We get such great responses from people who visit our yurt. People are pretty impressed with the style of the thing. Along with the many compliments we’ve received we also get numerous questions. Here are some of them.

Q. Where did you get it?
A) Pacific Yurts

Q. How much did it cost?
) The yurt itself was $13,400. We got a 24ft diameter yurt with 6 windows, a rain cachment and some other options.  Our deck/floor cost $4500 for materials and a local carpenter to put it together. Our woodstove with the expensive outdoor stovepipe cost around $1200 and I’ve probably spent around another $500 or so in miscellaneous expenses (tools hardware, feeding our yurt raising crew etc). We’re not quite done yet…we want to build a loft and some shelves so I expect when we’re done with the basic setup it will be around $20,000.

Q. Are you happy with it? Would you recommend buying mine from Pacific Yurts?
A. The short answer is yes, we feel like it is very good quality overall. If I were to do it over again there are some things (like the insulation) that I feel I could do myself cheaper.  I plan on writing a full review of our Pacific Yurt experience soon.

Q. What’s with the purple color?
A) Originally Kala, who is very easy-going agreed with my color choice of burgundy with a green roof. We both agreed that tan/kaki was too normal for us oddballs and I thought burgundy would be bold and at the same time blend in more. We got a comment from one of the people at Pacific Yurts to the effect of “are you sure you want that color combo?”. This caused me to have a second look and I asked that they send another set of color swatches. We were on vacation at the time and we sat leisurely looking at all the wall roof color permutations. The lavender purple kept drawing us though I wasn’t sure what it would look like when we actually saw it. Although somewhat mentally prepared, it was still quite a sight to see so much purple when we actually put it up. One friend said it looked like a “circus tent” and I suppose that is somewhat appropriate if you know us. :-)  It definitely puts out a vibe of fun and creativeness and we’re all about that.

Q) Is it warm?
A) We live in New Hampshire and it can get quite cold. Our entire wall with insulation is about 2″ thick, so we are just 2″ from the outside. The other night it got down to 6 degrees.  It was one of the first nights that we had a  new wood stove so were a bit apprehensive as to how well it would work in that kind of weather.  Our previously one was too small and couldn’t warm the place once it got below 20 degrees or so.  But we just cranked up  our new wood stove and we were as warm as toast. In fact we overdid a bit that night and got lethargic with the heat so we even had to open the door for a bit to cool things down.  So the answer is that we are as warm as we want to be. The only real heating issue is that while the insulation does a pretty good job of keeping heat in considering its thinness and its lack of thermal mass, the heat disperses out of it fairly quickly so you have to keep the fire going. If its a cold night and we fall asleep long enough for the fire to die down, it can be quite chilly. One of us will hop out of bed in the early hours of the morning, throw some kindling and logs in, get it blazing and hop back into bed. Within a 20 minutes it’ll be warm enough to be up and about comfortably. We’re quite warm under our blankets even when it chills down, though we now know the reason people use to wear nightcaps as so much heat escapes from the head.  The only real problem is if we go out overnight or long enough for the fire to completely die out, the temperature inside the yurt is basically the same as outside. Not fun when it’s 6 degrees! Luckily our woodstove heats up pretty fast and we can actually open up the doors of our woodstove and  be sitting in front of a roaring fire within a couple minutes after entering. One word of advice to those who are buying a yurt for a cold climate: get a nice and BIG woodstove. We started with a smaller one that I thought would be enough but it wasn’t. You want an all nighter!

Q. Do you find it hard to live in one room?
A. Yes. However, me and Kala get along really well so that helps. Also we have access to a (very) small cabin so we can escape to be by ourselves when we wish to.  But I do find it difficult to focus on my work with my son River and Kala coming and going.  I think one more small yurt for our bedroom and another for Rivers bedroom would make our setup complete and we might end up doing just that.

Q. Why did you buy a Yurt instead of a more permanent structure?
A. Several reasons. One is that we are moving to another state in a couple of years. We can just fold up the yurt and take it with us. If we like we can even take our deck apart and take that too. Another reason is that although we could build a small structure for the same amount it would have been a LOT more work and would not be nearly as beautiful. Living in the yurt feels like living in a temple..It’s just gorgeous everywhere you look! And plenty of natural light. To build something as comparably large and as beautiful would cost substantially more.

Q. What are the downsides to living in a Yurt?

A. Well I mentioned the cold in the morning…that can be a drag. Also the living in one room thing…fine in the great weather but a little confining in the cold. Another issue we have found is that because of the thinness of the wall there is virtually no sound insulation. If we are playing a movie or stereo somewhat loud the sound really carries! And we can hear every car that passes by and every power tool are neighbor uses. Both of us are pretty noise sensitive so this is kind of a drag. We live in a fairly quiet place, but still way too noise. I would not even consider living in a yurt in any kind of suburban or city environment. I also do miss running water sometimes. We are literally chopping wood and carrying water.  We’ll be able to do something creative with our rain cachment system in the spring and likely have some gravity fed running water.

Q. So, overall you are happy with your yurt?
A. Hell yeah!!