Unfotunately, Mongolian webbing is crap, not a well known fact but there it is, it's pants. After less than 4 months outside, it has copped some UV damage from hell and has turned to powder, literally powder, you can pinch it with your fingers and it will crumble. Given that a large part of the structure of the crown cover depends heavily on nylon webbing, this is rather a big deal. The trim that stiffens the edges and stops the cover flapping had gone, and more importantly, the loops that held the ropes to keep the cover on the crown and the rain OUT of the yurt were beginning to snap.
Not being one to dwell on such things, I decided to buy some pukka UK sourced webbing from http://www.acesupplies.co.uk and spent a good few hours replacing every single bit of crumbling webbing on the crown cover. I hope no one reading this ever has to do the same, but if you are in the same situation, leave a message or email me and I can take you though the steps. It can be done with a standard home sewing machine and medium thread, no industrial machine is needed.
It all looks great now, lovely white cover with a black webbing trim. Sorted.
Next stop, the hunt for a decent leisure battery to power the smaller yurt appliances.
Monday, 18 October 2010
First nights.
Finally, last weekend and this weekend I got the spend a couple of nights in the yurt, and what a difference a week makes. Last week I made the MASSIVE mistake of lighting a fire in the woodburner before checking that it was actually cold enough outside to warrant a fire. In under 30 minutes the inside temperature was 40c and I was going mad with heat. Ended up sitting on the porch at 1am in my pants just trying to cool off and wait till the fire died off a bit.
This weekend was a little colder, so another fire was lit, and was going nicely (had jacket spuds in the woodburner oven, they were yummy!) so I shut it down to keep it going while a few other jobs were taken care of. Couple of hours later a friend tell me that she can hear the carbon monoxode detector going off in the yurt, this isn't good. The detector was indeed beeping like mad, I noticed that the smoke coming from the chimney had a strange plastic smell to it, so I inspected the wood and found that the offcuts that had been going on the fire were tannalised, the likely cuplrit for the fumes that freaked the detector out. Those bits will be outside use only from now on.
Anyhoo, once the fire had died, I felt safe to get some kip, except that it was still too hot, so I waited, then it got too cold, then it rained. It was like trying to sleep in a plastic cup.
I'm going to try some anthracite on the fire to see if it's any better at ticking over nicely and keeping the yurt warm over night.
Hot or cold, it soon pales into insignificance when you can fall asleep in your little round room that's lit by the moon.
This weekend was a little colder, so another fire was lit, and was going nicely (had jacket spuds in the woodburner oven, they were yummy!) so I shut it down to keep it going while a few other jobs were taken care of. Couple of hours later a friend tell me that she can hear the carbon monoxode detector going off in the yurt, this isn't good. The detector was indeed beeping like mad, I noticed that the smoke coming from the chimney had a strange plastic smell to it, so I inspected the wood and found that the offcuts that had been going on the fire were tannalised, the likely cuplrit for the fumes that freaked the detector out. Those bits will be outside use only from now on.
Anyhoo, once the fire had died, I felt safe to get some kip, except that it was still too hot, so I waited, then it got too cold, then it rained. It was like trying to sleep in a plastic cup.
I'm going to try some anthracite on the fire to see if it's any better at ticking over nicely and keeping the yurt warm over night.
Hot or cold, it soon pales into insignificance when you can fall asleep in your little round room that's lit by the moon.
Monday, 4 October 2010
New stove, all is well.
The Prity arrived on Thursday, I only got my grubbies on it Saturday and I am quite impressed so far. Weighing in at 132kg, the Prity isn't light, or small, in fact it kind of dominates the yurt a bit with it's 93sm height, but I'm fine with that, the requirements were control, heat and cooking, not aesthetics, and the Prity has all three and doesn't look too bad. It fired up in no time with a couple of pound shop firelighters and some bits of pallet. The instructions state that the paint has to cure during the first use of the fire, so I opened the crown cover to let the no doubt toxic paint fumes out. Once that was over, a couple of MASSIVE chunks of wood went on and it was time to see how it dealt with slow burn. It dealt very well in fact, after shutting off the air and leaving the fire to smoulder over night, the Prity totally consumed about a cubic foot of decent quality seasoned wood by morning, just fine ash was left.
