Hello there - I'm new here and I'm sure this topic has already been covered many times before, I have read a few old posts about it, but I'm wondering if any of you who have tried this in the past have any current advice for insulating your yurt with wool.
I have a new 24' Pacific Yurt under construction that is replacing a 30+ year old canvas-lined Keyman Jim 20 footer that my husband and I have been living in (in addition to a 16' Pacific Yurt as our bedroom) for the past several years. In an effort to solve mildew problems and the issue of things freezing over during the night in the winter when the fire went out (drawback to having two yurts to tend), our new yurt will have thermostat controlled air-to-water radiant floor
and a high-quality woodstove as well (we are thinking a Jotul).
The yurt has an acrylic coated polyester fabric side cover, and reflectix
with a polyester liner (it's one piece). The radiant floor & platform is well insulated. My husband purchased loose natural wool
as well as 2 inch thick wool blankets (not felted), and the idea is to do blown-in insulation in the roof between the rafters (covered with a white polyester mesh) and the blankets for the walls. The wall insulation is the most confusing, because our yurt is already constructed and we were also worried about it being exposed to outside
if it was put behind the reflectix/liner and compression if it was behind the lattice - so the plan is to create very thin plywood-framed (to keep it from stretching/slumping) wool blanket panels along the *inside* of the lattice, and probably cover that with wooden paneling. The wool is white and beautiful and I don't mind the look of it exposed, but I worry about it being hard to clean if it weren't covered with something. And I also wonder if we need a vapor barrier underneath the paneling? It's confusing trying to figure out the layers and what order they should go, and how to make sure it can breathe. The idea has also come up to just do the roof insulation and forget the walls, since the R-value wouldn't be that big of a gain anyway for the amount of work it would involve.
Honestly the lack of insulation is one of my biggest complaints with yurt life, so if we could fix that issue it would be amazing, but I am worried about this wool becoming a mold disaster. We have a separate bathhouse so won't be bathing/showering in the yurt, but we do have a little dishwasher and will be cooking in it. We are considering installing a kitchen vent in addition to the open-able
. We are in Northern California, in the Sierra foothills, and we get rain and some snow in the winter but overall our climate is pretty dry and it rarely gets below freezing.
Thank you for any pearls of wisdom you might have!
Wool insulation questions
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