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Building a folding rigid insulation hexayurt
You can see all the build photos on Flickr.
For this years Burning Man I am building a rigid foam insulation panel hexayurt for my girlfriend and I. In years past I have camped in a tent under a large shade structure with the rest of my camp mates which is all fine and well but this year I wanted to try something different and a little more comfortable.
A hexayurt has many advantages over a traditional nylon tent. The main one being insulation, as that is what it is made out of. Not only will it slow down the transfer of heat it will also cut down on some of the noise, mostly treble. The other advantage is dust prevention. As this is sealed with wide bi-filament tape at every seam and taped down to a tarp dust has a hard time getting in.
Above you can see a rendering of what my yurt looks like. I used 8 panels of 1″ thick Thermax, sometimes called R Max, rigid foam board insulation. I then bought 2 rolls of 3M 8959 6″ wide filament tape from goodbuyguys.com (link) to tape up all the panels edges as well as connect them to each other. Below you can see a model that someone had built. I built the same model which made the actual build a lot easier.
As you can see, this is a folding hexayurt. This makes assembly out in the desert very simple and less time consuming. Doing more work ahead of time makes this simple setup possible. Grab a friend and in 3 or 4 hours and you can have one of these built and ready for transport. Oh, and I found that cutting the foam with a circular saw made the cuts more precise and go a lot faster. Below you can see a photo of it completed and unfolding. It really goes up quite quickly.
The only other things you have to worry about are anchoring it to the ground and ventilation. To anchor it to the ground I ran two long strips of tape across the broad side of the structure, giving 4 anchor points on each side. Then I ran a rope down the ridgeline. This should be sufficient enough anchoring. Once out on the playa and anchored to the ground I will tape the yurt to the tarp to seal out the dust.
Regarding the ventilation I have a couple of ideas but unfortunately I am unable to give them a good test given the San Francisco climate. My current plan is to use two $25 attic fans that are solar powered. I’ll report more information once I return from the desert
For more information check out hexayurt.com. And finally, the best part of this design is the entire yurt folds down to be a little over a foot thick and only 4′ x 8′ so it can be transported on top of a car.
