We built a standard 8' and had lots of room for a double size air mattress, 5' table, 3 coolers, tv table and 2 chairs. Not to mention all of our clothing and water. I built it to use with 2 vents, 2 exhaust holes in the roof, and a homemade swamp cooler.
Set up was Sunday night at around midnight (we had early entry but still arrived just before gate opened), and it went pretty quick for only 2 people, not quite as tight as I was hoping, but the 6" tape definitely made up for any slop. We decided to go ahead and tape the entire roof even though the right angle pieces were already taped, and made our anchors off those instead of the corners. Only used 5 anchors and it held up just fine. We taped the outside floor and did have some minute dust leakage; will probably tape inside and out next year. Dust also did start to come in from the windward vent as well, so we put the plug in and didn't have anymore problems. I did notice some tape starting to peel when we took it down on Sunday. We used a 12v dc marine battery to power our interior LED lights and a computer fan in one of the exhaust ports. We kept the other exhaust port closed the entire week. Our swamp cooler also ran off 12v DC power (charged by solar panels), and it really helped out. I brought 2 thermometers so I could see how well it did, and on Wed, I measured 98 in the shade outside and 81 in the yurt. We were popular with our campmates. I did start to feel some "yurt fever" in the afternoon if I stayed in too long, and unfortunately, one of our coolers had some funky smell that took some bleaching to get out. I stopped by a few others yurts to say hi and see how other folks were doing, and everyone really was excited about them. I agree about a 6' wall, got kinda old having to bend down so much especially with a camel back on. We used an old shower curtain to make a port window next to the door, and that really helped let in some light. My only complaint was not enough light, but I guess that's what makes them keep out the heat :) All in all I am very glad to have built the yurt...my GF kept saying how glad she was we had it. I couldn't agree more. We had a friend stop by that was staying in an RV and she said they couldn't stand being in it in the afternoon as it was too hot...not a problem in the spaceship. There's a few pics of it in our flickr page if you care to look. http://www.flickr.com/photos/40011...@n04/sets/72157622314139798/ On Sep 8, 3:02 pm, Joshua Keroes <[email protected]> wrote: > We took the standard 8' hexayurt to the playa and it performed perfectly in > liltown. We were able to sleep as long as we wanted for as long as we > pleased. I've never been this well rested before! We were on a Playatech bed > with an air-mattress, real sheets, feather pillows, and all that. Total win. > > The minutiae: > > 10 anchor points staked down with rebar. Never had a worry that they'd fail, > even during the gusty days. > > Got a recommendation early in that next year we trench down 2-3 inches > around the perimeter, plant the walls in the trench, and backfill. The > reason to do this, it was explained, was twofold: first, to keep the dust > out; second, to give the bottom wall some physical purchase so that the > winds wouldn't blow and break a wall. Seems like a time-consuming task but > worthwhile. > > All set up already, we just put some heavy boxes behind the wall that was > taking the most wind. We didn't tape the bottom edge so throughout the week, > our laundry slowly filled in cracks to keep the dust out. That worked well. > > Let's see, what else… > > We only used one vent in the roof for cooling. And actually, there was only > one morning when the hexayurt was warmer than we could sleep through. And > everybody in camp was already up, so we still "won". ;-) > > We started with the recommended four rolls of bi-di tape. We ran out before > the structure was fully taped because we used too much taping the door, > windows, and vents. Probably should have just used foil tape for those. > > Bumped the doorway often. Definitely tempted buy a few more panels and make > 6' tall walls next year. > > -Joshua/Kerosene --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
