Realistically how long can I live in a yurt?

[COswald]

My sister is buying land and I am considering putting up a yurt. She hasn't decided on where exactly yet so I am not able to start looking at permits or anything but it would be somewhere in OH, PA, NY area.

It would ideally be "temporary" while I built a more traditionalish home but it would likely take me about 3-4 years to build said home.

Is it realistic to plan to live in a yurt that long? I figure I would get the additional snow and

insulation

packages. I am particularly interested in

Groovy yurts

but I can't tell if they are up to IBC code since they seem pretty traditional. I like the natural materials and feel like 2 or 3 layers of the thick felt would be better

insulation

than the thinner space age stuff other companies use.

[Bob Rowlands]

Yes that is definitely realistic. Some folks live in them permanently.

[Jafo]

You can as long as you take care of the snow load. You should talk with Yves from

Groovy Yurts

. He is extremely knowledgeable on the matter and has delivered and installed yurts all over the world. He is also a really nice person to boot!

[Jay Aimes]

Greetings
I have lived year round in my 30 ft pacific yurt for going on 7 years. last year my wife and 2 children joined me. we love it. we are very impressed with it's ability to withstand punishing winds and brutal winters we get here. that being said. if you think you have enough fire wood, trust me, you don't. get more. and then get more again. LOL. we are now happily settled in 2 cats 2 dogs 2 children and 2 adults. livin the dream.
Good luck.
Fortunately our building codes don't recognize a yurt as a dwelling, hence no permits. If you build it exceeding the minimums it will last 7 years at least. I can foresee needing a new roof at some point down the line and we are changing our ropes this year for the first time. 112 kms/hr wind tested my anchoring screws and they failed but the yurt still stands. Cheers have fun and don't sweat the small stuff

[Pacific Yurts]

A couple of weeks ago I spoke with one of our customers who purchased a 30' yurt to live in temporarily while they constructed a site-built home. Now, 26 years later, they are starting to build their site-built house.

[Bob Rowlands]

Based on youtube videos I have watched, and my own experience having built three yurts over a six year period, I would hasten to say the majority of people that grew up in a house, but moved into a yurt for whatever reason, end up moving back into a house within a few years.

Mongolian herdsmen live in them year after year, and raise families in them. However their culture is nomadic, not citified. Their nomadic yurts have no plumbing, or gas. Many nowadays do have power in their yurts through solar or electric generators. 'Americanized' improvements that require 'taps'require the yurt to be stationary on a platform, and typically have framed walls inside for standard house amenities.

Don't get me wrong, I like yurts. IMO they are the absolute pinnacle of tent design. I built three small nomadic type unimproved yurts, which is three more than most yurt dwellers have built. I carpentered on HUNDREDS of homes, and apartments, over the 47 years of my career. Sometimes I get the feeling on here people think they will just move into a yurt and it will be just like the framed house they moved out of.

It WON'T be. Great as yurts are, and sweet as they can be with plumbing, electric, gas etc. They are tents, not houses. You can stab a knife through a yurt,or any tent but not a house. You hear everything outside. Not so in a house. You replace the entire cover in fifteen years, or less. Even the cheapest houses get painted. Stucco houses (mine) need no wall paint, just soffit fascia. Our shingles are twenty years old and will last about five more. No yurt cover will last twenty years.

Under no circumstance or in any category can a yurt be considered a house. Can you live in one long term? Absolutely, some do. Most 'do not'.

Not 'dissing' yurts, but....they are not houses. Just sayin.

[Amy Amelia]

I'm in the UK and next year marks 10 years of living in a yurt for me (I've built 2 yurts one 20 ft and one 18ft and lived in 3 altogether). I can't comment on US yurt packages but for overall yurt living experience, I love it and plan on doing it as long as possible. Winters can be hard, but I think it's one of those things that either you find it's not for you pretty quickly, or you will develop your own ways of dealing with yurt related problems and will love it. It's not easy, it's not for everyone but for me the postives outweigh the negatives. I would love to buy my own land and built a straw bale house with a living roof eventually, but that's still a long way off and I'm happy in my yurt for now. Good luck!

[Jafo]

I would like to add that half the fun of living in a yurt is coming up with solutions for some of the adversities you will face.

[Zelig]

We've been living full time in our 6wall/22ft Groovy Yurt for 5 years. We're in a much colder climate than you're considering and we have just two layers of felt. I really don't think you'll need more than one. We burn 4.5 full cords (4x4x8ft) of mostly spruce with about 20% poplar for the milder months and 10% birch for the colder nights. Still, 4.5 cords total. Our heat comes from a Waterford Stanley cookstove that is not at all being put to its limits. We idle it most of the time or let it go out. The coldest we see here is about -40deg, and with the stove going it's usually about 22-26degC inside. Very, very cozy. The biggest thing that helps keep us warm is snow bermed up against the walls. We have had it piled up to the top of the walls and the firewood consumption drops noticeably. Yves is awesome and visits us usually once or twice a year on his delivery journeys. He is a wonderful human being and his visits always leave us with positive vibes and hope for humanity. I hope this helps.

[Bob Rowlands]

Thanks for the info Zelig. It's very good when folks that actually live in yurts tell us their experience. That you use substantially less wood when the wall is banked with snow is definitive proof that snow is a good insulator.