Q: Thickness of polyacrylic domes?
- Thread starter TSRalex
- Start date
All yurts come with a dome that measures five-feet across and 16-inches tall. The domed yurt skylight is ¼” thick pure acrylic. Pure acrylic outlasts other clear polymers when exposed to the elements for five years or more.
This was copied from the Colorado Yurt company's website.
This was copied from the Colorado Yurt company's website.
All yurts come with a dome that measures five-feet across and 16-inches tall. The domed yurt skylight is ¼” thick pure acrylic. Pure acrylic outlasts other clear polymers when exposed to the elements for five years or more.
This was copied from the Colorado Yurt company's website.
Thank you very much!
If I´m right with converting inch into millimeter, the Colorado-dome should have a thickness of 6.35 mm and that means, a dome with 8 mm thickness should be strong enough.
How do the community see bigger domes than 5', as Colorado-Yurt offers?
E.g. 1900 mm (6.23') inner diameter on a 32'-Yurt?
Bob Rowlands
New member
A 6.23 diameter opening has an area of ~about 30 square feet. A 5' opening has an area of about ~20 square feet. So the bigger dome would admit substantially more light. As for yurt dome materals and thickness I don't know zip about that. From a structural strength perspective, the dome shape is incredibly strong.
Bob Rowlands
New member
I always opt for as much natural light as is reasonable given the budget. For illumination reference, a typical 4'x3' bedroom window in an older tract house from the 60s / 70s admits about 12 square feet of light. That lights the standard bedroom fine during a sunny day. Not so much when it is overcast and rainy. But with 8' tall exterior walls and budgets like they were back then, that was 'the bedroom window' size. It is an illumination level boomers grew up with. You need task light on the desk to work.
However today a typical window in a bedroom/office in medium sized home of modern construction, with exterior walls 9' tall, is 6x4 and admits 24 square feet of light, twice the light of older homes. That's the size in this office for example. Very common now. Even aging eyes can see very well with that amount of light, with no light on, during a sunny day. Doing paperwork on winter and overcast days requires additional light.
Combine the natural light from a 5' dome with a few conventional size windows in the kitchen, lr, bath and a couple bedrooms, you are lit OK. But no better than OK imo.
I'd say the dome size is a toss up, UNLESS there are very few exterior windows, or they are very small, like 3x2. Then for SURE the larger dome would be better.
On a personal note, I do NOT like 'underlit' spaces, like older non walkout basements with area wells in front of the bed window for example. I have carpentered on WAAAY too MANY houses including modern, that do not have enough natural light coming in. I really hate that. Trying to work with drop lights strung in a dark rec room sucks. Did that for decades. If you want natural light, opt for 'alot', if it is in the budget. JMO
However today a typical window in a bedroom/office in medium sized home of modern construction, with exterior walls 9' tall, is 6x4 and admits 24 square feet of light, twice the light of older homes. That's the size in this office for example. Very common now. Even aging eyes can see very well with that amount of light, with no light on, during a sunny day. Doing paperwork on winter and overcast days requires additional light.
Combine the natural light from a 5' dome with a few conventional size windows in the kitchen, lr, bath and a couple bedrooms, you are lit OK. But no better than OK imo.
I'd say the dome size is a toss up, UNLESS there are very few exterior windows, or they are very small, like 3x2. Then for SURE the larger dome would be better.
On a personal note, I do NOT like 'underlit' spaces, like older non walkout basements with area wells in front of the bed window for example. I have carpentered on WAAAY too MANY houses including modern, that do not have enough natural light coming in. I really hate that. Trying to work with drop lights strung in a dark rec room sucks. Did that for decades. If you want natural light, opt for 'alot', if it is in the budget. JMO
We have had hail that put small dings all over my car and shredded the leaves off the trees and that didn't phase the dome on our pacific yurt one bit. mind you, it was deafening in here at the time and I expected catastrophic failure at any moment. But our yurt never fails to amaze us with the punishment it takes here on our flower farm. Our winters are extreme.-30 celsius. 6-10 feet of snow plus the drifting.The wind is relentless. Yurt stands strong through it all. it can be nerve racking at the time, but thats just us letting our fears get the better of us. Cheers and no worries. These are incredible structures. dont sweat the small stuff.