The oven part got to 200c according to the internal dial, plenty hot enough to do pizza or spuds. The top of the fire is quite large, it would be nice if it all got hot enough to cook on because it could easily accomodate three or four big pans. Time will tell I guess.
Yet AGAIN the silicon flue that mounts in the crown cover, split. That's the second one now, I'm starting to suspect that the markings on the silicon should be ignored and that it would be better to merely cut the collar to 1" smaller than the flue and leave it at that. For now I have just pumped a whole tube of clear silicon into the gap to seal it against rain till next weekend. I'll see how it deals with heat later.
You really can't beat a night in a yurt, the owls hooting and a beautiful fire flickering away in front of you, it's mesmerising.
The oven part got to 200c according to the internal dial, plenty hot enough to do pizza or spuds. The top of the fire is quite large, it would be nice if it all got hot enough to cook on because it could easily accomodate three or four big pans. Time will tell I guess.
Yet AGAIN the silicon flue that mounts in the crown cover, split. That's the second one now, I'm starting to suspect that the markings on the silicon should be ignored and that it would be better to merely cut the collar to 1" smaller than the flue and leave it at that. For now I have just pumped a whole tube of clear silicon into the gap to seal it against rain till next weekend. I'll see how it deals with heat later.
You really can't beat a night in a yurt, the owls hooting and a beautiful fire flickering away in front of you, it's mesmerising.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Mongol Logic.
After stumbling onto this site, I saw that the author mentioned thermos flasks (or "flarks" as they are called in North London) and their use in Mongolian yurts, thinking about it, it makes perfect sense really, rather than boil a bit of water every time someone pops in for tea and something make from horse milk, you boil a batch in the morning and store it, ready for use, in the flask. Maybe we have become so used to instant hot water all the time, that we fail to see the common sense in simpler solutions. anyone who has boiled water on a woodburner will appreciate the massive amount of energy needed to boil just one litre of water.
Anyhoo, this is my chosen flask, the Thermos Venice...
Obviously I filled it with boiling water immediately (after pre heating first) to see how it did. The answer is pretty damned good, it was filled with boiling water at 3pm, I dropped the thermopile into it at 10:30pm and it showed 76c, highly respectable, and that was after pulling enough water for 2 mugs of coffee from it. I'll do another temp check in the morning to see how it's doing.
*Morning*
10am and it's managed to hold 56c, that's about the same temperature as a cuppa that's been left for 15 minutes. Add in the chill factor of the mug, 56c isn't really enough unless I use plastic mugs from now on. Either way, 17 hours later and still steaming is very respectable.
Anyhoo, this is my chosen flask, the Thermos Venice...
Obviously I filled it with boiling water immediately (after pre heating first) to see how it did. The answer is pretty damned good, it was filled with boiling water at 3pm, I dropped the thermopile into it at 10:30pm and it showed 76c, highly respectable, and that was after pulling enough water for 2 mugs of coffee from it. I'll do another temp check in the morning to see how it's doing.*Morning*
10am and it's managed to hold 56c, that's about the same temperature as a cuppa that's been left for 15 minutes. Add in the chill factor of the mug, 56c isn't really enough unless I use plastic mugs from now on. Either way, 17 hours later and still steaming is very respectable.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
New Stove AHOY!
After much faffing and research, I decided to buy a Prity FG W15 with boiler and stove for £500. Here's a picture.
It doesn't seem to have the kind of burn control features that some of the more expensive, non oven, types of stoves have, but then again, you can't do jacket spuds or pizza on them unless you splash out £1800 on a Clearview (and that's simply not going to happen). Anyway, the Prity has a dial, and I'm a bloke, blokes are suckers for dials. End of.
Hopefully the weather at the weekend will hold out, the crown cover will need removing to open up the silicon flue seal a bit to accomodate the 1" bigger pipe and some jiggery pokery will need to take place to get the stove in a nice position, the Mongol stove flue exits on the right rear corner, conveniently exiting though one of the gaps in the crown, this stove exits in the middle, so it will need a couple of bends put in to get the flue leaving the yurt in the right place while at the same time, placing the stove right in front of the comfy chair so I can watch bread cook.
