Yurt in Ohio!

[Katie B]

Hey all,

Thanks so much for checking this out! My husband and I are currently in the planning process of putting together our dream home - a 33' yurt for social living and 24' satellite yurt for bedroom, connected by some kind of hallway, both yurts ordered from Rainier. We will be placing our yurts in NE Ohio and already have the land. There is power, septic, and natural gas available. I'm hoping whoever reads this can kind of help us out with questions as we go, offer advice and suggestions for things that have worked well for you in your yurt, that kind of thing.

So far, I have a couple of main questions that I'm sure will turn into more questions down the road. First,

heating

. I liked the idea of radiant floor

heating

, but after giving it some more research I'm not so sure about it. My main concern is pipes freezing in the winter, as well as the fact that in that area the power goes out fairly often, so we need a heating source that doesn't rely on electricity. We're not really leaning toward a woodstove because of the major amount of work involved if we're going to live in the yurt year-round with the long winters we have here, but if you all insist it's the best option I will definitely reconsider. Any suggestions?

Second, the platform. We definitely need it to be insulated and I would like it to be as environmentally friendly as possible because we're close to a water source and I want to be extra careful. That said, cost is a concern as well. I've seen some posts about using hay bales, which we would have easy access to as we have hay fields on our farm. Would it be possible to bank/insulate our platform every winter by using hay? Or is that completely ridiculous?

I think that's it for right now. Thanks so much for reading!

[Jafo]

The radiant floor heat will not freeze because the pipes are filled with an anti-freeze.

I can't speak to the hay other than my gut instinct says it would eventually breakdown. That is just my farm boy experience with hay speaking.

[Marshall Eppley]

Something else to think about radiant heat takes a while to get things warmed up it is not an instant heat.so if you are not going to be there and need it warmed up it might take a day or more to get it up to temp.

[Bob Rowlands]

Hay bales carefully banked around the platform will very definitely keep it warmer. Any material that blocks air drafting under the platform is going to work to some degree or other. I'd be concerned about critters though.

[daniellescurls]

Hello Katie!
My husband and I are seriously considering going down this yurt road. We too live in NE Ohio. Near you actually, in the Zoar area, but we are originally from Oregon where yurts are more common. So we are wondering how it’s going in Ohio’s climate with your yurt? Perhaps an update?