Bob Rowlands
New member
Thanks for that post, Jay.
Do you know how thick your dome is?
Which insulation is used on roof and on the walls?
Do you have the Snow- & Wind-Package, which is offered by Pacific Yurts?
Are you working with the valance lacing?
I have never actually measured the thickness of our dome but it is aprox 3/16 thick. the insulation is the foil bubble wrap for lack of a technical term with what I would call a moving blanket material aprox 1/2 inch thick and then then liner on the inside. we do have the snow and wind load package and we made sure our valance lacing is screamin' tight, anything we could do to stop the wind from getting in under anything, we also made a mid roof rope ring to alleviate the ballooning in strong winds. Hope that helps.
Bob Rowlands
New member
Jay, that's a good point about using a rope to stop the roof cover from ballooning up in heavy wind. I made a rope bridle for my 16' yurt out of a fifty foot piece of retired 11mm climbing rope. It encircled the rafters about half way up the span. I preformed five equidistant loops in it (the circumference of the roof half way up the rafter span, divided by five) and anchored those loops with cordage to ground anchors.
That not only cuts the ballooning but also helps anchor the yurt to the ground if it isn't attached to a platform. Mongolians do this as they travel various pasturelands. My first 14' yurt was destroyed from being picked up and tossed 25 yards in a massive blizzard. Sticks and canvas aftermath looked like a crashed WWI plane.
It's all a learning experience. That one was particularly tough to take. Eight full days of work blown to smithereens in seconds. Just like everything else, you figure it out as you go. Experience is the REAL teacher.
That not only cuts the ballooning but also helps anchor the yurt to the ground if it isn't attached to a platform. Mongolians do this as they travel various pasturelands. My first 14' yurt was destroyed from being picked up and tossed 25 yards in a massive blizzard. Sticks and canvas aftermath looked like a crashed WWI plane.
It's all a learning experience. That one was particularly tough to take. Eight full days of work blown to smithereens in seconds. Just like everything else, you figure it out as you go. Experience is the REAL teacher.
Funny. not the haha kind. we got hit with a wicked wind storm the day we were putting the roof on and ended up chasing it across the field. it twisted everything but thankfully and luckily nothing was actually damaged. it was definitely a learning from doing type of project. but we couldn't be happier. i built and installed real windows a few years ago. walk in glass shower, loft. composting toilet. livin the dream.
Bob Rowlands
New member
Good job. Thanks for the post.
A few years ago I was in our house, when suddenly out of nowhere there came a very loud noise, like a jet was about to crash nearby. As it turned out the noise wasn't a jet, it was a large whirlwind, with all manner of debris blowing around within it, just like in the movies.
It went screaming over our house, trashing shingles in the process. I ran from the office to the back slider and looked out and saw the whirlwind hit the back yard, and head directly towards my yurt. I just couldn't believe my eyes. Sure enough it hit it dead center. The split second it hit, the cover inflated like a bomb went off inside, cover way off all wood lath and rafters, it looked like a balloon. A second later after it passed over the cover deflated to normal size. I thought I was gonna have a second yurt destroyed by wind.
The only damage was some laths broke. If that yurt wasn't solidly anchored to the platform and by the bridle, it would have gotten wasted. Moral to story, anchor your yurt.
A few years ago I was in our house, when suddenly out of nowhere there came a very loud noise, like a jet was about to crash nearby. As it turned out the noise wasn't a jet, it was a large whirlwind, with all manner of debris blowing around within it, just like in the movies.
It went screaming over our house, trashing shingles in the process. I ran from the office to the back slider and looked out and saw the whirlwind hit the back yard, and head directly towards my yurt. I just couldn't believe my eyes. Sure enough it hit it dead center. The split second it hit, the cover inflated like a bomb went off inside, cover way off all wood lath and rafters, it looked like a balloon. A second later after it passed over the cover deflated to normal size. I thought I was gonna have a second yurt destroyed by wind.
The only damage was some laths broke. If that yurt wasn't solidly anchored to the platform and by the bridle, it would have gotten wasted. Moral to story, anchor your yurt.