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

[Robson Valley]

No. The heat release is based on equal weights of biomass.
The woods are dried @ 102C for constant weight and cooled in a dessicator loaded with phosphorus pentoxide drying agent.
Fun job every day.

The superiority of conifer woods comes from the volatile resins in the resin ducts in the wood. Not an anatomical feature of any hardwood.

It is a fact that you can smash pellets together from just about any ultra-dry junk biomass.
Salvage conifer woods, mown and harvested grasses, crushed corn cobs and leaf-stalks.
Look at the industry. Name one that uses hardwoods. The heat values have long since been measured.

I expect to burn about 10,000 lbs of conifer pellets this winter. Hoping for $235/ton again this winter.
Each ton arrives as a 4' x 4' x 4' pile on a pallet, delivered to the street edge in front of my house.
That gets moved into my downstairs kitchen where the pellet stove lives.

Come over! Any idea what 2,000 lbs of conifer wood resin smell comes off that stack?
The down side will be the loads delivered in January and February.
They sit in an unheated warehouse, might be -20C in there.
So in 30-45 minutes, I have a 2,000lb ice cube at -20C, thawing in my basement kitchen!

Performace drops off as the ash load builds up so shut down (1 hour) and clean-out (30 minutes)
has to be done every 12-15 bags ( 480 - 600lbs) for maybe 3-4 pounds of fine, flour-like brown particle ash.
Total combustion, like a blacksmith's forge.

 

[Robson Valley]

To us, grey water is every thing (shower & sinks) except the fecal matter in the toilet which is "black" water.
Everything goes into a holding tank when that is the design bylaw for waterfront homes.

 

[Toddy]

It's a different thing entirely though when you want to stoke a fire and let it burn for a long while. Pine races through as those volatile organics are burnt off, while our hardwoods burn with a good heat but slowly…and they don't spark and spit.

It's like the calories of food. Thing is though that if the food cannot be effectively digested then it doesn't matter what the science says about the calories, we're not benefiting from them so it's misleading.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

But you're expecting the inefficiencies of round wood. Maybe poorly seasoned. The low density of the conifers.
I can burn beautifully dried and split birch for less heat than conifer pellets.
Wet birch, I'd be throwing money up the chimney, just to boil off the wood water. Fact of life.

The singular difference might be my ability to harvest and process the birch myself.
In short, there's absolutely no chance of that.

I see no ash. I see no smoke. The stove is automatic as I can set and forget the feed rate of delivery of
measured quantities of pellets.

Hold out your hand. The fire in my pellet stove is the size of the palm of your hand.
It runs like a constantly fed blow-torch in a blacksmith's forge. That heats 2 x 1,200 square feet.

 

[Janne]

To get house insurance and be able to install a wood burner, we had to have the chimney lined with a stainless steel inner chimney, from the woodburner and about 30 cm above the old brick chimney. They installed a rain protection above it.

When we use the burner there is always a seagull of some sort sitting there.

 

[mrcharly]

Yurts were not traditionally covered with animal hide, they used felted 'wools' from sheep and goats. So they have to be considered as a type of breathable tent. Quite different to the tipi of North America, which has a sophisticated ventilation system.

The usual trick to avoid rotting in damp climates (so I've been told by people who lived in yurts) is to maintain heat in the yurt so that there is no condensation or damp forming in the covering material. The dew point is external to the covering.

I had a large single pitch extension built, with no 'air gap' between the ceiling and the roof tiles. The construction was ply - slab insulation - tyvek - tiles. This was designed by an architect. Unfortunately the builder didn't understand the construction, and neglected to use the tape to seal each section of tyvek to adjoining sections and the correct flashing at the gutter edge. The result was condensation drips ruining the (expensive) facing ply.

Had a roofing firm do an evaluation - they looked it over and diagnosed the problem. Because the tyvek wasn't sealed, cold spots were forming, instead of the tyvek functioning like goretex. Roof tiles removed, tape applied, tiles relaid, problem went away.

