, no tape. I shudder about the amount of dust I saw in those yurts, not to mention if it had rained!

The door was simple, cut to the ground and rounded. It stayed shut and we didn't experience any weakness on the top.

We were pretty budget-conscious and didn't spring for a swamp cooler due to concerns about the amount of water and powering it. We did cut holes for the largest cfm computer fan we could find, powered by a small salvaged UPS battery that lasted us all week with almost constant usage. It was probably around 11ish that things started to get warm, but with the door cracked (we had it facing away from prevailing winds) you could nap in the afternoon easily and comfortably. We didn't think the fans made that much difference until having them packed up the last night - it was noticeably stuffier in there. Fans are a must for us!

Next time if we have room for the extra water, we'll spring for a swamp cooler for the extra luxury, but we wouldn't consider it necessary. Someone we met modified theirs to take blocks of ice...which other than the ice line-up sounds like a really good idea!!

For lighting, we got a string of solar lights and taped the solar bit just about the door on the roof. The on/off switch was outside then, but easily reachable with cracking the door. Next time we might invest in LED strips - we saw some that could brigten the whole space as though you had electricity!

[AntiM]

We used clean ice chest drain off for our swamp cooler. Didn't run it very often, just for a few daytime naps. Didn't use more than a few gallons.

[theCryptofishist]

bump

[Swope904]

How many swamp coolers do you put in your hexyurt to keep it cool during the day?

[lucky420]

I haven't used a swamp cooler in my yurt yet. I think I will probably use 1 this year. My goal is to be able to take a comforTable nap during the afternoon. I feel 1 swamp cooler will fill the bill....

I also use a couple
Of Coleman batt operated fans, they help out quite a bit

[Elorrum]

it would be fun to make a swamp cooler that looks like this. Too much of a mind fuck for the desert? I have one with no heater built in, and enjoy saying "burr" and then turning on the play fire. It's soothing to watch.

[otakup0pe]

How many swamp coolers do you put in your hexyurt to keep it cool during the day?

We had a basic 5 gallon jug sized swamp cooler. Used the (clean) water runoff from our cooler to fill it.

Going by the fact that we didn't venture to the AC goodness of the Orgy Dome once this year I'm going to say it kept the hexayurt cold enough for our tastes.

[VultureChow]

Sweet Jesus. The Orgy Dome has AC? How come no one told me this?!

[AntiM]

I can tell who has experience with real life swamp coolers and who does not. They don't go inside if at all possible. You duct the air in. Being in the same room with one is just an awful dank mess.

I don't have AC in my home, I have a monster swamp cooler on the roof. At B-Man, we keep the bucket just outside the tent and stick the flex-duct in the door. No, we don't use it during whiteouts. But then, we haven't had a good whiteout for a few years now.

[theCryptofishist]

Global warming...

[Choller]

let me start by thanking you all for your amazing input (especially jkisha, Canoe, Julie and many others along). I am so impressed by the Hexayurt that I actually read all 34 pages before finally getting to my questions. If I manage to get tickets, this year will be my second burn and I want to dump the expensive and obnoxious RV and build a Hexayurt. This is the problem: I live overseas and fly in on wednesday or Thursday after a exhausting 16 hour flight just a few days before the event so time is short. I have a few questions that have come up sofar:

-I want to built a 8' + 6' Stretch Hexayurt with the following dimensions: 20 x 13 with 6' walls). We will be sleeping in it with the 4 possibly 5 of us. I haven't read about anyone building one of these so I'm wondering if you have any advice on this design?

-If i manage to pre-order and deliver most of the stuff I need to the house of a local friend in LA, is it realistic to say we can build it in a day time in order to test assemble the next morning and get packing in the evening? We have two quite handy guys and two partners that can assist in the built.

-Besides jkisha I haven't really heard anybody about the 1'' vs 1.5' thickness. Has anyone used both in order to comment on it? Is there a significant difference in coolness/sturdiness?

-We obviously don't have a great amount of time, would you suggest building a swamp cooler or go easy and get a Gen with A/C? I haven't gotten to the "Cooling your tent or Van" in regards to that so my apologies.

-Is a A/C or Swamp cooler necessary or would you say some fans and windows would suffice?

-I'm thinking about thighs hinges on two panels and connecting those on site and prefixing the 6' walls since we will be using a U-H**l type truck so height during transportation won't be an issue. Do you have other attachment suggestions for this typical yurt?

Any input is much appreciated. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge with us! hope to see you in August!