“Based in Seattle, SunTime Yurts imports Mongolia’s highest quality handmade Gers (yurts) to the Pacific NorthWest. The Mongolian Ger has been tested and tried for thousands of years in one of the most remote and harshest climates in the world. Over the years, the Ger has slowly evolved into a practical modern day living space.…
During a 7 month stay in Mongolia I fell in love with the nomadic culture and the thousand year old felt home of the Mongols. After returning home to cookie cutter suburbia USA I decided to add some culture and sustainable alternatives to our neighborhoods by dotting them with the white felt tents of Mongolia.”
www.suntimeyurts.com
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
“Based in Seattle, SunTime Yurts imports Mongolia’s highest quality handmade Gers (yurts) to the Pacific NorthWest. The Mongolian Ger has been tested and tried for thousands of years in one of the most remote and harshest climates in the world. Over the years, the Ger has slowly evolved into a practical modern day living space.…
As I recall, it's dead-bone dry in Mongolia – not so much here in the PNW. One wonders how long before the "white felt tents of Mongolia" begin to turn grey, sprout mold and mildew and fall apart.
I agree with you. In Europe, yurts are very appreciated as a cheap, close-to-nature housing. Some people buy mongol yurts because of their exotic and coloured decorations : they set them up in their gardens (office, extra bedroom…)or rent them in camp sites (very trendy). Other people buy them to live in because it's quite difficult to find or rent accomodation.
Among these users, there is a lively debate : is this a good thing to import yurts from Mongolia ? how are they made (materials, wages…) ? are they really adapted to wet countries ? what is their life span ?
In recent years, european builders have created their own designs of yurts with local materials and some modifications – windows, high tech canvas, reinforced eco-insulation, etc.
You have also the opportunity to build yourself your yurt with the help and advices of associations (= 40% less expensive).
There is one thing for sure : don't buy any yurt lightly and don't set it up in your garden as a funny and exotic curious object. Yurts need to be inhabited, heated all winter long and well-kept every year (or dismantled and put away in a dry shelter if you don't use it).
In France ''yurters'' are often prosecuted. Legally speaking, yurts are compared to mobile home and other HLL – light leisure houses – and considered as illegal construction although they are foldable and easily removable.