Feb 032013

Yurts in the Snow

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This time of year one of the worries people have is about snow load on their yurts.  With my trusty pair of snowshoes, I hiked into my yurt camp and found about 18 inches of snow on the roof.  Once I got a fire going, it quickly began to slide off:

Yurt Snow Melt

Snow melting off yurt

My yurt was manufactured by Pacific Yurts and I upgraded it to use 2X6 rafters and also added their snow and wind kit.  That snow didn’t bother it one bit.  Here is a video of someone with five feet of snow on their roof!


As you can see, yurts are pretty strong!

It should be noted that smaller yurts handle snow load better than larger ones.  I think if it was my yurt up there, being 30 feet in diameter, I would only feel comfortable with some winter time bracing.  As it stands now, I am just hiking to my yurt when it is necessary to clean off the snow (or when I want a weekend away).