Just signed up here (and just pitched my yurt in August!) and didn't find anything in the past few years to help me.
The situation: we had a major wind event, gusts in the area in excess of 100mph, and despite the yurt doing just fine, the acrylic
was ripped off, flew at least 100', and shattered into a hundred pieces.
It's in a remote place and thank goodness it hasn't snowed in yet so I can access with a 4WD and get a new one installed before the yurt fills with snow for the winter. But I sure don't want to lose another
during the winter months.
Mine is a CO Yurt co model and they use eye bolts with rubber-backed washers on the dome (x6), and stretch a spring (stiff enough to be a nightmare to install) between those eye bolts and eye lags screwed into the ring. I also had a lifter on it, and it was closed. The lifter mechanism was at the windward side of this storm. From the damage it looks like at least the following happened:
- the lifter screw somehow "backed out" almost completely and then bent and snapped (can the wind "work open" a lifter?)
- at least one eye bolt pulled its washers and nut through the acrylic
- one of the springs was stretched out almost completely
- two safety wires attached between the eyes closest to the lifter were snapped
I may or may not be interested in reinstalling a new lifter, but I definitely don't want to lose domes. Clearly some stresses concentrated at an eye bolt penetration. Does anyone have any tricks to distribute the stress at the eye bolts more broadly across the acrylic? I was thinking of trying larger washers with thicker rubber washers contacting the acrylic.
How about tying the eyes together? Springs allow movement. I was thinking multiple wraps of paracord or hooks and turnbuckles but I also don't know if the springs are necessary to allow movements with temperature cycling and I don't want to ADD stresses.
Appreciate any/all ideas from experienced yurt dwellers, especially those who fight the wind.
How to spread stresses across dome, keep it in place?
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