Pacific Yurts' Blog

Fallen oak on yurt

As Pacific Yurts employees arrived for work on Tuesday, July 19^th, 2011 they were greeted by a fallen sixty foot oak tree. Some time early that morning the mighty oak had given up trying to hold itself vertical and fell over on its side.

Unfortunately it fell directly onto one of the display yurts on the property.

A question that is often asked about the Pacific Yurt is, “what if a tree limb falls onto the yurt?” Well, here is documentation of exactly what happened when the whole tree fell on it.

Fallen oak

From the initial inspection around the yurt it didn’t look too bad, but we were a little concerned about what it would look like when we went inside for a look around. We were prepared for the possibility of having to replace a few rafters and some of the lath that make up the lattice wall. Part of the beauty of our yurt construction is the ease with which you can make repairs or replace broken components, so we weren’t too worried.

A close inspection of the yurt interior had surprising results. Not a single piece of the yurt framework was cracked or damaged in any way! In fact, it looked as if there were only a few punctures in the top cover and roof insulation, but we still had to get the huge tree off the yurt without causing any further damage before a full inspection could be done.

Interior before removing tree

After making a few calls we hired some local professionals who carefully and methodically removed the tree piece by piece. By Tuesday evening the entire tree had been removed from the site.

Wednesday morning we could finally get a good look at the entire yurt, inside and out, to make a full assessment of the damage the old oak tree had caused. To everyone’s amazement the four punctures in the roof and insulation were the only damage that the yurt sustained!

By the end of Wednesday’s work day the insulation and top cover had been repaired and visitors who stopped by had no idea that just one day prior there had been a sixty foot oak tree resting on the yurt. Amazingly enough the total cost for repair items was $27.50. This includes a top cover patch kit, liner patch kit and a roll of foil tape. The cost of having the tree removed was offset by the amount of firewood the tree provided.

To remember the graceful old oak tree we saved a mossy section of it and created a bench for our visitors.