Such a small thing to make such a big difference.

 

[Janne]

Nope, hides. I am talking the first shelters erected by mankind, thousands of years ago.
I do not specifically call them yurts. But tents, yurts, tipis,
Leather. As uprights and stiff wall and ceiling elements wood or mamooth tusks.

Would not surprise me if they also used bark.

Yourt. Ger. Tent. Kåta. Tipi. Portable accomondation. With emphasis on portable, that is why the initial question is somewhat weird. Design differences depending on culture area and climate.


Yep, a tiny misstake can cause loads of problems. Water is the worst, it will find it way in in the tiniest crack or gap.
Neighbour built a house with flat roofs and solar panels on. Designed with high walks to hide the panels from view. Sealed with a rubbey mass. A couple of drains in the middle. Giant bathtubs, imo.
Not the best idea where you get tropical rains.
He knows now as every roof ( 4 ) has leaked and had to ve re sealed.

 

[Janne]

The design difference between the various movable shelters are I guess influenced by what materials they had.

 

[Toddy]

Archaeologically we find arcs of small post holes; from Africa to Siberia, from the Med to the Atlantic islands, from the old world to the new. Anthropology shows that these 'windbreaks' were covered with plant material. Leather is too hard to make to waste on sheeting exposed to the elements.

M

 

[Janne]

Archaeologically we find arcs of small post holes; from Africa to Siberia, from the Med to the Atlantic islands, from the old world to the new. Anthropology shows that these 'windbreaks' were covered with plant material. Leather is too hard to make to waste on sheeting exposed to the elements.

M

The Same used reindeer hide, some still do in the more permanent (summer ‘cottages’) camps. Amerindians used buffalo hides. Well documented. I guess it is the climate and natural possibilities.

A short time shelter summertime - reeds, grass?.


The post holes, is it possible to see the direction of them?
Straignt vertical - Yurt type, tilted towards the middle - pyramid shaped.
.

 

[Toddy]

Hides are used only when 'society' is at a level that there is surplus production. Rawhides stink and rot unless in a bone dry climate.
The 'earliest' shelters were not made using leather.

M

 

[Toddy]

But you're expecting the inefficiencies of round wood. Maybe poorly seasoned. The low density of the conifers.
I can burn beautifully dried and split birch for less heat than conifer pellets.
Wet birch, I'd be throwing money up the chimney, just to boil off the wood water. Fact of life.

Your processed wood is just that though. For self cut, collected and stacked timber, we do not use pine unless there is nothing else to burn.
Birch is fine on a campfire if you don't mind blackened pots, and tarry chutes above, but only used as faggots in a home to get a fire going quickly, it's too tarry, and if used much at all leaves chimneys in a mess and prone to fire. I have been in a house where the chimney went on fire, it's a scary thing. It roars up the lum like a train thundering in the wall, it belches out filth and burning embers, and it can shatter cement, and brick work scales off too.
Not a good thing.

In a small space like a yurt, or a geodesic dome, we can have an open fire or stove indoors, but we're careful with the wood we burn. Good burning, non spattering, slow and steady beats the rest hands down. One log, the right log, and the fire burns all night.
But then, we live in a temperate climate, and we have dozens and dozens of hardwood trees to choose from.

M

 

[Janne]

Hm, I recall a site in Europe where the concensus was it was built with main supports of tusks, wood inbetween and coveren in hide. Was it Austria? Bohemia? Do not remember.
But reed is good. Done decently properly - water tight.
Grass - I have never managed to do a shelter with grass. Sieve.

Wonder when curing of skins began in Europe. I hope very early, if not imagine the stink.....
BO mixed with rottening skins.
Hopefully they did not eat to much wild Garlic, as humanity would have died out....

Birch as fire wood - the wood of choice in all of Scandinavia. Soot? Never had any poblems with that. Maybe the design that makes the combustion as perfect as it is today burns the carbon/soot.

