So, You Want to Live in a Yurt? (2 page)

But, what IS a yurt? A yurt is essentially a round building, with a lattice support system for the walls, and canvas type fabric covering the whole shebang. Most, if not all, yurts also have a plexiglass dome topping the dome shaped structure that brings in light and air. Depending on the yurt manufacturer, the individual components might vary slightly, but that’s a yurt in a nutshell. Usually when you purchase a yurt, you’re getting the shell of your home, and it’s up to you how you’ll construct the deck, the floor, interior walls (if any), whether you’ll include indoor plumbing and electric, and so on. The less you do, the less you’ll have to deal with a building inspector or contractor. The more you can do yourself, the less it’ll cost you, but you might end up pulling out your hair dealing with your county inspector, especially if it’s one of the first yurts in the area.

Living in a yurt is often described as “living in the round”, and many people say they feel instantly peaceful when they step foot in one, and sleep like a baby in their yurt.

One common explanation for that sense of peace, is that circles are more natural, and thus we naturally feel more at home in a circular space. There are no hidden corners, air flow is better, sunlight fills a yurt with a warm glow, and so on.

Without getting all hocus pocus-y on you, I will say this. We
DO
sleep better in our yurt, I love having our home office in it and everyone that has stepped foot in here, from the Lowes delivery guys to local hunters who happened by, are entranced and often completely enamored with our yurt.

Our contractors loved working here, and genuinely seemed sad to leave “their yurt”. They went from being enthusiastically curious when beginning the project, to enthusiastically proud when showing it off to the many visitors that just stopped by.

You can’t capture the yurt “feel” with pictures, or even video. To understand, you have to visit a yurt and preferably, spend some time in one. If you’re thinking of buying a yurt, I highly recommend visiting one of the many B&B yurts that are popping up, a rustic camping yurt found in many state parks and/or contact various yurt companies for suggested yurt rentals.

I will say, we stayed in a rustic yurt in PA a few years ago, and it convinced us a yurt
wasn’t
our thing. It was just a
litttttle
too intense. But looking back, that had to do more with outside circumstances (hurricane force winds, no plumbing, bare bones camp furniture, etc) than the yurt itself. Even as huge branches went flying over the dome, we were impressed how warm it kept us with just one small space heater, and we liked the way it looked inside, but it was just SO rustic.

A key factor of yurts, and one that you really should keep in mind, is that you WILL be more in touch with nature. If you’re thinking of putting a yurt in a loud, urban environment - look elsewhere. These structures do best in a quieter, natural setting, since they muffle, rather than block outside noise. These days we can hear our happy chickens clucking outside, the wind in the trees and the occasional airplane overhead. Rain sounds magical on the roof.

Snow melting and sliding off is disconcerting till you realize what the heck that noise is! Strong winds will make a variety of noises as it whips around your round home. It can get noisy, enough said. When the propane installer was working on our stove, it was a tad windy outside and the wind was rippling the roof. I was happily working away on my laptop, and Beau, the propane guy, said “
WELL, if
SHE
isn’t worried…then I’m not!”
I’d already gotten so used to the wind noise, I hadn’t even noticed, but he was a bit worried the yurt was going to blow away!

Our second night in the yurt, we had a massive windstorm with 50+ winds whipping around, driving rain and even a little hail…for seven straight hours. Even though the timbers creaked with the wind, and the noise was INTENSE, I never felt any more worried than I would have been in a stick built home. Sure enough, a neighbor with a conventional home stopped by the next day to make sure we hadn’t blown away, and he said HIS walls were shaking.
Go YURT!

Two end notes:
1.
Yurts always look bigger inside than they do outside, enjoy shocking people with that fact.
2.
Imagine a beautiful log cabin, smelling of wood and nature…and then a modern home with bright, open windows, the sun shining in or rain pattering down…now imagine those two places had a
baby
, and named it
Yurt
.

WHY DID WE CHOOSE A YURT?

yurtFAQs.com

Isn’t that “thing” going to BLOW away?

