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yurt vs house

N

newt

New member
Hi
We are a family for 4 with 2 dogs. Kids are 5 and 7. We currently own some property and are living in a 29 ft rv on the land. We have hopes to build a house some day but are considering a yurt for the interim. Do we just build the house or do we put up a yurt and build the slowly? Looking for some pros and cons to building a yurt vs building a small house. Are we just adding a step by building a yurt then house....spending money that does not increase equity. Time is an issue as well. We have been plugged into to my in laws house for over a year and are starting our 2nd winter in the camper. Let your thoughts fly and thanks in advance.
 
Well, the first issue will be of course, how are you going to heat this? It takes a lot of wood/oil/gas/coal to heat a yurt. While the heat is on, they are great, the minute the heat is off, they get cold. If you have access to to a lot of wood, this may not be an issue for you. For a 30 foot yurt, expect to burn all of 10 full cords, and probably more, depending on what part of PA you are in.

Obviously, the most cost effective way is to stay in your RV until the house is built, but if that is not an option, then a yurt (as small as possible) will not be a bad idea. A good quality yurt will last more than a life time, though you will have to change the roof every 20 years or so just like any other house.
 
Heat is not an issue. Plenty of wood on the farm. More than I think I could ever use. We struggle with spending 20,000 + on building a yurt and not having that $ for the house. I think a yurt would be way quicker than a house to construct. The house we plan to build would be a Timberframe using wood from the property. 1500 Sq ft or so. How do yurts do on the resale mrket or do we just keep it and make it guest living?

The yurt would have electric (public), composting toilet, and wood stove heat maybe with eletric base board back up for when we are away. Looking at a 5 yr living plan for the yurt.
 
I hate to say it on this site, but without question I'd suggest building a small ranch house over an unfinished basement. You can do that while you are living in the RV. It would take you a year or so to build, depending on how experienced you are, and how many pro tradesmen you use. If it was built by pro tradesmen just a few months probably four if the house is quite small.

Keep the plan small and simple. The 3 bed 2 bath rancher is what most older American 'boomers' grew up in. They are superb homes.

Interest rates are still unbelievably low.

I love yurts don't get me wrong, but a small house is WAY better investment and WAY tougher than any yurt. BTW I've been a carpenter for 41 years and can speak with authority on this subject.
 
Bob, never feel like you can't say what you want here. :)

I think what newt was getting at, was not WHICH to live in, but would living in a a yurt WHILE they build their house and whether it is feasible. A lot of people have asked that question on here. I for one would rather live in a yurt for a couple years while building my house than an RV. :)
 
Thank you both. I will tally the survey to this point as 1 and 1. Both my wife and I are on the fence. We would build a 30 ft yurt with composting toilet, kitchen, loft, ect. That is a sizeable investment. We would probably skip permitting since it is not per meant which would allow for quicker occupancy. Could I get a yurt completed in a month? Deck ect.....I think. The house will take time. 30×36 timberframe on a slab. Lumber From THE propety. Trees are still standing.

BTW...got the rv off Craigslist for a steal and plan to sell it when done. For the same price. We are not rv people as we have found out.
 
We built my yurt in way less than a month, and this was in the middle of the woods far from civilization... :)
 
Speaking from experience, I put off building our home WAY too long. I should have built it when I was 30, not 45. It would be paid off well before retirement. The way it is now, I can't even consider retiring until this dude is paid for. FWIW.

I'm bring as straight forward as I can be here. Building/owning a small home is probably the single wisest financial move a family can make. The sooner you get after it, especially with the mind blowing low interest we have now, the better. You can always build a yurt later, when you're empty nesters, like we did. IMHO, I'd take care of business now-while the family is all very young.
 
I thought of buying and building a yurt on a properly zoned piece of property and living in it until the property was paid off. Then, start construction on a long-term home and use the yurt as a rental. Getting very popular these days... Just a thought on a decent way to recoup costs after the house is built. The other option I've considered is building a hard sided yurt home, which is built to code. They are easy to add onto later and come at a competitive price vs. a stick built home. Good Luck!
 
Jafo said:
For a 30 foot yurt, expect to burn all of 10 full cords, and probably more, depending on what part of PA you are in.
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your wood measuring, but as I'm just expecting my first winter in a yurt, it concerns me quite a bit. What shall I imagine as 10 full cords? And is that just for winter, or a year?


As for the original topic, how about learning from the way Mongolians do this. As I've read and heard, many of them who live in cities have a yurt on their property, plus a house. The yurt is bedroom/living room, while the house provides a safe lockable storage, bathroom, sometimes kitchen, etc..
So you could do something like that, maybe build the house by parts, adding slowly. Start with the kitchen and bathroom, plus some place to keep valuable items, also guns and such. Of course, I'm used to think about the kind of house we mainly have here, that means brick houses. Those are quite easy to add. Not sure how about those timberframe constructions you guys have, those may require to be built whole at a time. JMHO. If I have to move any time soon, this may well be the way I'll do things.
 
A full cord is 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. I was considering just for winter alone.
 
A true full cord is nothing less than 4x4x8, split and stacked. Anything under that is a fraction of a cord. Some call an 8' pickup bed mounded up with the splits tossed in it, "That's about a cord". That's not even close to a full cord.

10 cords is ALOT of wood. I read in a John Rowlands book, 'Cache Creek Country' (superb) that they planned on using TWENTY cords in a long Canadian winter to heat their little rough hewn cabin. Now that my friend is a mind blowing amout of wood to cut and split.
 
Yurts will use a lot more wood than a small cabin though, unfortunately. As soon as the stove cools, the room cools.
 
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