Tiny House Jamboree - Freedom Yurt Cabin Build 

ENGLISH

Yurts already stay at better temps, due to being round with conical roof with a venting dome skylite at top. Especially when it’s insulated to at least about R-8 or better. You just need to learn how your yurt & site conditions function for a few seasons-then look at choosing what might work best for your site & conditions. Some folks have incorporated novel, low-tec features, to cool or heat. Ones I like, & have tinkered with, include: ……mass floor, with earth contact, & yurt mounts on a raised reinforced concrete perimeter foundation, with a wood perimeter deck to attach to…..I had to figure out how to do that….but it worked VERY well…..even unfinished. Mass of gravel & concrete, or, a properly built earthen floor, stores temperatures year-round, by the season…it takes time to accumulate summer’s warmth, then, time to release that heat in winter, etc….the “wheel of the seasons”. We started making a concrete mass, & embedding various old junk into it to decrease amount of concrete, & leave mystery “religious objects” for long-in-future archeologists to find 😉, & left a few holes open to earth for future options. We left glass gallon jugs of water in a couple of the floor recesses (earth contact)-none of those ever broke from freezes that got down to even single digits F. , & none of the wax candles stored in those, melted (worst heat one summer hit 108*F). Even when it was closed-up & left sitting. Best effects were achieved by us doing “the window dance”, opening & closing windows depending on if cooling or heating was needed. Heating & cooling low-tec tricks have been used for thousands of years…it did not take humans long, to understand that caves stayed a fairly even temp year-around! Earth pits, tubes, convection towers, semi-underground & fully underground houses, etc., have helped folks live in extreme climates, for uncountable thousands of years. ….Convection towers & fans: A yurt is basically shaped to help hot air exit the yurt roof at the top. Open a window or 2 on the shaded north side (in northern hemisphere), open the dome lid, & cooler air from the shaded side moves up towards & out of the top dome vent. If you wanted to build a vent tower, into the center of your yurt, you could. That can be enhanced in a few ways, such as making air intakes low on the north shaded wall ( closer to ground), adding a fan to boost air flow, or even adding a water tray or water filter for the intake air to move across-as long as your climate is not humid. (Evaporative coolers are horrible mold vectors in humid climates!)-in dry climates, can be great. Folks in the Middle East have used convected air & a tower to help draw it up, for uncountable thousands of years. My G’pa’s old house used a fan pushing north wall air over an 8’ tray of water, that vented at a landing between upstairs & downstairs-maybe 1600 sq.ft. or more-& that thing kept the place nice, in hot, dry, Fresno, CA summers. Heat rises, cool falls. Folks have even used that low-tech to form a chill pantry to help store fresh foods longer-in northern hemisphere, usually located on a NE area of ground floor of house, drawing crawlspace air up thru screen vents, slatted shelves, then out a vent high on the wall. ……Earth Air tubes : I had planned to install earth tubes, or an earth pit, to recirculate air thru, to harvest earth’s average temp-about 55*F-but hadn’t got that far….we couldn’t afford renting diggers to trench those in, & both of us got too old & decrepit to hand-dig…. But others have used those with ..great.. results-you can look up youtubes about that. One caveat re: earth air tubes, is that if your area gets humidity, the tubes can grow mold-tubes need cleaned-that’s a challenge!! Sufficient Earthtubes length & number, balance the yurt’s (or any building) indoor sq.ft.. The air in the tubes bring earth’s temp into the house, tempering indoor air enuf that one can feasibly live in there with No added heating or cooling! …..Earth fluid tubes: Same trenching as air tubes, only, use PEX type, or, agricultural black tubing, about 6’ deep. The fluid can be non-toxic by mixing about 50/50 water & glycerine to prevent freezing. Tubes are coupled with radiators indoors…like car radiators. Those can mount in a vented wall frame, or near ceiling, or under a big floor vent, & use fan behind the radiator to move the air past the cooled tubes. Radiators can be hidden behind deco aluminum expanded metal panels, to allow air circulating thru the radiators. These are a plumbing job, mostly. But tubing requires smaller holes & maybe easier to handle components when retrofitting an existing bldg.