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Sizing a wood stove for a 20' yurt ?

C

chrisdag

New member
Apologies if I missed an old post; tried a quick search with no results.

I'm in the process of planning for a 20-foot insulated yurt from White Mountain Yurts in NH and am looking for practical advice on sizing a wood stove to keep it comfortable in Western Maine. We are in the Bethel area near Sunday River and close to the ME/NH border.

If I just go by square footage I've got a smaller selection of wood stoves, all of which take 16 inch logs which are smaller than the 18 inch firewood we already have stacked to warm our cabin.

Does anyone have any advice or even BTU output range selections for picking a wood stove that would be powerful yet not overkill?

I'm looking at:


By square footage alone the 18,000 BTU Vermont Aspen stove is the smallest and most suited. I've never seen a stove that small though in online yurt pictures so I'm wondering if it may be undersized. The other Vermont Castings is specced at 27,000 BTU and the Quadra-Fire Yosemite is at 42,500 BTU

Thanks!
 
You are going to want 3 times what you would normally need for the same volume in a regular home. That is just my opinion, but if you view other threads about heating in here, you will see that is the conclusion of others. You have about 315 sq feet in a 20 foot yurt. I am assuming you have tall walls. I forget how to calculate area in such a structure, but if I was shopping I would look for a stove that could heat a 1,000 square feet of room.
 
Thanks! After failing with search I found a few of the stove threads via browsing. I no longer feel wrong for looking at the larger stove options marketed at the 1000 sq foot + range
 
In my opinion, I'd get the biggest stove you can afford. You can always open the door if it gets too warm! I also put a ceiling fan in and it makes a world of difference in bringing the warm air at the dome back down to the floor.
 
Along the lines of wood stove size, I wonder if anyone who has put one on a raised platform felt it necessary to take into account weight in the location. I figure it would be somewhere around 200-400 pounds between the stove and any tiling/stone/other thermal protection for the floor.
Our platform follows Pacific Yurts' specs, with the 2x6 t&g boards sitting on 4x6 beams. Any thoughts?
 
The Yurt vendor told me to size the stove based on the SF of the yurt - everybody else told me to get a very large outsized stove to handle the known heat loss. We ended up purchasing a floor model Quadra-Fire Yosemite stove which should be great.

And on a side note while looking for methods to insulate the yurt base I found this vendor of reclaimed/recycled rigid foam insulation. Apparently it's quite cheap, usable and is popular with people who need to grab a few more LEED credits for their certification. Welcome to Insulation Depot - Rigid Foam Insulation, Used Insulation, Roofing Supplies, Roofing Material -- I found a Maine reseller of their stuff and will likely use the 2x8 3-inch XEPS boards (2-layers) for our project.
 
Are there any formulas out there to estimate the heat loss in a yurt? I know there are lots of variables with the canvas walls, ceiling, and platform, I am just interested in seeing some numbers. Id like to compare the before and after with different insulation methods.

Chrisdag - the reclaimed insulation idea is awesome! Thanks for the link.
 
I have a 16' home made yurt with woodstove. A drafty platform and door fit, and wall cover attachment to door frame fit. Not even close to a regular old house, way more drafty.

My brief experience firing the 1.6 cu ft woodstove a couple dozen times this fall tells me a 2.5 stove would be MUCH better.

I therefore suggest at least one size larger stove than the cubic footage recommended for a regular framed/insulated/weatherproofed home, should be considered. You can always stoke the stove more lightly and/or damp it down. Undersizing would be a mistake, in my experience.
Just sayin. Good luck.
 
Sorry, I didn't read the entire thread.

18,000 BTU way too small for a 20' yurt in a cold damp climate. My 1.6 Cu ft stove is rated at 27,000 btus and it is too small for my 16'er. 42,500 seems about right for 20'er, and I see that's the one you bought. Good. You should be nice and toasty.
 
Just to add some extra info: I was going to use a Morso 2B, which is quite small but rated for the appropriate sqft (1,000 compared to the ~750 in my 30' yurt). After discussing with the local expert, I'm going with a Pacific Energy Super, which is a comparatively massive 72,000 BTU. The reasons were:
- takes a full-size log, with the smaller stoves I likely would have had to trim my cordwood, which by all accounts is a giant pain in the ass
- the recommendation was to get something that will be able to rapidly heat up the yurt, and then you can adjust down the fire intensity with air flow and fuel, so we're not creating a permanent sauna but can still fill the large air volume rapidly.
- larger stoves allow longer overnight burns

I'll let you know how it goes, doing the installation myself this month.

