Yurt and Dome Testimonials and Customer's Photos

If you are considering buying a Shelter Systems' portable, waterproof living or gardening structure, we think you'll find these letters and photographs informative as well as enjoyable. They were sent to us by satisfied people who've bought and used our structures for many varying purposes.

Eleanor,

I have had my 10 foot bubble dome for a year now. It is wonderful. I am using it as a painting studio. Very spacious inside due to the bubble shape for headroom, elbow room, my supplies, worktable and plenty of room to paint. I built a 8'10" round floor and the dome fits nice and tight around it. I use beer cans for ventilation between the panels, they work great, and the panels snap tight when they are removed for rainy days. It made it through the winter wind and rains just fine, no leaks. On wet foggy mornings the eucalyptus trees drip, as well as normal dirt, and the ash from the recent fires. I sponge mop it with some soap and water and then rinse it off with the hose; it cleans up fine.

I took several pictures for you to see and to use on your site if you wish. I am so pleased on all levels with the dome; and it is nice to have it made locally! I rent a granny unit that came with the yard. The small foot print with lots of headroom works perfectly. It looks so cool, my landlord and neighbors love it. You might notice the small solar panel on the dome for my solar powered water fountain in the wine barrel.

I live off 26th in the Pleasure Point area. Anyway, thanks so much to all of you for creating the bubble dome, and all your domes. It looks great and suits me well.

May you all be happy, healthy and live with ease of being,

Geoffrey

The dome has been here for one year and we are very pleased with the
dome's durability, performance, and portability. Everyone who visits the
space is impressed, fascinated, and transformed by the experience.

We are located in the Federal Valley Watershed in the Hills of Appalachia
in southeast Ohio, USA. We have been actively moving toward our goals of
individual and community preparedness, sustainability and resiliency for
quite some time now. We are taking positive, goal oriented action as we
strive to adapt to the changes predicted for this century; pandemic flu,
increasing poverty and everything that comes with the end of an oil based
civilization and climate change.

The dome serves as a fantastic space for people to gather for counseling,
education, conversation circles, visioning, goal setting, planning and
overall collective effort. We have sought out and experimented with
various social change models in an effort to maximize our efforts.

The dome is a most excellent space for such efforts. Our dome is situated
on what was the Tipi Circle. The site had been prepared years ago with
great sensitivity and attention; walking circles, spirals, connecting with
the elemental energy and woodland beings. The tipi hosted gatherings with
a sacred fire around which we prepared meals, shared in food, story
telling and visioning exercises to deepen our connection with all life,
including other people in similar circles around the planet.

After many years, the painted tipi cover finally aged to the point where
it could no longer be repaired. It was burned with awareness in a large
outside fire circle and the lodge pole pines were moved to serve as a
trellis over the garden circle.

A yurt dome from Shelter Systems was then chosen as a replacement,
partially due to our wet climate and the potential role such domes offer
in terms of emergency response and shelter. (Some have said that our
county is classified as a "host county"; it is possible that people from
the cities and even the eastern coastlines may become refugees here;
emergency shelter is going to be needed under those circumstances.)

The Tipi Circle ground base was transformed from an oval shape to a full
circle. Special objects were placed in the central fire basin before
filling the hole and again preparing the ground.

As you can see in the picture, the dome is now a part of our woodlands.
It is also available as needed for on-the-road festivals and events. The
dome helps holds a space that helps with the contagious spread of
compassionate communication, teamwork and a sense that anything is
possible!

No one individual hold THE answer, but each one of us holds a piece of the
answer. Perhaps you can join us in this space as we embark on this
adventurous journey into the future. Together we can do anything!

I brought my 18 foot dome to Coachella this year. I was a little concerned it would not fit into the allotted space, but it worked out perfectly. What a great way to camp at the festival. Tons of people asked us about where we got it and how it was made. I steered them all your way. People LOVE the dome!

These have been up and in continuous use since ’03. As you can see, they have integrated with the landscape to a fair degree. It probably isn’t a good idea to let stuff grow on them, but it hasn’t been a problem. I really need a larger space, but I keep waiting for one of these things to wear out. If work gets caught up this summer, I’ll upgrade. I don’t think the sculpture I have made here would have turned out as well in any other environment.
Thanks for a great product.
-Henry Mitchell

As promised, I have attached the poster for the Zeroo1 events and exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art. I have also attached a word document, of when she will be performed/installed, during the week of June 4-8.

