Legality of living in a yurt in the UK...

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santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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....It's the constant RH that is the issue here in the UK, particularly in the north. We get weeks on end where the RH doesn't drop below 90%. .....

I'm not a fan of chipboard myself. That said, its resistance to humidity is as good as conventional plywood.
 

santaman2000

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Not if they're made of wool. Even here. It breathes. It stops the wind dead, it sheds rain, but it still breathes.....

When I said "degrades" I didn't mean "decompose." Batting type insulation gets compressed when it gets damp; no matter what it's made of. 12 inches of insulation becomes 4 inches (or even less) Particularly the attic insulation.
 

santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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Santaman, that is a bad design. Has to be high enough to fit a proper truck ( with a light ramp on top ) underneath.

Like this one better?

beach-house-gun-barrel-pilings-finished-BIG.jpg
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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When I said "degrades" I didn't mean "decompose." Batting type insulation gets compressed when it gets damp; no matter what it's made of. 12 inches of insulation becomes 4 inches (or even less) Particularly the attic insulation.

I think we're crossing wires. The wool is the wall, it's like a very dense blanket. It's not thick and lofted like insulation.

M
 

Toddy

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Like this one better?

We built crannogs for thousands of years. The last ones were unroofed after an edict from the King, and last used as shelter around the time of the '45 uprising.

Scottish-Crannog-11-web.jpg


I don't know if that edict still stands, because King James said that they'd become the 'hoosis of ill-intent men', that they had to be unroofed and no new ones built.
Since that King became the first King of the entire UK, one has to wonder if Nick and Barrie broke the law :dunno:

Either way; the OP asked was a yurt a legal dwelling place in the UK. The answer appears to be yes, in the right circumstances, but those might be a tad problematical.

M
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
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Condensation doesn't do much at all to fiberglass insulation. In fact, it's a common substrate in hydroponic farming.

With a sealed vapor barrier, there is no condensation inside a modern Canadian wall.
Airflow above my ceilings under my roof is managed with a code-approved venting system.
Dust-choking dry up there with R40 insulation.
The central heating system has its own dedicated air intake. The pellet stove has, likewise.
That's enough make-up air for the loss in the exhaust stack. Neither one ever produces "smoke."
Both have return air cycles that needs make-up in humidity. I'll say 3-4 liters/24hrs. Pretty dry winters here.

Chipboard is just fine for sheeting, provided that you buy the one with the proper adhesive meant for the job.
Dumb it down for cheap and you do get what you pay for.
 

Toddy

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The condensation we suffer is not inside the walls; it's on the inside walls and ceilings. It's simply the climate and that the humidity levels are really high. Unless heating and airflow, and that takes heat away outside too, is sufficient, then condensation finds the cold spots in houses. Bathrooms, gable wall cupboards and so on. Cooking and drying clothes indoors, as well as simply breathing, adds to the condensation load on the air in houses.
Electric dehumidifiers, and the use of tumble driers really does help, but can be costly in electricity.

That said, I know a loft with two foot of fibreglass insulation that might have kept the ceiling below warm, but stopped the heat rising into the loft to drive off the condensation that formed on the tar paper under the purlins…the condensation dripped for years onto the fibreglass and soaked through to the ceilings below. It's amazing how much weight there is in sodden wet fibreglass insulation.

Our Winters are never dry. There's a reason I have ten umbrellas :rolleyes: though that doesn't compare to HM the Q's collection. HM has one made to match every outfit :)

Our certainties; death, taxes and wet.
My bother describes my (and his wife's) brollies as, "Light shower", "bit windy", "blowing a gale", "teeming down", "two's company", "shopping", "funerals", "weddings", "stotting", "wee one, just in case", "lost and found :rolleyes:","sleet","lightening proof", "blown inside out proof", and so on :D
He reckons that some enterprising witt could design and sell a range based on the typical Brit's use of the Brolly and do very well.

