Experience With WeatherPort Yurts?

Hey guys! I'm new and wanted some advice. I want to buy a yurt. I have the land ready to go and I want to shop local. I researched some yurts and really liked what I saw from WeatherPort's Yurts but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with them or their products and could give me some feedback?

Thanks! Happy camping!

WeatherPorts have been used by the NPS and some guide services on Denali, Rainier, and in the Tetons.

I've used WeatherPort structures for very remote wildlife work in Alaska and they make solid products. I've not used their yurts but rather the quonset hut looking structures. Even on exposed tundra with sometimes strong winds and difficult weather they held up very well. I'm curious; what is the price for the yurts?

Hey EvergreenHills,

Wish I could help you out! I have had visions of Yurt living for many years... Would you mind sharing more about your plan/setup?

Will you be living there full-time?

Off the grid?

Anything else cool to note?

Stoked for ya'!

Dan Vinson wrote:Hey EvergreenHills, Wish I could help you out! I have had visions of Yurt living for many years... Would you mind sharing more about your plan/setup? Will you be living there full-time? Off the grid? Anything else cool to note? Stoked for ya'!

Hey Dan, sorry for taking so long to respond. I want a place I can live in. The land I own isn't that close to rural areas. The reason I was looking into WeatherPort is theirs seem to be a nice place to live (have wife and one child) and live off the land by farming. Also, I went on a fishing excursion in Alaska before and stayed in one of their structures but I'd never heard about them making yurts. Them being local is also sweet!

At the same time, this is something I'm not trying to do hastily. I need to get a platform going once I decide costs/size of the yurt. Need to make sure I get this done right, haha... I'm just really excited about it. I'm working on getting a quote from them because I want a large yurt.

So yeah, I've been thinking this out, have the land, and already convinced the wife it's a good idea while still learning some things.

Wish me luck! Thanks for the response!

EvergreenHills wrote: Hey Dan, sorry for taking so long to respond. I want a place I can live in. The land I own isn't that close to rural areas. The reason I was looking into WeatherPort is theirs seem to be a nice place to live (have wife and one child) and live off the land by farming.

That's awesome! I'm still working on getting my wife on-board...time and persistence, ha!

Where in CO are you? We are in Boulder and it seems very difficult to live 'off the grid' anywhere within reasonable driving distance to work...or maybe we just need to find new work...

I've seen super cheap land (that is also really beautiful) elsewhere, but again, the job issue...

Thanks for sharing!

-Dan

Dan Vinson wrote: That's awesome! I'm still working on getting my wife on-board...time and persistence, ha! Where in CO are you?

I live in Evergreen! Like my name! haha

What Turner asked! I tried contacting WeatherPort and they would not give me an answer or even a rough estimate without undergoing a phone interview. I even stopped by the WeatherPort place in Delta and they would not entertain my question without a lengthy interview. Frankly this lack of being upfront and easy has turned me away from them.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, I hope it works out for you! We're thinking of doing something similar (but part time) and I'm interested in how the permit system works. However I'm sure the rules here in CA are different, if not worse.

Happy camping / climbing!

Not 100% on topic, but have you looked at all at Smiling Wood Yurts? They are based out of Twisp, WA and produce 'yurts' that are built out of wood instead of fabric. The wife and I strongly considered one a couple of years ago but just could never quite make it work. Since we don't know what a standard yurt costs, I don't know how these would compare, but the prices always seemed reasonable to me. I (and especially my wife) really liked the idea of the wood structure, since it made her feel more like a house and less like tent camping. I will say, the pictures in their gallery are really cool, and I still wouldn't mind living in one.

Cheers, and I'm jealous!

Whoa! Smiling wood is pretty sweet! Seems like it would be a little warmer/weather resistant, especially to wind.

I've been looking a 'alternative housing' for a decade. The paradox I always run into is there is cheap/affordable land nowhere near jobs, and the land around jobs is $$$. No surprise really.

Housing eats up so much of our income, even if we cut it in half, that would free up a ton of opportunity.

Enough whining from me, more doing...!

Curious if there is any way to revive this thread 5 years later to see if you ever got anywhere with Weather Port Yurts? They're still very old school wanting a phone interview before giving even a rough quote, which is frustrating. 

But also I read through some of these frustrations with being off-grid and I want to share the reason I am interested in owning a Weather Port Yurt in the first place: it is truly portable, fairly light and can be re-assembled. In California the regs on permanent structures make it very difficult to live in any form of yurt, but if you can commit to living 6 months or less, you're technically a temporary structure. 

What I'm imagining is this: a workshop + barn + office building + large kitchen (The Commons) on a very large cement pad. One corner of the pad would be for your temporary structure; in my case I'd want a Yurt but others might go with an RV or a tiny home. The Commons supplies septic and real plumbing, rain capture, homesteading, solar, wifi for professional work, and its cost is split by four households, who live outside of it in their yurts/tiny homes. I am in California, so I'm imagining one of these in the foothills (mild spring and summer) and one in the high desert; and yes, you would simply move your goats and sheep from one pasture to the next and plant cover crop before you leave. I have a cabin in the mountains so ... I think I might actually be able to do this if I could find an owner to carry the land so I could fund the cement pad and The Commons, and the Weather Port Yurt. Which might be $10k, or it might be $30k...honestly who knows because I can't find a single review, but I do think the ability for it to actually be a "temporary structure" makes it an ideal yurt for California. 

I think a lot of people are drawn to being "off grid" but aren't able to work to make it possible, as pointed out by Dan Vinson above. So maybe you go deeper into homesteading, which can be back-breaking work. But the pandemic has created so much remote work, and I think a lot of those jobs are going be permanent: I'm trying to create a living situation that is *actually* affordable, so affordable you can invest time in art or writing or hiking, enables you to still work and travel for leisure, allows for being more connected to nature and to your food through Homesteading Lite (not fully off-grid, not fully self-sustaining but enough animals and gardening to be healthy and affordable), and also more resistant to the influence of climate change (being able to evacuate for the season from a wildfire, not having to build or fuel massive heating and cooling systems because it's 70 - 78 year round for you...). 

Anyways I'm quite off topic--I would love to know if anyone above ended up with a Weather Port Yurt. :-)