Hexayurt Supplies in Austin: Need Help!

[Brain]

Hey guys,

Brain here with a couple of big, probably common questions. Me and my
friends are building a dual- (possibly tri-) Hexayurt this year for
Flipside, but we're running into some troubles and difficulties with
supplies, could anyone here, or possibly in the Austin area, give our
Burner group a hand?

First, our idea:
We wish to take the 12' honeycomb design of the hexayurt and put 2 of
them side by side. (ideally we would like to do a 3 Hexayurt design if
the price is right, This requires anywhere from 36-48 sheets of
insulation board). Inside we are hoping to fill it with thousands of
balloons, lights and music for the sensory pleasures of the burner
people.

These ideas are big and we're running out of time as we scramble
looking for suppliers of Hexayurt materials in the AUSTIN AREA, so
maybe you guys could help?

1) We've been looking for a supplier of the 1" thick insulation board
in 4x8 sheets in a close location, but have been getting the run
around from a lot of companies (home depot and lowes were no help). We
have found one supplier, Alamo Foam Inc., in San Antonio asking for
$12.16 of the blue insulation board (made by DOW though the product
name of the board was unknown to the sales representative). Also,
Thermax HD or any other flame retardant board does not seem to be
available from any supplies i've contacted, what do you guys suggest,
will normal board be ok. We are now currently on the prowl for
closer / cheaper / better supplier.

2) Finding adequate Taping for this structure is of course our second
goal. I've had trouble finding a supplier of the 6" wide Bidirectional
filament tape. (i did explore a site provided earlier in a blog
( taperite.com/index.html ) but efforts were to no avail, only
unidirectional was found =( .
Again the closer and cheaper we can find this product the better

Any help you guys could provide would be GREATLY appreciated, and
being first year Hexayurt designers, we will pass our information and
potential successes to future Hexa-generations.

Thank you for you time
Brain =)

[Vinay Gupta]

Brain,

Thermax HD is really hard to find in small quantities, I'm really
sorry it's being a pain in the ass. Home Depot *always* has Tuff-R, R-
Max or something equivalent, you might just need to go down there and
help them find it, but - and this is **really** important - I do not
trust that stuff around sources of ignition, which include electrical
appliances, cigarettes, and so on. For your application, I just don't
think it would be same. It's one thing for a demonstration, but it's
quite another for a party.

Potentially you could put a layer of fire-retardent paint on it, but
I do not know if that's going to do the trick. Another option would
be to put a layer of tin foil on it with wallpaper paste, but again,
a major pain.

Alternatives? Triplewall cardboard, maybe? Honeycomb cardboard,
available from packaging suppliers?

http://www.google.com/search?
hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&q=texas+packaging
+honeycomb&btnG=Search

This was, and I'll tell you straight up, a lot easier before the fire
questions came up with Tuff-R.

Sorry I don't have better news for you, and GOOD LUCK!

Vinay

--
Vinay Gupta - Designer, Hexayurt Project - an excellent public domain
refugee shelter system
Gizmo Project VOIP: 775-743-1851 (usually works!) Cell:
Iceland (+354) 869-4605
http://hexayurt.com/ Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk: hexayurt Two's
company. Three's Musketeers

[Adam Gensler]

vinay-- you've been very helpful providing information to people about the hexayurt.  i, too, am very interested in building one for my wife and myself this summer (for bm). i originally thought that most of the supplies could be purchased at home depot and the cost would be about $300 for the "classic" 8 foot dome.  based on your email, below, it seems that preferred siding material may not be available at home depot.  am i correct?  you are suggesting thermax hd for the playa and home depot may not have it (for one yurt)? i live in sf, ca. thanks!  i can't wait to build this...assuming i can locate the parts and find the right vehicle to transport them in.... -a --- On Tue, 4/22/08, Vinay Gupta <hexa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

[Vinay Gupta]

Right now, my best guess is Thermax HD - if you search on the group, there's a supplier in CA that will sell in smallish quantities. We're also working on a commercial run of yurts in another material, details announced later.