Back from an awesome, and tiring weekend. Our team took 4th place in the 24-hours 6 man division. The event was amazing, especially heading out with headlamps to ride my 3rd of 4 ten mile loops at 4am!

The dome was a savior during the event. On top of that, it was a major hit with the team, and with other competitors. I handed out a

number of brochures and fielded numerous question. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if we got a few orders from this event. I took 4 of those large metal stakes, and they worked amazingly well. In that hard packed ground, they were like driving into wood. They were very solid

I am really thankful for being able to have this dome at the event, and everyone on the team was equally so. Here's a few photos from the website or whatever. Thanks!

wow
we made do as it happens and pulled off a fabulous show, some of which can be seen on youtube by searching for designersblock - local milanese videos of a party that drew over 3000 visitors. we shall have lots more images on line in due course on www.verydesignersblock.com

Dear Eleanor
Sorry that it took half a year to send you some photos of the yurt dome from the Spitsbergen expedition.
As I wrote previously, it was working really well. Our small tents have been broken by strong winds but the Yurt was wind proof.

The only small problem was with the door - we have to make some improvements to open and close them easier than in original tent.
In my opinion, the yurt dome could be stronger when adding one more "skeleton" vertical line just above the ground.

Could you quote 4 pieces of the YurtDome 18' Extra Strong with delivery to Poland?
If possible we prefer with transparent widows above doors - it is important to see polar bear before it will come inside.
What are the delivery options - UPS, sea freight,....?

We are very pleased to say our 18 foot dome survived the dust storms of Burning Man 2007. Ours wobbled and shook, but never failed. I did reinforce with guy lines, and will be adding more lines next year just in case. We stayed relatively cool with the black shade cloth, but can’t help but wonder if the silver reflective would be better next year. We also experimented with space blankets to reflect the desert sun beams, with mild success.

I would recommend your domes to anyone in need of shelter. They are fairly easy/fast to assemble and super easy to disassemble, leaving more time for playa hijinks.

October 31, 2007 10:28:32 AM PDT
To: <eleanor@shelter-systems.com>
Subject: testimonial

I purchased the 18' dome to use at Burning Man several years ago and
each year it functioned flawlessly. This year, 2007, the Black Rock
Playa experienced some of the wildest, wickedest weather in over a
decade. I had the dome cinched all along its midsection to trucker
straps to provide shock abosorber protection against the 70 mile/hour
winds that continuously came up out of nowhere.

I remember one afternoon a windstorm came up that was so strong that
everything immediately went into a whiteout condition. You could
literally stand up outside and lean into the wind and be held like a

huge hand at a 45 degree angle. The sides of the dome bent inward but
the compression of the spars transferred the force throughout the
structure.

I sat inside the dome with some friends and people seeking shelter and
amidst the sound of the wind and dust hitting the sides of the dome it
sounded like a freight train running us over. We had a wind turbine set
up on a 30" tower right outside the dome and it was screaming. Our
annemometer showed wind speed over 70 mph, the turbine was producing 20+
amps, we were all coated with a post apocolyptic white dust, but the
dome remained intact and strong.

Thanks for your well made product. It is easy to set up and break down
and amazingly small in its packaging.

Dawntree Studio is still here, years past our warranty expired. As soon as I get a break in my work, I’ll order something bigger. I’ve considered doing a hard structure, but I’m addicted to the light.

Thanks for the update and photo. How many years have you had them up now? And remind me what state you are in. I know what you mean by the light (Great to work in; like being inside a frosted light bulb).

2003. Greenville is in northwestern South Carolina, at the foot of the Blue Ridge.
-Henry

I just wanted to send you some photographs...we used a 30' dome last year on an archaeological field project with kids.

The site is a 1000 year old Fremont campsite located on Antelope Island State Park near Salt Lake City.

The dome worked out great and survived a major wind storm where it actually flew for a mile......we set it up again and it survived the rest of the summer....we're using the same dome again this year for the project....great product...

April 26, 2007 11:03:29

Dear Eleanor,

I attach a foto of the dome in our experimental area. Please note that
the method was developed by Arnone and Obrist (I attach the abstract
of their paper).

"Shelter System's geodesic dome is employed in our research of co2
exchange in the Negev desert. The dome and its skin material prove
themself as very good research instruments, enabling exact
measurements at ecosystem level with a minimal disturbance to it" - is
it ok? My Tutor is Jose Gruenzweig, we collaborate with Jay Arnone and
Richard Jasoni from the DRI in Nevada.

