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We own a camp with 4 gers (Mongolian for yurts). My wife and I live in two modern gers and we also have 2 traditional Mongolian gers. We have a small side business as a tourist camp. Here it is, high in the mountains about 20 miles (36km) outside Ulaanbaatar, the capital. Summer drone shot...

I guess we'll see. I ordered a bark peeling tool but it hasn't arrived yet. The main purpose was to strip off silver birch bark which is an excellent fire starter when it's completely dry, as I recently discovered. You probably know this but birch bark, at least white or silver, dries out and...

Now I'm a full-on firewood harvester, I needed proper storage for seasoning all my firewood. At first I just used our some of our patio cover (gazebo?) but there's not enough space and we're still using it as an outdoor seating area for us and our camp guests. Therefore, a dedicated firewood...

I finally figured out how to pair the wifi controller / power supply to the mobile app. Now I can add scheduled opening and closing. Also, I don't need to use the dumb remote controls and can use just my phone. Handy. A couple of family members asked me what happens if the power goes out and...

It seems like it's time for my annual update. First of all, I hope the few folks reading (and responding) are having a great summer. Our camp has had a very good year for tourists. A lot more international travellers for some reason. We haven't expanded yet because we're never overbooked. Just...

After a couple of years of living at our camp, it occurred to me that we need a better solution for outdoor life. Yeah, I think slow. I mean a real covered patio not just some chairs and a table taken outside then taken back inside. That was a hassle but we did it for a couple of summers. This...

That's a great idea. I know this is an old post but it's still relevant, especially in Summer. We're in Mongolia so we're not as hot but it can reach 30+ C from solar gain on a sunny summer day. We went with widely available net material. We use insect net material to stop most of the flies...

Luckily, as an early retiree, I have time to figure it out, improve, learn etc. Each mistake I make, I learn what NOT to do next time. One thing I've learned is you can't rely on one system of heating on a camp. The cheap, dumb ones (semi-coke and firewood) are labour intensive. I've realised...

How's your winter going? I was enjoying my winter, even modifying my electric dirt bikes to work on snow and ice with ice screws. Lots of fun. Then disaster struck. The local power station had a failure in the night. Unfortunately, I was fast asleep and couldn't take any steps to mitigate...

A bit late to the party but this is how our wood stoves are installed. What is not visible is cement board with a hole cut through it for the double walled pipe. It's probably a belt and braces approach but the installers should know what they are doing. No angles though. All stoves I've ever...

Personally I avoided wood decks for my gers. I've seen the results of a few years on wooden decks and they just don't last and/or need tons of maintenance and that's in Mongolia which is a fairly dry country, except for our rainy season in Summer. This is at a tourist camp in Mongolia where...

Welcome! I'm a British expat now living in the mountains outside Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We have a small tourist camp where we live year round. Perhaps I can offer some of my own experiences through 2 winters. Some of it might be useful but the climate in the UK is so different. So maybe not. In...

I can attest to the fact that roof penetrations for chimney flues will leak. I suppose you could prevent it with annual maintenance. We just accept that leaks will happen. We have one of those rubberized chimney flashings but it's not perfect. This is the outside before the decorative canvas...

Thanks. We're all good. I hope you and yours are doing well too. We've been busy. We went commercial with our home as a tourist camp. We started a bit late in the season (1st week of August) but have had a steady, but small, number of bookings. We're only offering 2 gers at this point. One for...

A schematic, more or less to scale, might help. The well house isn't shown - it's about 30m to the south from the furnace. Those pipes are insulated and underground. The radiators (thick white lines in the schematic) aren't exactly in their final location but other than that, the schematic...

I'm not sure if my solution will help but I'll share anyway. Last winter we heated with underfloor electric heating. While, it did keep us warm down to -46C (-51F), which was the lowest night last winter, it cost us a fortune in electric bills. Our highest monthly bill was $460 for electricity...

I made a few combination desks and shelves for now. They look like this: I generally use leftover off-cuts for structural lumber. The first shelves I did were in the living room. We had recently had a central heating system installed with 5 radiators heated by a semi-coke briquette...

I'm very late to this parade but this might be useful to some folks coming along later. We live on a ger camp in the mountains of Mongolia at quite high altitude about 1700m (5500') and have an extremely cold winter. Just a deep freeze though. This week it's been in the -40's (C or F doesn't...

Thanks for the recommendations. I think we're pretty good on winter clothes now EXCEPT maybe gloves. I like the mitts on the coat and how they are connected to the jacket. I like fingerless gloves with over mitten covers. I used to have some of these (from a company called REI) years ago. Good...

Continuing the topic of winter life in the mountains in a 'ger' (yurt), I thought I'd add something about clothing. As a holiday present my wife had a winter 'deel' made for me. It's a traditional robe worn by Mongolians for eons. I got the winter one, lined with sheepskin. It can be made with...