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Propane and Woodstone inside Yurt

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ADKbham

New member
Hello new to the yurt forum.

I have 20 acres in upstate NY. Considering adding a Yurt to my off grid cabin as a guest quarters. Currently I have well, solar panel, generac eco-gen generator, inverter powering cabin currently. my current thinking is to possibly install a new septic at another spot on my land, and build a yurt and extend power, water and propane to the yurt- and now have a full guest cabin with bath. is it feasible to have a propane direct vent heater inside the yurt (inside some sort of bathroom enclosure) to help prevent everything from freezing solid when the yurt goes unoccupied in the winter. We would use the Yurt periodically in the winter, and would supplement the propane with a wood burner inside the yurt.

Or is this just over engineering and should i just drain and blow out the water pipes every time I leave in the deep winter. Thanks for the input...Still in the planning phase
 
Personally, I would blow out the lines. Forced air heat does not do well in a yurt like radiant heat does. Besides, if the heater unit fails, everything will freeze.

BTW, my yurt is in the Adirondacks too. :)
 
We do have a lot of customers utilize direct vent propane stoves in their yurts because of how clean and efficiant these stoves are. It may not be a bad idea to drain the water lines if the yurt will be unattended during the winter, but some folks have installed heat tape along the plumbing lines as an alternative. I hope this helps!
 
I ran one of those heaters in my yurt the first year and it didn't do well for me. I ran through half the 20 pound tank in one night.
 
Unless I'm missing something, it seems like it would be easier to plan/plumb piping so draining would be a matter of opening a few valves.
 
That's what I was thinking too. Slope the piping and install a drain valve at the low point. Water expands when it freezes but if it has a place to expand into the pipes won't crack. If the system doesn't have slope a chunk of ice can plug up the works upon repressurizing the system. fwiw
 
Thanks...since we are still in the design stages your input is welcome...want to make it as easy as possible to leave the Yurt unattended even for a few days, using gravity to help drain the water away is one of the ideas, some of the water always stays behind in some of the fixtures, so I am wondering if simply draining will work, or if I will also need the additional step of hooking up some sort of compressor to blow the remaining water out...thanks guys
 
I use a compressor on my water systems. It isn't difficult. I use something like this with a rubber tip on the end:



(You can buy it here)

That way you can just stick it over the end of a pipe/line/fixture and blow air through it.
 
Residential supply pipes normally don't slope, so a gravity drained supply is very likely to have water at all low spots. If it is really below freezing while you are away you can expect ice blockage in the supply line. So, compressed air blow out is good practice. Just keep in mind the water residing in every p or j trap in the dwv system below every plumbing fixture keeps sewer gas out of the dwelling. That needs to stay put. If it were to freeze solid just thaw with hot water when you return. If the lines are plugged just add hot water and give it time to thaw.

Heat tape on the outside supply, pipe wrap, and pipes contained inside well insulated boxes are standard practice in house trailers. I did plenty of trailer redo and weatherization up in Wyoming decades ago. Weather there is WAAAY below freezing a couple months every year and frozen plumbing is the biggest problem.
 
For what it's worth I would put a ball valve. In the ground shutting off the water and place a second ball Valve on the yurt side. Then take a larger pipe that will fit over both valves. Put some stone underyour. Valves.take a piece of flatbread. Bolt it through the handles run it up throughout the pipe cut a plywood cover drill holes for the althread.now when you pull the althread on the main valve you turn the water off. Pull the second althread and the water drains off into the ground.
 
I have to admit, you totally stumped my on the flatbread thing. I thought it was some West Virginia construction terminology. :D
 
thanks for the flat bread clarification..thought you guys were some sort of weird preppers or something.... question, the heat tape, does it draw a lot of amps? I'm off grid, with about 2.3kw Solar and a 6kw standby generator.....feeding a bank of 12 batteries...propane feeds the hot air furnace that heats my cabin when I'm not there (i set the thermostat to 52 degrees) i plan to tap into this power source to power my yurt....thanks for paving the way for me with all your knowledge...
 
The heat tape I saw was plugged into standard 110v. The typical install had a drop cord plugged into a standard outlet mounted under the trailer. Very poor solution if power goes out as it frequently does in bad conditions. I don't know electrical usage but I would imagine that kind of current would deplete a battery bank. Just a guess though.

Off topic but a better system was foam pipe insulation wrapped around the supply pipes within an insulated enclosure. Foam backed aluminum trailer skirting was attached to a frame placed around the supply pipe under the trailer. That in conjunction with a full insulated trailer skirt solved the problem. Of course the heat tape was left in place but only came 'on' in very cold conditions. We screwed the panels in place for accessibility.

The absolute worst case is exposed pipe with heat tape wrapped around it and exposed to sub freezing conditions. Unfortunately I encountered that too often. If the power goes out the supply freezes in short order. You better believe this leads to a massive mess under a typical trailer that's just rolled into place and no furthur thought given to winter conditions. Only young men would work in such a mess.

Yurt on an elevated deck is similar situation. The time to think about designing the supply is before work has commenced. So good luck.
 
A quick search for plumbing heat tape leads to Frost King products, which are sold in various lengths. Power consumption is listed as 7 watts/ft (120 V). Like Bob said, it makes a lot of sense to insulate the pipes with the heat tape inside the insulation, even insulate/close off the underside of your platform (just watch out for critters nesting...). Without knowing how many feet of heat cable you need, the level of your insulation, or the temps at different times, any number for total power used will only be an estimate.

For instance, assume 20 ft of cable (20*7=140 watts). Assume a lot of insulation (around pipes & enclosed under yurt platform), figure the heat cable kicks on 2 hours (intermittently) a day: 140*2=280 watt*hours. Your solar system might be collecting 1200 watts/hr during the winter, figure 4 hours good light: 1200*4=4800 watt*hrs (insolation numbers suggest 1/3 of your summer output, neglecting clouds). So you'd use 280/4800 or 6% of your solar bank each day--easily sustainable (if nothing goes wrong, like snow covering your solar panels).

Now assume you didn't insulate the pipes or enclose the yurt platform and the heat cable runs 14 hrs/day. 140*14=1960 watt*hrs. Now you're using 41% of your solar bank each day. Or if it's going 24 hrs/day: 3360 watt*hrs, or 70% of your daily solar intake. Not much wiggle room there!

Again a lot of variables here (cable lengths, insulation levels, winter temps, winter solar output), but they give you a rough idea of what could be going on. If you decide to go with electric heat cables, that is.
 
thanks for the calculations....one of the things i am considering is a a radiant heat system powered by propane....been researching a Polaris Hotwater system...would have to run two systems, one direct for domestic hot water...and the second for radiant heating needs...supposedly a fairly efficient system..supplemented by a wood stove...
 
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