Greetings,
Ophir Tal.

On Jan 30, 2007

Bob,

I bought a 30' dome from you last year, and you built in a special door for me so that I could attach it to my large RV,
at least that's what I planned to do with it at burning man, but I didn't. We did get it up and it worked well.

However, getting the assembly started was not easy. We had to go down the street and eye-ball an standing dome.

Is there some direction you can give me on how to start the assembly process, getting the initial patterns right?

Also, FYI, it to 3 people working pretty damn hard to get the struts bent and inserted; there were a lot of times we were wishing the
tubes we a 1/2" shorter.

Thanks, Gary Gabrel,

Hi Gary

Good to hear back from you.

As to putting the 31'er up. It is best to start with the top center (should be marked) but you can start with other connectors near the top center. Work out from this clip one pole at a time walking around and around the covering. The poles will form squares except in a few places were there are triangles. A print showing the dome should help. It does take strength to put it up but with out the tension the dome would be weak. But it is a beast. I put one up by my self once, if you can believe it. It is easier the second time: the covering stretches out a bit and the poles take a slight set.

Would love to see a few photos of your dome set up.

Sincerely,

Bob Gillis

Hi Gary.

Thanks for sending the great photos.

Bob Gillis

Eleanor,
Here's the rest of the pictures I scanned for Bob.

Francie and I lived in these two domes over a winter on the side of
Mary's peak in Oregon. With a little camp stove, some straw for
insulation and rugs on the floor we were quite cozy in the fabric dome.
The plastic one was the dog house/woodpile, storage area.

Yes you have permission to use these images on your website, but not to
resell them.

-robertw

Thanks for the great photos. Thanks for all the trouble. Do you know
about what year they are from?

As a matter of fact I do. The ones from Aptos are dated March 1978.
Others are from a little later after we'd set our domes up, or gone
traveling with them.

As you can probably tell these are the fiberglas pole 16' great circle
designs with an earlier version of the clip. The fabric dome served us
well for many years, being put up in the back yard and various
adventures across the country. The picture with the trucks is from
Idaho somewhere.

-robertw

Date: March 19, 2007

Hi Bob,

Thank you for getting back with us. The dome has been really wonderful, we
just love it. As I mentioned in our telephone conversation, we used the
grip clips around the third band of poles to clip in a marine tarp roof.
Our dropped ceiling was an effort to heat less ceiling space.

Our cave in would have resulted in just a bit of ice on our bed if the
ceiling had not been there. Instead the weight of the sleet and ice on the
tarped ceiling buckled the entire structure.

Here are some pics. The one during the sleet
storm. His efforts to keep digging the snow out helped release some of the
pressure.

We look forward to getting it back up for the spring.

Peace,

Yahsha

" ... if you build a man a fire, he will be warm for a day. But if you set
a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life. "

On Jan 12, 2007

Hi Bob,

I'm the happy owner of an 18' for three years. I've lived in it full time in California ( see photos from San Diego nspr ).

Your Dome is famous in San Diego !

Now I've moved to New Hampshire and I want to use it here...in the summers at least.

Joel Heathcote

It's great here in Mexico.

Here's a couple photos of the tent on the beach. It was a big hit with the people in town.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and a run on the beach.

Date: December 19, 2006

Subject: dome living

HI, I thought it might be time to write my testimonial of dome living. Two summers ago I ordered two domes, one 20 ft the other 14. The larger one we used for main living space the smaller one was my teenage sons bedroom. They were great they stayed dry and held up to some big winds and lots and lots of heavy rain. The larger one was a greenhouse version I had choosen because I knew I wouldn't be living in it forever and I wanted a greenhouse too. IT was like being inside a waterfall in the heavy rain but not a bit of dampness enterred as long as we were sure to keep the doors secure. I was wooried when I first saw the domes, I'll admit. I had just spent a great deal of money on fine furnitur and I did not want to risk it in the elements. It is still in top condidtion and made dome living quite comfy. Shades were an absolute necessity it was Very hot when the sun hit and quite cold when the sun went down, I recommend getting a heat source. I also installed floors in both shelters it helped keep things clean and dust free. There were some awesome things about dome living first of all every night I could hear the frogs singing in the pond nearby, secondly I woke up every morning to the sounds of birds singing. A newt moved in with us and lived under the refridgerator, we only saw it once and thought it had gone back to the pond but when we moved the refridgerator it was living there. Always tie down the dome!!!! This past summer I used the greenhouse one as a green house and we forgot about the cross over lines when we set it up. One day the big winds came and blew it right off the top of our mountain down into the gully at my neighbors. The dome was not hurt even though it blew about a quarter mile away and landed squarely in a hawthorn bush. I was grateful it did not hit my neighbors new vehicles though. ALWAYS tie down the dome. We set the small one up at the local barter fair and low and behold we met another family of dome dwellers. They told me they set theirs up on a nearby mountain and spent the sprng, summer, and fall in it quite nicely. We have to much snow here for dome living in winter but I am hoping to travel next winter and set them up on the beach in so cal and mexico. So happy dome dwelling to all.