The Jøtul we bought does not produce visible smoke. The weather cover is completely unstained, and the stainless chimney insert no soot. Used daily morning to night for 6 weeks so far.

Edit: Jøtul F370 produces 2.6 grams of pariculate per hour. Assume they mean soot.

 

[Robson Valley]

Author Jane Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear series) goes to considerable length to describe houses built from archaeological evidence.
Much more mammoth bone and tusk framework than I would have expected with earthen coverings.
I can't remember the sites depicted but something like France?
Despite hearth fire smoke vents, I'll bet the place was pretty hummy with human stink by spring.

 

[Janne]

Imagine wintertime. No toilet paper, no bidet. Cold as heck.
I am happy to live today.

 

[Toddy]

Author Jane Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear series) goes to considerable length to describe houses built from archaeological evidence.
Much more mammoth bone and tusk framework than I would have expected with earthen coverings.
I can't remember the sites depicted but something like France?
Despite hearth fire smoke vents, I'll bet the place was pretty hummy with human stink by spring.

Yes, we do have those evidences, but the earliest ones are of plant material, not hides, and the clan of the cave bear series is a work of fiction with some faction within it.
Her ethnobotany leaves a lot to be desired, tbh.

By the time humanity (and I'm including the HSN in this general 'humanity') encountered the frozen lands and plant material does not generally thrive in Winter (excluding birch bark, or dried reeds type, I mean) they did use mammoth bones, tusks, etc., and it has been presumed to be hides as coverings. In the cold, meaty stuff doesn't stink near so bad, and if there is a fire within or at least smoke directed within, then it will cure the skins anyway. However, humanity didn't start in the ice lands, we simply changed things to make it possible for us to live there.

As for the smell, Inuit were/are very clean about their igloos. They scrape them clean and bright, removing the soot, etc., why would we think our past ancestors were any different ? Their skin wikiups too are well cared for, especially since making the skins into hide is a lot of work, and again, why should we think less of our ancestors? People have always taken a pride in their work.

M

 

[Toddy]

Imagine wintertime. No toilet paper, no bidet. Cold as heck.
I am happy to live today.

Me too
I still like knowing that I could live with very little if it were necessary, that I can make, that I can forage, that I can grow and store and build.

M

 

[Toddy]

Janne, I suspect that Scandinavia burns birch because it's what they have, that it's much better than pine, but I'd bet that if Ash and Oak grew there as they grow here, that they'd burn them instead

Birch burnt on pots are a pain to deal with. I have a set I just keep for using on such fires. Big dye baths that I just refuse to clean anymore. The tarry soot is mm's thick.

M

 

[Janne]

I think she missed that those people lived in Tundra. A couple of hundred kilometers south of the ice cap. It stretched down to mid England - south of Denmark - North of Berkin - Warsaw - eastwards.

Plus the Alps.
I think.

Today it would be somewhere latitude of Northern Kola peninsula, Murmansk? Am I thinking correctly?

 

[Janne]

Janne, I suspect that Scandinavia burns birch because it's what they have, that it's much better than pine, but I'd bet that if Ash and Oak grew there as they grow here, that they'd burn them instead

Birch burnt on pots are a pain to deal with. I have a set I just keep for using on such fires. Big dye baths that I just refuse to clean anymore. The tarry soot is mm's thick.

M

Yes. We do not like pine in burners or open fires because of the spitting. We have other hardwoods, but birch is preferred.
Oak trees were sold to the Crown. Ship building. First tree plantings were of Oak, for the Navy.
Last stand planted and left to mature were on Visingsö on Vöttern lake.
They matured and were ready to be harvested a decade ir so ago.
The owner/caretaker sent a message to the Navy HQ that the Oaks were ready for them.
Not sure if the Navy took them as they prefer steel these days.
I think though they used some (or use) in the Vasa ship museum

In UK we used oak in both burners and inglenooks. Those were a pig to make fire in.