New, modern yurt build in Mongolia

[Bob Rowlands]

WOW!!!! That's one very sorry sight!

"We can survive any temperatures that nature throws at us because we have our dumb stoves and plenty of solid fuel." Man it is GREAT to hear that. -39 is real cold.

My wife and I experienced -50 f Dec. 31- Jan. 1 1979. That is the official low in the Jackson Wyoming record book. We had an ice dam coming off the single glass slider in our Willow and Pearl apt kitchen. I mean a REAL Big ice wall well out onto the floor. Front door use only. No starting any vehicle without a block heater. We were in our early 20s and walked everywhere for a couple months.

[TSRalex]

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

What have I learned?

That shit happens?

No - serious now:

Really a bad situation you have had, but you are a clever guy and you made right conclusions.

Good luck in solving that all....

[UKadventurer]

Originally Posted by TSRalex

That shit happens?

No - serious now:

Really a bad situation you have had, but you are a clever guy and you made right conclusions.

Good luck in solving that all....

Luckily, as an early retiree, I have time to figure it out, improve, learn etc.

Each mistake I make, I learn what NOT to do next time.

One thing I've learned is you can't rely on one system of

heating

on a camp. The cheap, dumb ones (semi-coke and firewood) are labour intensive. I've realised I could run the system I have efficiently IF I spend 18 hours a day monitoring and adjusting it. That's a double shift job 7 days a week in the

heating

season which is about 6 months! Even with my free time, that's impractical and not how I want to spend my time.

Electricity would be the easiest system in theory but only fools rely on the grid system even in a highly developed country. Didn't Texas have a big problem with inclement weather, failure of the grid and an over reliance on electricity as a means of heat?

I'm researching coal boilers now that have some level of automation. Specifically these features:

• Thermostatically controlled blower.
• Barometric damper.
• An alarm that would wake the dead if there's an impending over boil.
• Some means of monitoring/adjusting the boiler heat remotely.
• Larger capacity for once a day cleaning and refueling.

Yesterday, I spent several hours thawing out some pipes and a radiator with a blow torch and a thermal infra red camera to "see" the ice. Not much fun but ultimately successful.

In our living situation, a thermal camera is very, very handy. I imagine it would be handy for anybody with extreme hot or cold temperatures.

Here's a progression of thawing out frozen pipes and then a big radiator in my insulated container. I find this very interesting. I hope others do too.

In the first image, the hot water is hitting ice in the feed pipe.



Starting to progress a bit in the hot water pipe.



It's reached the radiator.



Finished. The radiator, feed pipe and return pipes are at operating temperature. Yay!

[Jafo]

Perhaps consider a Bluetti like power backup as they are also designed to run as a UPS. I use one at my yurt to stand between the outlet and my starlink so that when I am monkeying around with the electrical, it doesn't reboot it (which takes forever). Works like a charm and you can use it for other things when you don't need it to circulate heat, like in the summer.

Good luck!

[UKadventurer]

Unfortunately a Bluetti is not in the budget. I’m faced with buying a replacement for the coal boiler because the basic model I have is a big disappointment. Largely due to the amount of maintenance it requires - almost constant for best performance.

That being said, I do have a 12v deep cycle battery, charger and inverter that would do the same job as a Bluetti - just to keep the pump going in a blackout. Maybe my solution is not as sophisticated as a Bluetti but it would more or less do the job.

[TSRalex]

Originally Posted by UKadventurer

Unfortunately a Bluetti is not in the budget..

Every good solution will be cost intensive.

Perhaps a micro-CHP, that can be fired with coal, would be a solution and could be profitable in the long term... 🤔🤷🏻*♂️

[Bob Rowlands]

I rebuilt my 12'6" d. yurt this fall. I added a second door opposite the front. That's ended up being super nice. In case of fire two exits beats one.

In the last couple of months I've had my grandsons and granddaughter and some small children in there for s'mores. Lots of woodstove fires. I recently lined the yurt walls with waxed canvas panels for

insulation

. So yeah, the second door is not only handy but peace of mind in case of fire is icing.

My 14 and 16 had a single door. Now that I know just how nice two doors is I'd never build another yurt with only one door. Just sayin.

Good luck on your redo. Merry Christmas.

[TSRalex]

Originally Posted by Bob Rowlands

Merry Christmas.

From my side too:

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" to all users.....