Insulation questions...Permanent yurt in Burleson County Texas...

[TXFarmPop]

Hey Texas Neighbors, I’ve lived in a Yurt (Pacific Yurt w. Insulation in walls) in Coastal Texas for 8 years, specifically in Brazoria County, six miles from the beach as the crow (or Sandhill Crane) flies. 30’ diameter, by the way.
For four of those years we had no air conditioning whatsoever, except for a cool shower at dusk and an overhead fan to get us through the night. Because I work outside all day and did not need to be inside during the early hours of the day, I found the Yurt to be amazingly comfortable. My experience was that there was maybe one week or Ten days when I’d wake feeling smothered by the heat and humidity. We did have our kitchen in a separate structure by design, knowing that the heat would be problematic. Truly, as an over-air conditioned Texan for most of my life, I found the yurt to be pleasant through the Summers. The one GREAT attribute other than the obvious joys of yurt living is that the structure has very little thermal mass, therefore as soon as the temp cools in the evening, the inside temp does the same. That said!!! as the upstate New Yorker states, the yurt is really uninhabitable in the mornings in all but the coolest or coldest weather. I say uninhabitable in the mornings because our Yurt is situated half under and to the East of a very large Pecan tree. I chose this placement knowing i would prefer to have shade and cool in the afternoons and evenings rather than in the mornings.
During the winter we had a wood burning stove that warmed the room “warmly”. I found the cold, un-insulated floor to be the least pleasant aspect of the yurt in winter, even six miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I highly recommend insulating your floor. Did I mention that I built the floor of our structure 4’ in the air. No skirting whatsoever. I did this BECAUSE i wanted airflow under the yurt, for cooling and in the hopes that a hurricane force wind might just blow over, under and around our little round house. 3 hurricanes later (Rita, Ike & Harvey with no direct hits), we are still here.
Finally, for the last four years we’ve had a Mitsubishi mini-split with A/C and Heat. The thing, the machine is wonderful as it does its job quietly. I can’t say enough about the almost imperceptible whisper of this unit

heating

and cooling.I hope this helps and for what it’s worth, I say go for it.