Oh, and hearth.com forums were a huge resource, but experience there varies a lot. I did a lot of research there and then had important questions answered by the installer / owner at the local wood stove shop.
 
Well it was single digits to zero here last week for several days. Fired pedal to the metal, my little 27K BTU wood stove didn't even come close to warming up my uninsulated 16' yurt to what I'd consider a comfort level of 40 degrees or better.

So, if you're reading this thread considering 'what stove size?' for a canvas covered, trad style, uninsulated, unsealed yurt in below freezing weather, consider installing a stove 3X the cu ft recommendation for a regular insulated home. I'm thinking a volume of 3.3' would be about right in my trad style 16' yurt in zero temps. Just scale the fire down when it isn't so nippy.
 
Uninsulated? That is going to require a very large stove. The insulation is a pretty big deal in the cold. :)
 
Our 30' yurt has reflective insulation and Shelter Design's 'arctic insulation' and nothing else. We heat with a Hearthstone Soapstone Wood Stove (CASTLETON 8030 | Wood Stoves | Hearthstone Stoves), which is rated to 1500 sq feet (just over double the yurt's size). It does a fine job keeping the place between 60-70 degrees (even on our first -30 degree night).

Nice thing about the stove we got is the clearances. With the heat shield, it only has to be 6" from the back wall, which is huge for us, as every bit of space is needed when you have 6 people living in 709 square feet!
 
I'm reading this forum in hopes of helping decide if a yurt is a good idea for a temporary, but year round home up here in northern Ontario. The main concern, obviously, is the issue of heating when we routinely experience weeks of -15F and cold spells dropping to -45F. I'd have no shortage of firewood but not much high energy content hardwood. Assuming I went with a 24-30ft well-insulated yurt, and super-insulated the floor and skirting, would I still require a conveyor belt to keep feeding a large (80k btu) woodstove? I think the Nomad Shelter yurts are manufactured and utilized in a very similar climate to mine but I'm still worried that this is a ridiculous idea.

Thanks for any comments anyone may have,

Mike
 
No way I'd consider a yurt a 'first choice' in shelters for severe sub zero weather locales, unless I was in my early twenties and without a family.

My wife and I lived in Jackson Wyoming from 1978 to 1983. Four winters of well below zero temps, down to record -50! cold. One stretch was six weeks with temps never above freezing. We lived in standard stick frame construction apartments, with a minimum of three of the exterior walls and ceiling heated by other apts. The heater cycled constantly trying to keep the place warm during sub freezing temps.

As a carpenter I did alot of redo work on stick frame, log home, and trailers in Jackson, and in nearby Wilson and Kelly in the winter. Most were somewhat cold inside, even with the woodstoves crankin. Those places were all conventional construction, from fairly new and tight, to old and drafty. Old and drafty were guaranteed cold in bedrooms, even though the wood stoves and/or heater was on all day and night. During real cold snaps the woodsmoke pall in the valley was incredible.

Nowdays there are a good dozen yurts in Kelly Wyoming, 20 miles north of Jackson, some of which have year round residents. I'll bet most are very young folks. I've read a couple interviews on YT where people living in the yurt said it was crazy to do so in the winter.

heh heh no thanks, I'll pass. :D Don't let 'yurt romance' get the best of common sense thinking. JMO. Good luck.
 
Had another -25 F day last night, and having another tonight. Never dropped below 61 degrees inside. We seem to be faring the cold quite well so far.
 
I've cut and split my own & heated with nothing but a woodstove in my various yurts over the years. Unfortunately, my body is getting older and the early morning winter temps inside after the fire burns out overnight are getting to be a stress on me. I will still heat with my woodstove primarily but I am adding this off-grid gravity fed pellet stove to my yurt this year. I intend to heat with my woodstove all day, but when I get ready for bed I will kick on the pellet stove so that it is still nice and toasty when I wake up in the morning. Here is the link to this really cool new technology! WiseWay Pellet Stoves - Stoves | Central Point, OR
 
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