Hexayurt Construction
This is the second in my series of posts on Burning Man Tech. In my last post I introduced you all to the Hexayurt. In this post, I will step you through the process of constructing one (we built two actually), and the choices that we made along the way and why we made them.
One vs. Two
The first decision we had to make was whether to build a single long yurt, or to build two smaller ones? Both designs would have required the same amount of panels, 24. And, the single-yurt configuration would have yielded more usable indoor space. However, we chose to build two separate standard 6-sided ones. We did this for a couple of reasons:
- The design for each yurt would be a commonly found one on the playa, and we could easily find online resources to help us build our first ones.
- More importantly, we have heard stories of things getting heated up on the playa sometimes with ensuing drama between friends. So, we just wanted to have the option of not having to deal with a person(s) and swap yurts if necessary.
The Basic Concept:
The basic design (as explained in my previous post) involves six 4'x8’ walls that are arranged in a hexagon layout, and are then reinforced by a six-panel hex-cone roof from the top and by a tarp taped to them from the bottom.
Materials
R-Max Thermasheath3 1.5" 4'x8' Panels x 24 @ $25.00 = $600 Filament Tape 6"x180'(60yd) x 4 @ $43.00 = $172 Aluminum Foil Tape 3'x30'(10yd) x 8 @ $10.00 = $80 Tarp 12'x24' (Super Heavy Duty) x 3 @ $50.00 = $150 Rope x 3 @ $10.00 = $30 3'x1/2" Rebar x 12 @ $2.00 = $24
Optionally, you could also get enough 3" filament tape to cover the exposed foam on the insulation panels to improve durability. But, it’s not necessary if you only intend to use it once or twice. Also, you can find 18'x24’ Tarps which don’t involve much cutting & taping and can also save you $$$ as you only need two of them. But, they were out of stock when we ordered ours :/
We chose to build our yurts with 1.5" panels, instead of 1" or 2" panels, because 1" panels felt too flimsy. And, 2" panels would have taken up too much space. Basically, if we got the 2" panels, we would have only been able to transport the panels in our 10’ U-Haul truck, and not much else. Oh yeah, that’s another added cost of building a Hexayurt… transportation.
All said and done, the truck cost us around $1100 (including gas), esentially doubling our cost.
Cutting the Tarp:
The #1 Pro-tip for putting together a Yurt on the playa is to have the tarp that goes underneath cut to shape. An 8-foot Hexagon doesn’t look anything like a hexagon when you are standing right next to it. So, having a tarp that’s cut to shape greatly helps with the build, by acting as a guide for placing the walls in the right position. For our yurts, the hexagonal walls themselves take 16’ in vertex to vertex diameter, and about 14’ wall to wall. So, we wanted the tarp to be about 18'x16’ so that we have about a foot on each side to wrap over the walls.
The tarps that we ordered on Amazon were 12'x24’ each. So, we had to get a bit creative with them to make our two 18'x16’ hexagons.
We also made use of the remaining 2 pieces of 6'x16’ cuts, by taping them together and making a 10'x16’ tarp to place under our 10'x10’ shade canopy.
Constructing the Roofs:
Like I mentioned in the previous post, you make the roof panels by simply cutting diagonally and rearranging the 4'x8’ panel.
We cut and taped our roofs ahead of time. In fact, it’s highly recommended to do this ahead of time so that you don’t leave dusty foam shavings on the playa. And, to make it easier to store, and for easy transport to the playa, we taped the sections on alternate sides, so that we could fold it like an accordion. (Actually, more like those Japanese fans since it’s curved.)
In our case, since we were building 2 yurts, we decided to tape all 6 roof panels together, and had two whole roofs stacked together.
Doors and Vents
I will talk more about ventilation in my next post, but you basically need to have an inlet to pump cool air into the yurt, and an outlet to push air out. This helps to keep the air inside the yurt fresh and cool. We cut out a round hole on one of the roof panels where we could attach an outlet vent (which needs to be bent to face downwards, to prevent rainwater from entering), and another one on a 4'x8’ near the bottom to fit the hose coming out of our Swamp Cooler (Air Cooler).