Hopefully arriving Friday, yaay!
Friday, 24 September 2010
The Hunt for a New Stove
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong at all with the stove supplied (free I may add) with my yurt, that is assuming that it's -40c outside. It fires up instantly, has a great draw and chucks out more heat than a nuclear reactor, therein lies the rub, it's too hot, too soon, too fast. I'm on the lookout for something more controllable, something that will tick over though the night and prevent the hilarious problem of dead arms, a phenomenon whereby you subconsciously put your arms outside of the duvet while it's warm, then fall asleep in the ever diminishing warmth, only to discover the next morning that both your arms are freezing cold and have no feeling in them for the first 10 minutes of the day, essentially leaving you with the feeling of having 2 damp baguettes hanging from your shoulders.
Ideally, the new stove should have some sort of pizza or jacket potato making facility, contenders for this are:
Windy Smithy Louis or Ranger
Clearview Pioneer
Something from Prity
Admittedly, the Prity does tick all the boxes, and then some, but is 2mm steel going to hack it in the long run? Biggest concern here is build quality.
The Windy Smithy, while undoubtedly well made by all accounts, is quite pricey (well it's not Chinese so it's bound to be) but I'd like to know if the little fire box can actually put out enough heat over a long enough period of time to cook my spuds.
The Clearview looks perfect, but at £1800 new, it's almost 2/3 of a yurt!!
I have to admit that option paralysis appears to be setting in.
Monday, 20 September 2010
Finally, we have a yurt in it's rightful place.
Well, after the veritable disaster of realising that we had built the base too small for the yurt (my fault) and after putting extensions and reinforcements on to the base to accomodate the sudden dawning of the laws of scale, we have success, the yurt is up!!!
It seems much harder to dress a raised yurt than one that is at ground level, the felt layers were particularly pesky, but it's all up and once the fire is blazing away, it's easily the cosiest place I've ever been. The woodburner that was included with the yurt is rough and ready (hardly surprising given the lack of TIG welders in Mongolia) but is ferociously efficient. a handful of broken pallet and a few pine cones to get things going will bring the temperature from 15c to 30c in 15 mins, and will keep the inside cosy warm for a good three hours. Hardly surprising when you consider that none of the covers are particularly good conductors of heat and that each one has a layer of air next to it.
Weatherproofing the bottom of the door has been tricky, but was finally sorted by using a baton of wood and some thick PVC sheet/silicone, to create a slope away from the door.
The steps up to the door are just half round posts hammered into the ground with what appears to be reclaimed hardwood for the platform, the first step is made from a couple of bits of telegraph pole that were left over from making the base and a lovely lump of wood left over from the joist we chopped up to reinforce the base extension. It's solid as a rock and really adds to the vibe of the yurt, it's somewhere to sit and just watch the rabbits or listen to the owls (you can hear them from inside too). It's real quality time, a couple of storm lamps for light, a lovely warm fire and good company, you can't beat it.
It seems much harder to dress a raised yurt than one that is at ground level, the felt layers were particularly pesky, but it's all up and once the fire is blazing away, it's easily the cosiest place I've ever been. The woodburner that was included with the yurt is rough and ready (hardly surprising given the lack of TIG welders in Mongolia) but is ferociously efficient. a handful of broken pallet and a few pine cones to get things going will bring the temperature from 15c to 30c in 15 mins, and will keep the inside cosy warm for a good three hours. Hardly surprising when you consider that none of the covers are particularly good conductors of heat and that each one has a layer of air next to it.
Weatherproofing the bottom of the door has been tricky, but was finally sorted by using a baton of wood and some thick PVC sheet/silicone, to create a slope away from the door.
The steps up to the door are just half round posts hammered into the ground with what appears to be reclaimed hardwood for the platform, the first step is made from a couple of bits of telegraph pole that were left over from making the base and a lovely lump of wood left over from the joist we chopped up to reinforce the base extension. It's solid as a rock and really adds to the vibe of the yurt, it's somewhere to sit and just watch the rabbits or listen to the owls (you can hear them from inside too). It's real quality time, a couple of storm lamps for light, a lovely warm fire and good company, you can't beat it.
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