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How's your winter going, guys? Are any of you living in your yurts? In my case, I think we're over the worst of it and I'm VERY relieved. This winter was colder than most. Every 10 years or so, we get a colder than usual one. This has been one. Before now, the lowest I've experienced is -46C...

I grew up in the UK, lived in the USA then Asia so I'm bilingual when it comes to metric/imperial since I've had years of experience with both. So here's my 5 meters (16 feet) of kitchen furniture / countertops which I designed and built with help from my handyman. I design in Blender3d (open...

How y'all doing with the weather? I've seen the news about the US extreme storms. We've had a mild (by normal standards) December. November was worse. No storms as such but some regular snow falls which drop a few centimeters of snow each time (4" is typical each time). The snow just keeps...

I had to take photos for the district office so we can get an address and qualify for free night time electricity. So I thought I'd share. The very lightweight fence marks the end of our property, about 2 acres (or 1 hectare). Not including all the public land around is which is free for all...

Wow, I can't imagine the cost of a frozen and ruptured engine block. My diesel truck (Ssangyong Musso) has a block heater which I'm using a lot these days. I have to pre-heat the engine for about 20-30 minutes before going out. However, I'm thinking of moving it into my insulated shipping...

Just a quick update. We had a slight disaster with our well-house to bathroom pump. The heating failed over night and it was the usual -34C (-28F?) overnight. The pump froze and then burst the upper casing when it thawed out. Luckily none of the pipes froze because they have heat tape and...

So let's talk about winter heating for gers/yurts. Our main heating source is electricity because it's very cheap here and even cheaper at night. About 4.5c per kWh in the day and 3c per kWh at night for comparison's sake. I'll add thermal photos in theme with this topic. (FLIR type). They were...

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! The first door (a prototype / test case) is practically done. Paul the handyman and I put our heads together and came up with a rudimentary track system using automotive bearings and angle iron for the track and hangers. It's not quite finished, a...

Oo, nice. Thanks so much. I really appreciate your positive support. I hope it's interesting to some folks. When it's all done, or done to a level where I can take a break, I can maybe make a YouTube documentary on the build out. At the moment, I'm just too busy to put all the material together...

We've made quite a lot of progress on the bathroom/hallway connection between our twin gers. Almost all the major fixtures are in now. Just need to install the window, partition walls and barn style doors. To speed things up, I'm going to use glu-lam panels just screwed to the 10x10cm (4"x4")...

A small bit of progress in the last couple of weeks. Mostly functional things, not cosmetic. The bathroom/hallway is fully connected and mainly finished outside minus the metal trims which go on the corners and roof edges. This is mainly cosmetic. We'll probably paint the exterior to blend with...

I live in gers (aka 'yurts') in the mountains of Mongolia. The climate is similar to Colorado but probably even drier. Also much colder. Our rainy season is only in the summer but not especially wet, by world standards, even then. Generally there'll be no issues with mold as long as you stop...

I just want to add that I have 2 new favourite tools. A power miter saw makes quick and accurate cross cuts. It can cut through 10cm (4”) lumbar in one cut. Angle cuts are easy and accurate. Before I had to cut twice with a circular saw and ended up with sloppy results. A cordless impact...

We made good progress during a very long work day yesterday (Friday). 13 hours to be exact. I invited my long-time handyman, Paul (an Americanized Mongolian) to help out. He brought his adopted brother, Billy, who is usually a horse specialist but is very handy too. All the sandwich panels...

A little update for the 2 people following this thread. :D I might have mentioned before that I'd had lumbar spine surgery in late May. Well, I re-herniated my disc (or herniated a different disc) a few weeks ago, which limited my abilities (again) but I'm feeling well enough to do some...

Great points. We use the containers as a garage, workshop and storage. The attraction of PU spray foam was that I didn’t think I needed to add a finished interior (dry wall). Since I was wrong about that, I agree that steel sandwich panel is the way to go. It’ll take longer but be a much more...

The ger company finally brought our outer covers, straps and trim. I'm very pleasantly surprised. The gers look totally different and pretty cool, I think. Much more traditional look but with the curved walls. Better than I expected. Another angle. Also, the well house foundation is done...

Lots of new work has been going on in the last week or so. Some of it quite scary. The law in Mongolia states we must have septic tank(s) for toilets etc. I talked to my trusty handyman who I've been hiring for years. He designed a system that wasn't too expensive but would NOT need emptying...

Welcome Meg. I'm originally from the UK (eons ago) and now live in Mongolia. I agree with the idea of a sheet of strong plastic. In Mongolia we use these in winter to cut the cold down. Your situation might be due to rain? In our situation cold is the main enemy. I imagine it gets cold in...

I'm working on the design / architecture of our hallway / bathroom which connects the 2 yurts. The hallway will have a wet/cold weather entry to keep the rain / cold out of the living and bedroom yurts. I do my design in Blender, an open source 3d program. I used Smartdraw, a web-based...