-& less worries about mold. Crawlspace tubes: I have been using a very small (1- 60’ x 6” galvanized hvac tube covered by a reflectix blanket, laid on the crawlspace ground under the current 1400vs,f. 1970s tract house. A duct fan w/adjustable switch, keeps air moving,ballows adjusting speed. It sucks intake air thru a stack of filters in the hallway, thru tube, then the tube was split from 6’ tube into 2- 4” tubes, to blow out a couple vent pillars on either side of our wide livingroom entrance. (Pillars are just decorative-be creative as you like) -not nearly as efficient as proper earth tubes-& not nearly big enuf system for 1400 sq.ft. house. But, I’d tracked the crawlspace temp for a couple years…it stayed roughly about 10*F cooler in summer, & 10*F warmer in winter, than the house alone, when using window AC or heaters…. so, that trick has been saving a little off our electric heat/cool bills-it’s very modest, but it’s something-guesitmating saves maybe $20 to $30 /mo., maybe? We do have enuf land around the house, I could trench-in, or, dig a pit, to harvest earth’s temp, better-but, cost & ability have so far prevented that. Earth pit circulation + a peltier chiller + fan & controls, under a fridge made of an insulated wide-diameter tube or tree trunk, has been done very successfully, by a guy in Illinois. Even in a desert, you might need heating: …..a good wood stove-we finally got a Liberator rocket stove-with an added pellet hopper, to allow longer unattended burns in very cold winter, or shorter burns in milder cold-that has saved money on fuel, so far, even when buying pellets. Otherwise, it can very burn free, gathered sticks, twigs & kindling gathered from any wooded area (no tree cutting required)…no visible smoke from chimney. At least a 95 p% or more efficiency-even locations banning woodstoves, have no beef with these. It’s the rocket J-tube engineering, that makes them more efficient than any other wood or pellet stoves. & yes, can boil water, soup, etc., using a pan on top. …..solar air panels: I made 64 sq.ft. of recycled aluminum can stacks, in insulated boxes faced with Twinwall polycarbonate panels (anything less, can risk melting, as these panels CRANK heat). I only had a tiny bathroom window to recirculate air thru at that old, 850 sq.ft. house. I built an insulated manifold box to mount in that window, to hold the intake & outlet vent pipes to the panel. The utility co. there, tracked usage. We used the panels to add warmth during chilly SW WA weather, by opening or closing the vents at the window….closed in summer, open in winter. Panel had to be covered using a reflective tarp or shutters in summer to shade it. I added a 4” duct fan, to boost air flow thru the panels-that ran on a small solar panel, so, at nite, it shut off. That system routinely saved upwards of $50 /mo. off the worst winter heat bills. There were only about 2 weeks in deep winter, approximately btwn Christmas & New Years, that the panels had to stay closed-off due to lack of enough daylite to make any warmth. Panels like here could be fitted to heat a yurt. There are MANY ways to make them, & numerous ways to mount them. I had planned to mount ours, onto vertical yurt wall, to help avoid summer sun, but to better get low winter sun….but because a lattice frame yurt dances in wind, it really needed mounted on a 45* frame, with insulated flex tubes to recirculate air. On a solid walled yurt, you could mount onto wall. So…yes! Low tech can heat or cool a yurt-or any other house!