We long for dry cold winters over Christmas, and it's usually just sodden wet and overcast :sigh:
On the other hand, it's a lush green island :D

M
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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I should visit your fair Isles more often. I've always forgotten to pack a brolly and
have never needed the use of one. The lush green part was sure easy on the eyes.
Last time, the heather was in bloom and the grouse season was opening in NYorks.
I did notice that the tree trunks were green = a fair sign of precipitation.

Dry static electricity here in winter can be really unpleasant. Maybe 20keV? The wet muffler (water lint trap) on the clothes dryer allows me to
vent that inside the house for the humidity. I have to remember not to do more than 2 loads of laundry in a day
as the burst of humidity won't last 24 hours. Should spread it out for comfort.

I keep a dishpan of water on top of the pellet stove which never even steams but that adds maybe 2 liters/24 hrs.
Upstairs, the cold water vaporizer tosses out 2-3 liters/24 hrs. I put a floor fan in the bathroom after showers, never use the vent stack fan.

Probably the chief concern is for wood movement in musical instruments (guitars, banjos, violins, mandolins) resulting in damage.
The dry and the cold, we got lots of those.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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I wonder if anybody has tried to get a Crannog approved to live in?

I am now watching Outlander (tv series) and do understand the measures taken by the English. Gierce people, the Scots...
As they should with the Norse heritage!

If you get condensation inside the attic, then your ventilation holes in the overhang (eaves?) got covered with the insulation.
A common misstake!

We have been building ECO homes since mid 1970’ and have learned how they most be designed and built.
Ventilation is important, not only for the house but for the health of the inhabitans.

The early ones were designed with the extractor fan aways running at an ultra low speed. Some people, like my dad, descinnected it thinking it was a fault.
Result - foggy windows. He learned.
 

Janne

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Historically tents (yurts, kåtor, tipis) were made from animal hides.
I wonder if that was not a much nicer material then felt or even csnvas, (unless the fabrics are water proofed of course..)
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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There were, and are, Scots here with no Norse heritage ! ….and we fought off the Romans before there were any Vikings gone a wandering.
It was a Scottish King who decided that there were to be no more built, not an English one, and the retreating men from Culloden who used the ruins, had mostly fought against fellow Scots….but that's a whole other story. It was the cusp of improvements, of agriculture, of industry, and of religious and political freedoms that changed the world, not just our country.

Condensation in an attic can simply be caused by opening the loft hatch to go up and fetch something down. We try to limit the number of times we open it up in Winter for that very reason.

The Government sponsors schemes to help pay for insulation. The companies involved don't care if someone has already had it done in a previous scheme or not, they just want to do it this time round. Elderly folks often just let them go ahead. There are houses round here with four feet of fibreglass up their lofts, rendering the space totally unusable because of this. So long as the slates stay sound, and the rones are clear, then everything's fine. When it leaks or they overflow, or the pipes to the header tank have problems, then there really are issues though.

As for the crannog centre, I know that they had huge issues with building inspectors, etc., but since it wasn't a permanent dwelling, or a holiday let, so long as they complied with H&S, they were fine. Their insurance was/is a nightmare to work out though.
 

Janne

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Yes, sadly there are Scots around without any invigorating Norse DNA...
:)

Were those Roman bashing people not called Picts, and the Scots came from somewhere ( Ireland?) and mixed with the Picts? (My European History studies were more concentrated on mainland Europe)

If I was a Scot and wanted to live an ‘alternative lifestyle’ I would try to live on a lake.
Would fight to get planning.

A colleague fought for years to get planning to build a house, style ‘castle with a moat and drawbridge’.
He won and built a fantastic house.
 

Toddy

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There's no sadness in it at all. They weren't considered to be anything but thieves and robbers who attacked unarmed farmers in gangs. No glory, just greed.
They finally settled down on the less fertile lands, married in and are known as the foreign gaels.


The Picts and the Scots were the indigenous Iron Age tribes of Scotland and Northern Ireland. From either side you can see the other, and the waters between were easily traversable by sea going folks. The archaeology actually supports that the Scots colonised N. Ireland, not the other way. (Ewan Campbell's book gives the details and interpretation). Most likely like the Gauls and the southern English pre Romans, people just got along, married in and out, and over there were the 'cousins' kind of thing.
Both Picts and Scots fought the Romans and remained and thrived after they'd gone.