As I said, until we do a flame test, we don't know *for sure* about the home depot stuff - I'm out of the country so I can't easily get hold of some to try it. But from the specs and other people's best guesses, I think it burns in a pretty ugly way, and we don't want to take that risk on the Playa.

However, once we have flame test data we can do a better risk assessment.

I think that it's worth the extra time and effort to get hold of Thermax HD. It's a really amazing material.

Vinay

-- 

Vinay Gupta - Designer, Hexayurt Project - an excellent public domain refugee shelter system

Gizmo Project VOIP: 775-743-1851 (usually works!)              Cell: Iceland (+354) 869-4605

http://hexayurt.com/           Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk: hexayurt             hey i found squirrels

[Bill Wiltschko]

The place I found in CA, Therm-all (www.therm-all.com) also has Texas locations.  Check them out.

 

Vinay is right about the flame resistance and smoke difference.  The Method is ASTM E84 (there are similar methods outside US), which provides data on smoke and flame spread.  Thermax is significantly better than Tuff-R according to both their spec sheets -- and ALL these materials are tested to ASTM E84..  Thermax HD is around 10 for flame spreading (this is from memory -- don't hold me to the specific numbers, but I have the relative performance right), Tuff-R is around 80, cedar normalizes the std at 100. 

 

What you really want to know is flame resistance -- how long it takes flame to burn THROUGH the board.  Unfortunately, this is not a function of a single piece of material, but of a wall system.  Neither Thermax HD nor Tuff-R are intended to be used stand-alone -- our desert application is outside their envelope.  So there is no data.  Maybe this is what Vinay is working on.

 

This all begs the question about how much fire protection is enough.  There are a heck of a lot of nylon tents and parachutes around the playa, which have to be far worse in fire.  Also, even Tuff-R is better than wood, although only slightly. Also, there are other risks that Vinay's design minimize.  Such as wind resistance, resistance to falling towers and platforms, resistance to drunk art cars (OK, just the drivers), and drunk bicyclists. That said, it's probably harder to get out of a hexayurt in a fire if the floor is wrapped up around the sides as most playa applications were last year. 

 

btw, people are emailing me about joining me on a Thermax HD buy from Stockton.  I have about five people interested from the bay area.  I'm keeping a list.  No one has transportation to/from Stockton yet, however.  Still hoping for a transportation sugar daddy...

 

Bill

[Vinay Gupta]

Bill, thank you very much for interpreting the flame test data for me. I don't know all that much materials science - my real speciality is infrastructure - so it's good to have somebody who knows this stuff. Given what you've said, I'm less uncomfortable about people using Tuff-R, although I feel like we're not going to know until somebody takes a decent sizes lump of it and sets it on fire with a video camera running. There's also the question of toxic smoke, which has been raised as an issue and not settled.

Would you be willing to investigate further on this for all of us, Bill? We could really use some expertise in this area.

Thank you,

Vinay

-- 

Vinay Gupta - Designer, Hexayurt Project - an excellent public domain refugee shelter system

Gizmo Project VOIP: 775-743-1851 (usually works!)                Skype/Gizmo/Gtalk: hexayurt

Cell: Iceland (+354) 869-4605                                            http://hexayurt.com

"Poverty is the worst form of violence" said Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.     But what to do?

[Lord Percival]

Greetings,

On Apr 22, 6:33 pm, Brain <comfortnugg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey guys,

>
> First, our idea:
> We wish to take the 12' honeycomb design of the hexayurt and put 2 of
> them side by side. (ideally we would like to do a 3 Hexayurt design if
> the price is right, This requires anywhere from 36-48 sheets of
> insulation board). Inside we are hoping to fill it with thousands of
> balloons, lights and music for the sensory pleasures of the burner
> people.

I acutally have a yurt[1] hexane (the doors on the ger are 120 degrees
apart, and, therefore, there is a way into each section of the hexane,
and a path between/around them, and one of them has a 4th door that
opens to the center courtyard. On that ger we wrapped wall across the
outside door, so you could only see/get into the center courtyard via
one of the adjacent ger, so the courtyard was more private. This past
year we also attached a 7th ger to the ger opposite the 4-door ger,
and realized we could make a maze or labyrinth or the like if we had
enough of them.

