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Installation of Trekker Diesel Stove into Surely Yurts Yurt

Jafo

Jafo

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International Thermal Research asked me to demo their smallest diesel/kerosene stove in my 10' foot Surely Yurts yurt.

Steve from Surely Yurts stopped up one weekend and gave me a hand. I am going to do a few videos on how it worked out.

For full disclosure, I was given this stove as part of doing the review. My review however, will not be affected by this.

Here is a video of some of the installation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGhjVBmzbUk

It was a pretty simple install to be honest with you. The stove is so light. My wood stove in the 30' yurt weighs about 700 pounds where this thing all together weighs like 20 pounds. I was fortunate to have Steve there as he has done the roof modifications before so it went pretty quick.

I am going to do another video on operation, but am waiting for the weather to get colder first. I will just edit this post as the videos come online.
 
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Neat! Looks like the trekker maxes out at 12k btu though, so not much compared to your wood stove. Their larger models go up to 50/60k btu however--they also rate them for _volume_ heated instead of floorspace, which is smart. The trekker is spec'd down to 4k btu, so 1/3 of max output is pretty respectable for range.

I wonder how well they do on biodiesel or straight vegetable oil?
 
Yeah, but this went in the small 10' yurt, not the 30' one. Any bigger and it would have taken up too much room. I am not sure if it will work on biodiesel. Great question. I will ask and see what they say.
 
Hello Hierony, yes the unit will work on Biodiesel and we do have units that will heat up a 30' tent. It's based off military units we designed and build for the US military.
 
I have been waiting to update this thread, but it has been so warm up here, I really haven't been able to throw a good test at it. Even this weekend, it is supposed to only get into the upper 30's at night. It does keep the small yurt warm at these temperatures, but still waiting to give it a good test around 20F or less.
 
There is more snow in Southern Texas than there is here in upstate NY right now lol. We actually have no snow at all.
 
Totally off topic.

Well it's finally been cold here this week, but I'd hardly call it winter, there's no snow. None. This is getting to be way too commonplace. Climate change around here is real. Tonight's the first I actually thought about fire. We need snow in a big way here in the west, that's how we get our water.
 
So we finally got up there from Feb 9th to the 11th and got our first chance to really fire the thing up for a real test. We had so much snow, it came up to your chest. Temps were in the 20's F.

I started the stove Saturday morning about 8am and it took a couple hours to heat that small yurt up to 65 degrees, mostly because the yurt was stone cold, as were the contents. By noon, all of the snow had melted off the yurt and it was nearly 80 degrees in there. At that point I turned it to below halfway and the temp stayed between the upper 60's and lower 70's depending on wind/sun.

I had some trouble with the initial set up and emailed my contact at the manufacturer a few times until we got it right. One thing I would recommend is that they put out a video and include it (DVD) with the product, make available for download on their site and also publish on Youtube. There are some things that are just better illustrated with video and would have save me and the manufacturer time. Diesel stoves are not common and people who have never used them before (like me) do not understand many of the concepts that someone who uses them every day (like the manufacturer) take for granted.

One thing I do plan on changing this Spring is that I will be mounting the tank outside somehow. When dealing with the tank, you inevitably spill a couple drops of diesel here and there. Not a big deal outside, but in a 10' yurt, it can stink it up quick. I can also get the tank higher outside, making for a better flow to the unit. In a larger yurt, with the larger stoves, I think this would be a requirement as you will want a larger tank anyway. Think 50 gallon tank or more, depending on usage. My test was with their smallest, more portable stove where a 5 gallon tank is more than enough.

One of the unsung features of this stove is that it is light, very light. One person can easily assemble, move and install this unit. After installing my 700lbs soapstone wood stove in my 30' yurt, this was a piece of cake. :)

It burns extremely clean, much cleaner than a wood stove. You might get a little smoke initially when you first fire it up, for maybe a couple minutes, but after that, the exhaust gasses are virtually clear.

In my opinion, these stoves are really ideal for the traditional Mongolian yurts such as the ones Groovy Yurts and Suntime Yurts make. Why? Those yurts are designed to be extremely portable and light. So are these stoves. What good is a light, portable yurt when you also have to haul around a wood/coal stove that weighs 200+ pounds? I think all together, stovepipe, cap and all, this weighs about 20 pounds or less. Ideal for the nomadic type.

It is also a good fit for the smaller yurts where space is at a premium. The clearances are tight and you do not need to take up space inside for the fuel like you do with wood or coal.

Overall I give this the thumbs up with the only area of improvement needed being that it could use better directions.
 
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