We only have one lake here, the rest are lochs :) but places with moats and drawbridges are not uncommon. There's one not half a mile from my front door and the remains of at least another dozen within a couple of miles.

Living on the loch is problematical. How do you deal with sewerage nowadays? How do you build into river beds, foreshore lands, etc., when those are 'Crown Property'.
The crannogs are actually the man made islands that were created by repeated buildings. The rise and fall of the water levels wears away the piles, and the buildings collapse. Over time folks reinforces the piles with stones and boulders. Silt gathers, the older timbers fall in and sink, and slowly an island is born. Subsequent buildings are on top of those shallow islands. Eventually they breech the surface of the waters. There are thousands of them in Scotland, and more scattered throughout the British Isles. Lacustrian, riverine, esturine, every place there is water. No roads in the past here, it's too wet and muddy, but everywhere water runs was a highway and those highways were very well used :D

M
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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The issue is the disposal of human waste water. Percolation leads to the eutrophication of the lake water
with a predictable explosion in all plant populations = swamp. So the whole place looks totally unlike
the reason that you went there in the first place.

Please don't do that. There are thousands of example lakes in Canada which have been similarly ruined.
The aquatic veg is so thick that the ducks can get out and walk on it! There's no "undo" button.
Come and visit in mid August on a really hot afternoon. Even the air smells brown and yellow.

I call it too little and too late =
I have lived in lake front properties in all seasons, both new and old.
All waste water goes into a big concrete holding tank, you have to monitor the depth.
Gives new meaning to the term "dip-stick."
Then you call the pooper-pumper to empty the tank.
In each case, the evaporative sewage lagoon for disposal was about 10 miles back from the water.

Lakes without lakeside houses must remain as lakes without houses.
Don't mess this up.
 

Toddy

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I think you have the right of it RV. Septic tanks are pretty common in areas where there is no main sewerage. On the whole though we're an urbanised nation and sewers and water treatment plants are the norm. We're getting better at cleaning up the outflows, and it shows in the health of the rivers. There are salmon and sea trout back in numbers in the Clyde :)
How do you pump from a crannog to an onshore septic tank though :dunno: not saying it couldn't be done, just that it rather defeats the purpose of being 'off grid', iimmc ?

M
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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A composting loo on the shore side?
I did not mean off-grid, I meant more like an outlying farmstead. Growing veg, potatoes, rootveg on the land dude, fixhing in the lake. Still having electricity.
 

demographic

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 15, 2005
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The research organization, funded by Canada's forest industry, is called Forintec.
They can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt, that conifer wood, weight for weight, releases more heat in burning than any hardwood known.
Otherwise, I would be burning crap hardwoods. Instead, I burn ultra dry, compressed & manufactured sawdust pellets.
The scandanavian countries have known this for years = they buy boatloads of Canadian pellets.
You must never see quality conifer softwoods as firewoods, let alone pellets, in the UK.

Look at the globe. They are buying pellets from Pinnacle and others, not far south of me,
to be transported all the way across Canada and the Atlantic Ocean and they have a good deal.

As I understand it, all woods (when dried to the same moisture content) when burned give off the same amount of Btus per pound of weight. As near as damnit.

Some woods are heavier so give off more heat per volume and some dry easier though, which is why theres loads of guff talked about it that generally complicates the matter.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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A septic tank digester and tile field is not what I'm talking about. I mean a Holding Tank. Zero discharge. Zero.
The Pooper Pumper sucks it dry and takes it away. You pay. Yesterday's meals on wheels.
Whatever you want to call it. We say "black water."

Water treatment does not matter one sweet rat's patootie.
No matter how you grind it up and digest it, the phosphate and the nitrate (aka fertilizer) is still there.
That fertilizes the veg in the lake. Thick and green and a fish killing B.O.D. in winter.
Anybody who told you otherwise is both a fool and a charlatan.
 

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