You might have noticed I said a yurt wasn’t for me and Mike, after we stayed in a rustic state park 24’ footer. Our parents were quick to remind us of that as well when yurts popped back up on the radar.

A few things happened - we moved down to the Blue Ridge mountains in Southwest VA, an area packed with hippy culture, down home living and plenty of live bluegrass. We applied for a home mortgage and looked at house after house, with quite a few seeming almost perfect. We found ourselves coming home after tours, all excited…but, invariably we wanted to knock walls down, open up exterior walls with more windows and add big front porches.

One of our dreams was a prefab modern home with a living roof and cool, ecofriendly appliances/interiors. But the ones we liked were considerably out of our range. Typical, right???

So the seed was planted, and yet, we kept pushing to find an already built home that would fit the bill. It just seemed easier. Unfortunately, since we own our own business, were new to the area (thus our client base looked potentially unstable to lenders) and were first time buyers, things at the mortgage office were not going well.

Sooo, we bounced idea after idea, considering everything from owner financing to renting for another year. Yuck!

If you’re considering a yurt, perhaps you know what I mean, when I say we were sick to death of renting, and not having ownership of our own space. Around this time, we had some good friends over for dinner, who own 70+ acres with a vacation home in the area. We talked about the houses that we were looking at, and picked their brains. They mentioned a side plot of land on their property that already had septic, well and electric (i.e. a country goldmine!). We smiled and nodded, but in our stubborn way, were still pushing buying a certain house we had an eye on (we’d spent hours looking at it, and even befriended the neighboring horses). It was a foreclosure, and would need a lot of work, and didn’t have the land we were looking for, but we’d convinced ourselves it wouldn’t be settling. We’d fix it up, then rent it out when we found our dream property.

But you know, life is short. You shouldn’t wait on your dreams any longer than needed. The next day, an idea popped up…. What if we leased our friend’s land and put a moveable yurt on it!? There was a yurt company in our area, we loved the idea of being neighbors with our friends, the area is beautiful, and it was more in keeping with the type of land we wanted.

Lucky us, our friends are as crazy as we are, and said yes! I won’t bore you with more details - but in short order, we had a land lease, visited the yurt company and toured a few yurts in the area, put down a deposit on our yurt and….

Then the waiting began
.

HOW LONG FROM START TO FINISH?

yurtFAQs.com

Waiting is the hardest part!!

Waiting, you ask? But yurts go up in 24-48 hours, that’s one of their selling points! Why yes, dear friend (I can call you friend at this point, right?), they do. But the deck they go on takes much longer. As does FINDING someone to build your yurt deck. Unless you’re experienced, and can build your own deck.

Oh, but did I mention the building permit? No? Whoopsie. Well, if you’re as wet behind the ears as WE were, pay attention to this - a yurt to live in is more than just a yurt. Perhaps it will save you a little heart attack… I mean, heart ACHE. Ahem. So! A few questions for you, rather than an answer to the age old “how long will it take?”

*
Do you have land?

*
Is there electricity, water and septic/sewage on your land?

*
Do you have your building permit?

*
Have you chosen your yurt company? If yes, do you have a deposit down for your yurt?

*
How are you funding this adventure? The more cash you have, the quicker you can get things done.

*
What type of deck or foundation are you using for your yurt? If that is already built, jump ahead a few steps, you’re well on your way!

*
If you are using a contractor, plumber or electrician - are they on board and ready to start?

The answers to these questions will in large part determine how long your yurt process will take.

We had probably the
worst
case scenario in terms of cost and stress levels - we decided to go with a yurt at the last minute, our deadline was the impending snow/ice/freezing temps of a mountain winter looming over us, we didn’t have a contractor lined up, etc. So we definitely learned the hard way!

But thanks to help from friends and family, an understanding landlord that allowed us to extend our move out date several times, lots of overtime by our contractor and some luck, we managed to get into our yurt by January. But remember, we wanted to be in by October! As they say, when you build a house (and don’t deceive yourself, it might be a yurt, but it is still a big project), it’s always over budget and behind schedule.

Amen to that, a
trillion
times.