New, modern yurt build in Mongolia

[UKadventurer]

Hi, good question. I know traditional Mongolian gers quite well. The 'tohn' (crown) has multiple functions. Ventilation, light, and time keeping. The modern ger has most of those elements but does it a little differently.

Time keeping: Think of the crown as a clock but with 8 divisions. You can learn to tell the time approximately as long as there's some sun. Mongolia is a sunny country. It's a sun dial essentially.

Light: Obviously it brings a lot of light in which is essential with traditional gers which have no windows and a tiny door. Not so much a modern ger which has one or more windows.

Ventilation: In the modern version, the centre of the crown opens enough to ventilate but will still keep the rain out unless it's driving rain from the south, in our ger. In a traditional one there's a 'tohn' cover which is a square piece of canvas and

insulation

that must be pulled over the opening with long straps when the weather requires it. You need to do this from outside which isn't great in a storm or blizzard - plan ahead. The crown frame might have no glass at all, sometimes plastic sheet, and one opening has a metal sheet to hold the chimney. We can open and close ours from indoors. We'll have wood stoves but near the wall, not in the traditional centre of the ger.

We have outside covers for the crown - canvas only - which we haven't used yet but might have to use in the winter. The glass in the crown is just single pane and there's essentially no

insulation

in that area. It'd be a shame to cover the crown because I love the feel of being able to see the sky, especially at night. However, when the temps hit -40C we might be covering all of the windows (most are double glazed, the crown is single glazed).

However, electricity is cheap and fallen wood free so we'll have to see how it goes. This winter will be our first in gers full time.

Next week, we'll have underfloor electric

heating

installed. It's already getting cold at night.

[TSRalex]

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

Hi, good question.....

Thanks for your detailed explanations and for sharing your thoughts.

During my time in Mongolia we had some rainy days, but at those we had no Yurt overnights.

I wonder how the Nomads are handling the

heating

during heavy rain - how do they cover the big hole on the roof with the hot chimney? Any ideas?

[UKadventurer]

Originally Posted by TSRalex

Thanks for your detailed explanations and for sharing your thoughts.

During my time in Mongolia we had some rainy days, but at those we had no Yurt overnights.

I wonder how the Nomads are handling the heating during heavy rain - how do they cover the big hole on the roof with the hot chimney? Any ideas?

Glad to answer. We've had a very wet summer. There is definitely a certain amount of leakage in traditional gers, especially around the chimney. The crown cover can not touch the chimney because, as I found out, it will burn the fabric or melt it. Depending on the type of material. Chimneys here a single wall metal, so they are extremely hot even in the opening.

So the crown cover must wrap around the chimney without touching it, yet still cover as much of the crown openings as possible. I took a photo of the traditional ger on our land. It's in poor shape but it's owned by my wife's cousin. So it's up to him to fix it. You can see the crown cover in the outside shot.

The inside photo shows that the chimney is not a tight fit with the sheet metal holding it. Leakage is typical here but nobody cares. I was in a hail storm with 1-2cm hail stones, quite a few came inside and bounced around the ger. Fun!

Traditional gers have quite a few flaws but nobody seems to mind. Storms come and go. The sun follows rain and everything dries out. Personally, I prefer the modern design and want to make it as efficient as a house.

[TSRalex]

Thanks again for your qualified answer, @UKadventurer.

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

There is definitely a certain amount of leakage in traditional gers, especially around the chimney. The crown cover can not touch the chimney because, as I found out, it will burn the fabric or melt it. Depending on the type of material. Chimneys here a single wall metal, so they are extremely hot even in the opening.

They don´t use other chimneys on different reasons:

At first are the possibilities to buy insulated, high quality chimneys limited and second brings the radiation of an single wall metal chimneys additional heating.....

Thanks too for the excellent and for understanding helpful pics....

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

Personally, I prefer the modern design and want to make it as efficient as a house.

Me too.

[UKadventurer]

Well, the nomad design of ger/yurt is designed to transported, erected and dismantled in a few hours. Several times per year. The transportation part requires the lowest possible bulk and weight. Low cost too is a factor. I think a traditional ger costs about $1000-2000 new, depending on size, at the Narantuul market in Ulaanbaatar. I've seen some the smaller ones carried in and on a family car. These are the smallest ones with just one felt layer. The traditional one on our land took 2 cars because it's a 5-wall (6.2m diameter) with 2 felt layers.

Therefore, a minimalist stove and chimney fits the pragmatic style of nomads. Family's here love traditions so most of them who aren't nomads anymore still have a family ger on some land. This is their summer home for the holidays only, not a full-time home.

Our stove is a bit fancier. We did buy some double walled, insulated chimney parts, because it sort of made sense. After you've burned yourself (or your canvas) on the chimney, it makes more sense. Those parts are costly for a summer camp ger but for us it's intended as our only home, four seasons.

I'm looking forward to winter, as it will test us to the extreme. I hope we don't chicken out and fly to Vietnam for the winter - our little escape plan. That being said we have multiple backup heat sources (electric, wood, propane and diesel (generator AND heater)).

Since I took early retirement this is a lot of fun for me. The projects could keep me busy for the rest of my life. Or at least until I'm incapable of physical work.

Besides the underfloor electric heating, I've added some photos of the other methods. Each has its disadvantages and advantages. The diesel has to be exhausted carefully but the fumes can re-enter the ger if the wind is not favourable. My wife complained of the smell immediately.


Propane needs lots of fresh air which sort of defeats the object when it's extremely cold outside.



Wood burning requires a lot of attention to keep it fed. We bought two of these, one for each modern ger.


The air quality is normally incredibly good so we'd rather not mess it up. I've got an air quality monitor which shows the lowest setting most days.

[TSRalex]

Again great stuff and excellent detailed explanation.

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

Since I took early retirement this is a lot of fun for me. The projects could keep me busy for the rest of my life. Or at least until I'm incapable of physical work.

You don´t need to do the physical work by yourself till an breakdown - try to become early an good commander and delegate the hard work.

As long you feel fit you can always give a hand - but the people around should see such action as honor, that you´re working together with them, it should not be the daily standard....

[UKadventurer]

We added underfloor heating and laminate floor. Total cost was about $1700 installed for 2 x 7m diameter gers. We paid professionals to do it. I’m not comfortable making this my first such project. I’ve installed hardwood floors in rectangular houses but never a circular one. Just to refresh your memory, our foundation is concrete with expanded clay insulation.

Step 1 was unrolling 8mm thick Mylar backed foam. This reflects heat upwards and accommodates small surface variations in the concrete.


Step 2 is unrolling and connecting the underfloor mats. They are from a Korean company. They don’t cover the entire floor because you can’t cut them crosswise. Of the 40m/2 of each floor, about 27m/2 is heated. In 2 zones for some reason. We have 240v so each zone has a 16 amp circuit breaker.


Finally, the laminate floor is installed. There’s tons of accurate cuts required. Not shown is the very final step of using the same wood used for the lattice walls as a trim edge to hide the gaps. Between floor and bottom ring. We chose a contrasting tone of floor in the widest planks available for fewer seams and cuts. The plank dimensions are 1.2m x 0.8m x 1.2cm thick.