@@Chimonger1 Wow such a detailed reply; thank you for this valuable info. Earth tubes is a fantastic idea but apparently they need a professional study and the whole project costs thousands?

@@greek_sahab That’s classic (need study-classic push-back by entrenched industry-not the only time, & far from the 1st). Air tubes system can cost…depending how it’s done, & how much of the work an owner can DIY. It’s pretty dirt-simple; the few components need to use basic laws of physics (cool rises, depth below ground, sizing the tubes & length of tubes, etc) A fluid system can be less costly, because tubing can go in a hole instead of long trenches, or more costly if hiring a couple well holes to use vertical tubes & a pump. Comparing costs? Regular HVAC can cost thousands to put in, depending if new construction or retrofit, size & configuration of system. Priorities? Regular HVAC keeps costing upwards of thousands per year out of pocket in energy & pollution. Ductless is high-tech, costs thousands, has limited use-life built-in by industry building-in extremely excessive Planned Obsolescence, but hey-cool-it’s high-tech & some engineers earned their “paper”-& that industry finally has started making less visible ceiling cassettes. And…it is kinda impressive, as it does finally offer what ..appears.. to be good savings on energy/pollution use, compared with the older central HVACs. But in the end, it’s still industries-including energy producers & system makers, even real estate’s ability to turn-over properties, etc., colluding to keep doing as much “business as usual” (profits over life). That kind of thing has been going on a very long time, becoming more aggressively done as electronics became able to get away with it better. It kinda started with Edison’s lightbulbs (really-it’s historically interesting story), & has escalated as electronics became more complex. As long as folks are kept ignorant, using simple, low-tech methods that work With nature, instead of against it, the world at-large will keep thinking the only way to do it is complicated, beyond their understanding, so, must keep mortgaging their lives to whatever big industries are selling. I’ve observed this stuff going on for a very long time - “the emperor is naked”. Now, more folks are learning about things, that even some ancient civilizations used; that pretty much anyone can use, to stop spending most of their lives struggling to exist. Earth tubes are a simple form of geothermal. Commercially done, geothermal can be double or triple the cost of standard HVAC to install, & involves high-tech equipment (again with planned obsolescence). But done simply, is the cost of designing the system to fit the building, digging trenches or holes in the ground, & maybe using a simple fan to push air, or a modest pump + fan for a fluid system…..that is very much a system that can last ..many.. decades, with much less costly & less frequent maintenance, & very much less pollution & energy costs. It’s systems that beat the socks off of currently entrenched industries that really don’t like that kind of competition!

@@greek_sahab Oh…there’s something else…& it may work better; far less costly that ductless cooling/heating…. & easily more attainable for renters, or just about anyone. Check what this science guy demos, about simple window AC units (& the portable ones too, I think) I look forward to his next video on it. My mind is already Rube Goldberging how to figure out using the portable AC as a heater in winter, by attaching an additional duct to remove cold air it makes, & turn the unit’s exhaust into room heating! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hc_HcT4pIOE.html

@@Chimonger1 I am wondering why I cannot just dig a trench and then lay PVC pipes with a simple pump + fan. Is it unsafe?

We use a premium caulk called weather seal

Hi, Aaron. Our yurt cabin kits start at $16,500 for the 12-wall model (our smallest) and go up to $26,500 for the 18-wall model (our largest). The peak ceiling height ranges from 10' 10" for the 12 wall to 13' 1" for the 18 wall. You can find more information on pricing on our website at www.freedomyurtcabins.com/yurt-models/. We are happy to talk with you about your plans for a yurt cabin over the phone at (719) 362-3333 or you can email us at info@freedomyurtcabins.com. You can also submit a request for a quote directly through our website. Please contact us for any questions.

The largest one is now 16,000 more than 3 years ago

@@Sanholomc What about codes I guess you call it a temporary building for like for Magalia CA

Hi! Our yurt cabin kit sizes are split by the number of wall panels that make up the circumference of the yurt cabin. For instance, the 12 wall (our smallest) has a diameter of 16' 8" and 217sf and the 18 wall (our biggest) has a diameter of 25' and 490sf. You can find more information on pricing on our website at www.freedomyurtcabins.com/yurt-models/. We are happy to talk with you about your plans for a yurt cabin over the phone at (719) 362-3333 or you can email us at info@freedomyurtcabins.com. You can also submit a request for a quote directly through our website. Please contact us for any questions.

Hi Allen, this is a 14-Wall Yurt Cabin (19'5" diameter, 296 sq. ft.)

Hi, Mac. Our yurt cabin kits start at $16,500 for the 12-wall model (our smallest) and go up to $26,500 for the 18-wall model (our largest). You can find more information on pricing on our website at www.freedomyurtcabins.com/yurt-models/. I am happy to talk with you about your plans for a yurt cabin over the phone at (719) 362-3333 or you can email us at info@freedomyurtcabins.com. You can also submit a request for a quote directly through our website. Please contact us for any questions.

u obviously do not play the guitar

yep....the finger running along strings pretty standard sound when playing a guitar

It's more the recording technique than the playing. Squeaks are part of playing but there are ways to "soften" them with the right gates and other equipment. Enjoy it :-)