I cannot believe how "COLD" this winter has been!!!  Southwest Virginia is usually an average of 30 degrees or so for many past winters as I remember.... but this winter has been extremely cold.  We have set several records, and wind chill factor has been in the -teens, once almost -20.  Like I have said before, this was a great winter to experiment with our yurt.

Through all the blowing and gusting winds and sub zero temperatures the yurt has done exceptionally well. With a wood stove in a small 4 x 8 building connected to the yurt it has stayed toasty warm inside.  I am very pleased with it.  (and I am NOT a winter person).

The water has been a challenge though, our water barrel has been getting low and the hose from the house has frozen and busted in a few areas now, so back to carrying water back and forth from the house.  Hopefully that will end when I can get my hands on another water hose.  The stores are beginning to put spring inventory out so I should acquire one soon.  Next time I need to try to leave it more on the bank so we won't run over it with the cars.  lol

One thing I am trying to deal with is the black smoke that the stove puts out occasionally either from the outside pipes getting clogged with coal soot or the wind gusts occasionally blowing it back through the stove and out into the yurt, I hate that the smell of burning coal.  It is probably due to the small area is why the smoke disturbs me so.....I am wanting to get more wood to burn but for now until Steve gets a chance to get some in we have to settle for coal.  It does burn hot though and with some of the cold nights lately, -5 or single digits it feels cozy in the yurt.  I am sure the wood could do the same though, it did well when we had it available awhile back.

I am looking forward to enlarging our yurt this spring, as we didn't get the chance to last fall as planned.  Sometimes I feel a bit of cabin fever sitting in a 20ft yurt, could be just the winter though, I don't like going out in the cold. So I stay indoors at all possible except to feed the animals in the morning and evening.

It was like spring yesterday morning (Jan 14). I heard a few song birds singing and a couple of Canadian geese flew by honking, going to the pond at the near by horse farm. Of course as late afternoon arrived it began to get a cooler brisk in the air and became much chillier, no song birds and all I heard was crows again.  supposed to rain and possible snow today and tonight.  Oh how I long for spring.... I have had enough of cold weather for this winter.

•  lets talk about our electricity in our yurt.  

As I had said earlier in my blog we are trying to explore the "off grid" experience as well.  What better way to do this but in a "yurt" right?  lol  We have got a couple of small solar panels outside hooked up to a boat battery.  as my picture shows below: 

As you can see the battery was running the TV, DVD player (watching my favorite show MASH) and charging my laptop, along with the internet router.  This ran for about 7 hrs before the battery went almost dead and we disconnected it.  Of course, it took about 10 to 12 hours to charge back up on the solar panels the next day. 

Now of course we need more electricity than what these 3 panels and one battery can supply.  So meanwhile we have our yurt plugged into an outside plug (like a camp post in a camp ground) that stretches to the house near by.  Steve has got a regular breaker box inside the yurt that has several 110 breakers in it with outlets and switches distributed though out the yurt for the microwave, lights, refrigerator coffee maker and computer and other mis. items to plug into as well.  

We need to hook up about twice the solar panels again and add maybe 1 to 2 more batteries to this setup and then see what it does for us.  Alas, until we get extra money available this will have to wait. perhaps this spring.  (boat batteries are a $100 ea and solar panels are not cheap.)

Stay tuned in for more updates soon.  

Cold breaking records throughout the US!!!!

living in Va with temperatures normally in the 20's or teens at a normal winter night.  This morning was -5 and wind chill around -28 below..... brrrr cold very cold..... but my yurt was 68 this morning and after I stoked the fire it went up to 75 with 0 outside.  I am very happy with the results of my heating in our yurt.  no pipes freezing due to my barrel of water inside the yurt... so I have water where my neighbors may not.

Here are some pics of the 20ft yurt I am living in.

Ok, learned something new... use chrome, it works better.

First thing to living in a yurt is the water situation.  I am wanting to live in the yurt off the grid as much as possible and affordable.  So simplifying living is a key thing.  less electricity as possible.

• How to prevent the water from freezing in the yurt during the winter.

We, meaning my husband and I, have a water system connected to the yurt that words great for the warmer months.  On the hillside from the yurt are several 55 gallon plastic barrels filled with water.  A black water pipe line from the barrel to the yurt underground.  This is gravity fed to the indoor faucet inside the yurt, works great!   However, no "hot" water, that is made on the propane stove in a kettle.  Washing dishes is a little more time consuming but not too bad.  Heat water pour in dishpan and wash, rinse and dry in a rack on the counter, old school, no problem.  My issue is a bigger sink, have a camper sink currently. 

Back to the freezing issue, since the water is outside it is prone to freeze during the colder months of winter along with the pipe freezing as well.  So, we came up with an idea of placing a 55 gallon plastic barrel in the back bathroom of the yurt.  This will keep the water at room temperature but then we had to figure how to pump the water to the faucet.  Well, as of now I use a hand siphon pump and fill jugs to take over to the sink area.  I have a large thermos that holds a gallon of water and I set it at the corner of the sink, just pump the top and squirt water out as I need it..... runs out quickly though and have to refill.  I am looking at a battery operated pump to connect to the barrel and run along the edge of the floor to the sink to get it back working as before.   

• How to heat yurt efficiently enough for the cold months of winter. 

No problem, a wood stove!  We had been heating with a infrared heater, works well in the spring and fall.  Not for the cold, cold winter nights though.  We had insulation in our yurt, the "bubble wrap" from the beginning when we first put in our yurt.  It had basically dry rotted, crumbled away after a few years standing.  We then started using close cell polyurethane for insulation, it works pretty good but I wanted to try something different.  we were given rolls of 1/4" filter fabric from a friend.  It is only 2' wide large rolls, but we wrapped our yurt walls with it about 2 layers thick.  then put our outside wall fabric back over it.  It seems to do as well as the polyurethane insulation.  However, for the roof we didn't want to take it back off, (big job to do so) so we decided to actually use regular R-13 4" insulation strips in between each rafter. ( I have a picture uploaded of this being done.)    It was alot of work as well, but turned out to work great and worth all the effort.  

We decided on attaching a small 4x8 shed to the yurt from the back bathroom. (due to the size of the yurt we needed the space for living)  The wood stove was placed inside the shed and with a door frame cut in the yurt providing access to the shed we could keep the mess of wood and coal for our stove out of site and contained in one area.  It turned out well, and now for the past cold spells that we have had the yurt is staying toasty warm in temperatures of 8 degrees outside and mid 70's, 80's or warmer in the yurt. Sometimes I have to open the door to let the cool air in cause it gets so hot in the yurt.  lol  One night it got to 95 and I was baking... opened the door and started to fan it trying to cool off.

I have alot more to share about my experience so far, so keep up with the post....

Getting started with my post

I am going to try this posting another time.  I am new at blogging and trying to get this to work is challenging... perhaps I need to use Google Chrome?

Ok, living in a 20ft yurt for the winter:

I love my yurt and living in it during the spring, summer and fall is grand.  Now I want to experience it in the winter.  What a winter to choose!!  This winter (2013/14) has been a great challenge, the coldest Va has had in years.  This is good though, gives me more of a test for our yurt.