Here’s a bad picture of our exhaust vent:
We also cut out a square section, (we made a bevel cut. i.e, an angled cut), to make a hatch, and then attached the cut out section back to act as a door using a piece of tape for the door hinge. We chose to hinge it on top instead of the side, so that it can automatically close with the help of gravity, thus preventing any unnecessary leakage of cold air. We also secured the door to the wall with the help of Velcro strips, and they worked extremely well in keeping the door sealed tight enough, but not too tight that we couldn’t open it with just a slight nudge.
Raising it Up
Once on the playa, we opened up our accordion roofs, and taped the last two edges together to make the hex-cone. Once we did that, we covered the tapes that went over the vertex edges with Aluminum Foil Tape, to protect the filament tape from being worn out in the sun. Here’s a pic of us applying Foil tape using a broom:
We then laid the tarps where we wanted the yurts to go, and placed the side walls on them, 6 each, and taped them together. Then five of us got together to lift the roof over the walls, while one of us (me) was inside making sure everything aligned well, pushing the walls outside, so that someone could tape the roof-wall joints together from the outside. This was the most intense part of the whole process, as it required pretty much all of us to work together and be focused on the task at hand.
Tying it Down
Once we had the yurts up, we had to stake them into the ground to prevent them from flying off in high winds. We used bent 3’ rebars for stakes. (You have to bend it yourself at Home Depot or Lowes.) And, for tying down the yurt to the stakes, there are two methods of doing it.
There is the standard prescribed method of using Tape Anchors, which are basically PVC pipe sections hung at the end of each vertex, attached to tape that goes all the way across over the apex of the roof. You then run your tie down ropes through the PVC tubes and tie them to the rebars. Though this method is the most commonly used one on the playa, it is quite cumbersome to make the tape anchors, as you need to cut a lot of PVC (it’s not fun with a hacksaw), and it takes a lot of taping back and forth over the apex of your hex-cone roof.
Instead, we chose to do the other lesser known method of using a “Rope Halo”. It’s a lot simpler to execute, and just as effective (if not more). It’s simply a loop made out of rope, that’s thrown over the apex of the hex-cone, and then you tie the loop down to the rebars. And, the loop holds the roof and the yurt together.
When all is done, this is what you end up with ;)
Unplanned, but Lucky
Taping the tarps to the bottom of our yurts was just done as an extra reinforcement measure, and wasn’t really required in any of the instructions that we read online. However, choosing to do so saved us from a lot of trouble, as it unexpectedly rained and hailed the second day that we were there. Our neighbors who chose to simply lay down the tarp, sadly got their yurt flooded with rainwater, but our sealed tarps prevented ours from getting flooded. So, yeah…
SEAL YO’ YURTS!
BTW, we still got some water in our yurts… but it was from the top, and we had to add more tape to seal all the spots where water found its way inside. Also, this is probably the most complete photo of our yurt that we took on the playa. We were so excited about getting our yurts built, that we forgot to take pictures of them.
You can see the Rope Halo, and the Velcro sealed Tape-Hinge door in action.
My Next Hexayurt
I’m not sure if I’ll choose to build a Hexayurts again for my next burn. Yes, they were amazing, sturdy, and cool (I’ll talk more in detail about this in my next post on ventilation), but they were also bulky to transport and took up too much effort to plan, and too much space to store.
But, if I choose to once again build a Hexayurt, I would do it slightly differently. I would still go with the same size 12-panel 6-sided yurt, but I would arrange it differently so that it would only require one person (maybe two) to raise it up, and not an entire crew of six.
The new arrangement (right) also maintains the same volume and footprint as the standard design, but provides more standing room inside the yurt with a flat ceiling that’s 6'11" high. And since the hex-cone is split in two, and on the sides, it’s easier for just a single person to place them in position and tape the flat panels to them.
So, now you know how to build a Hexayurt. In my next post, I’ll enlighten you guys with more useless knowledge around R-Values, Thermal Insulation, and the Enthalpy of Water Vaporization ;)