Our hexayurt experience at the burn was most excellent. We built 2 modified 8' yurts (with 6' walls) using hexacomb cardboard and the 6" bi-directional filament tape. Here’s what we learned:
The prep: 1) When you cut hexacomb cardboard you sometimes get a floppy paper edge without any substance in the middle. So when we taped those edges, we folded the paper over to make it firmer. This made the roof cone about 2” smaller than the walls overall, and instead of trimming boards we just used the 6” tape to deal with gaps...it worked fine. 2) We used 3” clear, long lasting packing tape for the edges. It was covered by the 6” bi-directional tape for the most part, and held up remarkably well inside the yurt with little peeling by the end of the week. The build: 1) Wind can turn cardboard (and anything you may be using to weight it down) into a dangerous projectile. We have a nice forehead imprint on one wall to prove it. Suggest building in the early morning before the wind kicks up. 2) Playa and adhesive do not play nicely together. Wiping down the seams prior to taping seemed to solve this issue. We had minimal peeling tape at the end of the week, and the places it peeled were all where tape was on more tape. The cardboard to tape unions were all strong. 3) Reflective stuff is really shiny...seriously. We brought along a huge roll of that shiny, reflective bubble wrap stuff (radiant guard). Our yurts were under a shade structure, but we thought we might need it on any exposed walls...and we did. Without it, the yurt got a lot warmer. Attaching it was a challenge—spray adhesive didn’t work—maybe it was too heavy or not the right glue but we taped it where needed. Next year we will position the yurts better and put up “walls” on the shade structure to solve this. Otherwise I would recommend attaching the shiny stuff to the cardboard at home to save time. By the way, did I mention it was shiny? It reflects a little too well in my opinion because you couldn’t look at it during certain times of day and it cooked tents and anything nearby. On the plus side we have nice tans. 4) We only used 5 of the tape anchors to tie down each yurt to rebar. 6 probably would have made more sense, but 12 just seemed like overkill. They really didn’t move at all during the dust storms. We had 3 on the prevailing wind side and 2 on the other side, and it was fine. Ventilation: 1) We cut 4 holes, 1'x1' and taped the same sized heater vent filters into them. The key here was to cut 2 of them low on the wall on the prevailing wind side, and the other 2 up in the roof on the other side for exhaust. We intended to mount 5" fans in them, but never got around to it. Instead we ran two of the fans inside the yurt, along with a misting fan, and that kept things quite comfy most of the time. The filters were clogged by the end of the week, mainly due to our laziness. We are toying with the idea of making a track around each opening to facilitate filter changing. Compressed air would be another way to blow them clean. 2) We intended to make windows with colored cellophane covering them, but that didn't manifest mainly because they weren't necessary. The vent covered holes let in light and the door was on a shady, well- sheltered side so we could prop it open for light or ventilation when needed. 3) Even with 6' walls, we were still bumping our heads and camel backs on the doorway when entering and exiting the yurts. We will probably replace the panel with the door in it for next year. Teardown: 1) We taped the wall seams inside and out so that we could cut every other one and fold them up accordion style. This will make set-up much easier next year. 2) We cut the roof down to 6 equilateral triangles, folded them into the smaller triangles, and arranged them into 4x8 pieces for bundling and transport. This worked great. Whatnot: 1) We had space for a queen air mattress, a blowup couch and all our gear. We definitely needed a table or two and some sort of organizational/cubby unit. 2) We didn't plan lighting so well, and have a couple ideas for next year. One involves a cap on the roof cone with wires that could be pushed through the tape and used as hooks to hang a lightweight paper lantern (12 volt) and maybe some decor. We would run it off a marine battery and wire a simple toggle switch near the door to control it. The other idea is simple small shelves at the roof/wall seam where we'd place those LED spotlights angled to light up the roof cone. 3) Due to our shade structure arriving late, we had to move one yurt after it was completely built. This was a scary proposition, but we are pleased to report that when there is NO wind this is an incredibly easy task. In fact, one person can drag the thing on the tarp. I wouldn’t try this with even a slight breeze though…imagine the carnage that an 8’ cardboard house tumbling uncontrollably down a street in BRC could cause (shudder). 4) When it rained early in the week, we still didn’t have our shade structure and got nervous that our cardboard palaces were about to turn to mush before our eyes. Fortunately it was light rain, so the cardboard was not damaged or weakened (that we could tell). A groovy bonus was the sound of rain on a cardboard hexayurt…it sounds like you are inside a giant rain stick. We know we need to treat the boards to protect them, but haven’t come up with a plan for that yet. 5) Hexayurts are a great conversation piece. We met a lot of people and got some wonderful ideas to try next year. This has been a rewarding experience that we look forward to improving in the burns to come. On Sep 8, 9:28 am, Craig Clayton <[email protected]> wrote: > For those that went to Burning Man, how did everyone's yurt hold up? Any > suggestions about what went really well or not so well? > > For my part I built a 6' stretch hexayurt with no windows or vents (didn't > get around to creating them) but with a swamp cooler and I must say it was > quite cool in there with that swamp cooler on, although I suspect a fan > might have been just as good. With a queen size air mattress it was a bit > crowded with our boxes so if we use it next year we'll have to figure out a > better organizational system...maybe vertical shelves/drawers. > > We put 12 tape anchors on it and it barely moved at all during the week but > I think we could have gotten away with just 8 - putting tape anchors 2' > apart on the short walls seems overkill. We used long pointed stakes > instead of rebar and it was much easier to put in a take out of the playa. > After a week the tape was starting to detach but wasn't a problem. We > bought 3 rolls of tape and still had .75 of a roll left after taping the > seams and putting together. > > All in all a great experience! Lots of people asked about it - good > conversation piece. > > --Craig --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