So, of course, when we came across the concept of the hexayurt, we had
to go and make a mock-up of what we do, with the much more inexpensive
hexayurt design. (My ger are 16' in diameter, with a 6'6" wall, and a
rafters that go up from there, and therefore cost about 2500 a piece,
all told, in wood, canvas, and labour.) We wanted to be able to have
standing room at the edges, and minimal cuts, so we went with the 8'
wall-height, and 8' wall width (166.28 sq feet as opposed to 218.62 sq
feet, but ... what can you do) and found that the joints in the wall
became ... well ... tricky. We ended up adding panels for stability.
Our first attempt at having the walls split in half was just prone to
collapsing with minimal weight against the midsection of the wall
(instant folding hexayurt, but ... not what we wanted) and placing the
4-foot on top of the 4-foot, seemed to work until there was a semi-
strong wind, at which there was this ... noticable wobble at the
joints, not something you want for your home at Black Rock City. So,
by adding extra full pannels upright in three of the corners (and in
retrospect, if we had cut them and used half-panels in each of the
corners, it would have been even better) with the exception of the
shared wall, which we cut a panel in half the long way (2 2'x8'
panels) and used them to be what the roof rests on, giving us a 4'
wide doorway between the connected hexayurts. First time we tried it
without any wall there at all, but the ceiling sagged, and, well, rain
would most definitely pool there. We tested putting an 8' poll there,
but wondered at the crushing of the corners of the material at that
point, and decided that the distributed weight was a better choice.

We also thought about doing some sort of upright/flat connecting area
between them, but realized that, at 8' walls, we really didn't need to
worry about anyone but stilt-walkers, and couldn't get the math to end
up right, we kept coming up an inch or two short. (Has anyone done
this successfully, and is willing to share their math on this?) Oh,
and we used ladders and stilts to put the roof on, at 8' it was ...
slightly more tricky. The method we finally arrived at was to have
two people under the roof, (lying down) move the walls around the
roof, mostly close, have them begin lifting (and as soon as it was
tall enough, have their stilts and the extra panels brought in, but
you could probably just bring in an A-frame ladder or two, and once
they had it up tall enough, closing up the walls, and having the
ladder folk and stilt folk on the outside tape the top in place at
that point., then, the folks on the inside tape it, then lift up the
extra panels and then tape those in place. The open-walled ones were
slightly more tricky and finally we got the method of putting one
together, first, following this method, and then moving the roof into
place, attaching one side, and using the gap between the second side
as the adjustment point.

I believe that you might need some extra people, if you are dealing
with multi-attached ones, because you will need some added
stabilization on the gaps, that become your doorways. If you are
cutting archways (the stronger shape for a door, structurally) instead
of leaving out a section of wall, taping becomes more complex, when
adding the second roof-section.

I hope my explorations have helped.

Percy

[1] Yurt is Mongolian for village, ger is Mongolian for house, so,
technically a collection of ger is a yurt, and therefore yurt is
plural of ger, but ... I'll leave the fighting over it for the grammar
OCD people.

[The Distinguished ...]

Greetings,

I wonder, is the height also a necessary function, or can you work with
the 8'8" height?

If you can manage with the 8'8" height, perhaps 4 in a square or 6 in a
hexagon with only actual walls on the outside (and a spare set of spars
for the center space would work for you? While it would constrain you
slightly, with having the v poles in some places, it might give you
enough space ... a dome would give you big empty space, indeed, but
remember, that will give you basically the height you have for the floor
ring, and takes a lot more connection, and fabric to produce and seal
well, especially being from NYC, and probably having to get a picnic
permit to put it up in the park to test, or the like.

