Walls of the yurt.
The next wall area I built four detachable wooden sections so that I could take them out in the summer and allow airflow into the yurt. This would also have parachute hanging down from the ‘eaves’ of the yurt which extended about 4 inches from the walls. Later I built in a ‘dog door’ as our spaniel was getting too old to make the steps up into the yurt.
This was followed by a section of just clear polyethylene on which I later put a white sheet in the interior. I had cut a hole through the hedgerow nearby and noticed that the light from the setting sun liked to play on this side of the yurt, projecting natural shadows of flowers and leaves like onto a screen. At some point I want to include a flat water feature here to project the movement of sunlight on water into the yurt. This ‘projection’ wall is to the right of the wooden wall shown below.
The next two sides of the yurt face North-West, where the fierce weather comes from in the winter. I had the waterproof base of an old tent and put this up here. There were also some old sleeping bags that I fixed to the wall for insulation and then ordered a large picture of trees printed onto fabric as the final layer internally.
Then there was a side I covered with feather-edge board. These overlap to exclude the weather and are used for making sheds. I also installed a vertical window here to improve airflow, then insulated the interior with an old blanket and the printed trees layer shown above. It was a similar pattern for the North-East facing wall. A waterproof layer to exclude the weather, a layer of insulation and then an internal layer, this time from an old douvet set. I was intending to put curtains all the way round the inside of the yurt to trap an additional layer of air for insulation.
By this stage I was running out of ideas and random materials to recycle. I splashed out on five, five foot high pieces of clear PVC corrugated roofing sheet which cost £55.55 strangely enough. It was an easy install to fit these to the last three wall sections and they allow lots of morning light through. It occurred to me that had I fitted these all the way round, the yurt would make a pretty good greenhouse. Later a tree surgeon was visiting the garden and asked if the yurt was a ‘flatpack kit’, hence the title.
You can also see the fire chimney in this image. It is basically seven metres of five inch chimney lining with an improvised draft excluder on the top. But more of the fire later! Next, on to the roof.