Another structure you could use is an actual ger. It would weigh
significantly more, but be more durable, survive much better one of your
players hitting a wall, and have other benefits, with nothing central
and nothing all that tall. The ger structure is also designed to
withstand winds, and we have put up several 30', and one 40' in diameter
ger up. The khana (the "babygate" like fencing) that makes up the wall
is very solid, we use both belly-bands and a top-ring, and, for the ease
of use, you can design your khana in sections, as opposed to having to
roll up one giant roll of it, so you can ship/move it flat, in sections
that will fit in a station-wagon (not that anyone has station-wagons
anymore ...) The trick for the roof-rafters are to make pinned sleeves
for them (we usually use PVC, but some people prefer metal) so your wood
rafters will make the 15-20 foot span. For the 40' dome, we used paired
10' rafters, and a 3' roof ring, for the 30' we use paired 8' rafters
and a 2' roof ring. There is a couple who have something close to a
30' (I believe it was 28' last year) that they use the long bamboo that
grows in their back yard for the roof-rafters, that are actually 16' or
so. If you are interested in more details, simply mail me, and I'd be
happy to provide.

Yet another structure you might wish to investigate would be to put up
walls around something like the aerialist rig that Autosub built. It
would be like a giant TeePee, or, if you do it with 4 legs instead of 3,
a giant pyramid, but ... that might give you the space and stability,
and theirs comes apart nicely as well.

As to getting it to Black Rock City, I don't know if NYC has anything
similar to the Burning Man Container Project that Massachusetts has,
but, there is a bunch of folks who go in together on a shipping
container (I believe 2, actually) and that's how they get lots of their
stuff back and forth, and then, they can just fly for the rest.

Also, I know people who rent storage space in whatever town they land
in, or some town between where they land and Black Rock City, and they
pick up their infrastructure pieces from there on their way into Black
Rock City.

Good luck with your project!

On Oct 22 2007, 6:14 am, Fred Landers <fredland...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Vinay,
> The pole hexayurt looks great (Thanks for the link), but it's not large enough (using standard conduit lengths) for my group activity. It would also not work to lash some pole hexayurts together at their triangular openings (which would be a fun and easy solution for another purpose) because our activity really requires that we be in a single large space together. Since in doing this improvised play activity we deliberately don't use any costumes or props, which would tend to lock us into a certain set of meanings and slow down the flow of imaginative embodied interactions, we also need the structure we're playing in to mediate our interactions as little as possible. I agree with your criticism of the geodesic dome for having so many pieces and being so difficult to put up and take down, and I saw this problem in action at Contact Camp this year. Also, my girlfriend and I fly from New York to Reno for Burning Man. If she and I buy a dome, we will have to depend on the guy who brings the mutant vehicle and toilet for our theme camp from Colorado to haul our dome to Black Rock City every year. It's not a great arrangement, so I'm still thinking about alternative ways to do this. Could the pole hexayurt be made larger by joining some conduit end-to-end, doubling the length of the horizontal pieces and the size of the cone? I imagine this would make the whole structure too weak. What do you think?
> Fred

[Arthur Zwern]

Hi Percy & Distinguished,

I'm trying to follow all these good ideas about gers and yurts but having
trouble as I perceive information visually. Do you have any images of your
works that you can point us to?

Thanks!!

Sunshine

-----Original Message-----
From: hexa...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hexa...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf
Of Lord Percival
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 1:29 PM
To: hexayurt
Subject: Re: Hexayurt Supplies in Austin: Need Help!

[The Distinguished ...]

Greetings,

I'll see what I can whip up, although, I do have a sort of drawing of
the hexane that I've attached. Unfortunately I use this in a medieval
context, and don't actually take pictures (no cameras, see?) and when we
were experimenting, the person designated to photograph for us, had the
camera set to record to the card (much easier to transfer that way) and,
apparently there was no card inserted, but the camera happily wrote to
the card-slot, instead of it's internal memory, alas. It also meant
that the folks on stilts who took a break to juggle didn't get their
pictures either, but ... so it goes.

Percy

[Arthur Zwern]

Thanks Percy. I get the layout. Would love to see the gers if your photog
gets the card situation figured out:)