Sincerely,
Tanya Little

December 20, 2006
Dear Eleanor,

If I set the domes up this year I will email photos. I don't have any photos from when we lived in them. I have a picture of us at the fair with the dome behind but it is a regular picture not digital. I would not hesitate for one minute to move back into the domes if we didn't get such heavy snowfall. I have been seeing some nice tent wood stoves on ebay reasonably priced as well as vent free propane both would be great additions to dome living. You guys should develop a dome shower house too. Something with black material so it warms up, brrr those outdoor showes can be so cold. Thanks we had a great time as dome dwellers and we still have great conversations about it. I love that they are also being used for relief efforts, that is so important these days. Take care and god bless.

Tanya

Rick and I had a wonderful time working together to set up an 18 foot YurtDome on a beautiful piece of land in costal San Pancho Mexico.

It will be a storage and hang out place while we build a small palapa house and when building is complete, we plan on keeping it up for an extra room and a shelter for hanging out in on the beach.

It looks really beautiful up in the jungle, the ventilation is great and a sun shade or two will help on hot sunny days.

On Sep 5, 2006

Hi Elanor,
Here she is on her maiden voyage will send you more when she is better dressed! Hope all is good with you. We are very happy with her. Thank you.
Best wishes
Jenny

Dear Jenny,

Thank you so much for the photo and testimonial, may we have permission to use it on our website?
I am so glad that your dome is meeting your expectations, it looks great! Have a wonderful week.

Sincerely, Eleanor

Eleanor Gillis

Hi elanor
Yes of course you have our permission and we would be happy to recommend your domes to anyone.
Jenny

Aug 25, 2006,

Hello

My company is working on systems to make biofuel from algae. We needed a large spherical dome to act as both greenhouse and reflector. It also had to be easy to assemble and transport.

From previous domes we had bought from you, we knew you could make what we needed.

It arrived and we assembled it in a hour. It performed as planned.

The tests were moving ahead until...... the tornado hit.

We will be calling you again soon.

Thank you.

Rudy Behrens

Hi Eleanor,

Here are some pictures of our european booth using your bubble dome. that is why we have just ordered the same product for the north american territory.

Have a great day,

Simon Cote
Technical Support
Audio Plus Services

Hi Bob,

One of your wonderful shelters was at the National Association of Music Merchants show in Anaheim last week.

Looked fantastic. Was the FocalProfessional.com booth...and stood out very positively amongst all the rest.

The guys there were surprised I knew all about it. They said they had received lots of inquiries about it...and that they loved it because it went up and down so fast and had lots of surface area to hook things on.

Thought you would like to hear that.

The best to Bob... Jim

We've had our watsu pool cover dome for about 3 years now, and it's been great.

Use photo
if you like,
please provide
a link to

www.
photonphenomenon.
com

On July 10, 2006

Good Morning Bob. Here are some pictures of the chapel. We had to cut about 15 inches off the bottom legs. Now we are thinking that we need to have a bottom ring and we need to seal up the door openings. Any advise?

Julie N. Rokke, AIA

Good morning to you also.

Your top looks good.

You can "clip" the doors closed by unclipping the side wall after removing the poles from the clip and then layering in the door over the side wall and clipping the two together.

You can add a bottom ring in one of two ways. Use 20' lengths of PVC class 200 to create a ring and tie this to the base clips; or tie connectors of 1.25" to your base clips and then add poles between the connectors to create the ring. The pole lengths will be slightly shorter then your long poles and the bottom door pole may be shorter still.

Robert: The chaplet is complete and the initial opening with all of the different chaplets happened on August 1st. The artist is now considering how to travel the chaplets around the state etc etc. We talked yesterday about maintenance and repair and I was thinking that perhaps we should have another fabric roof as a back-up. It would have to be modified because we cut off the structure you sent me etc etc. Is this something that you think you could do? What we did was cut the "legs" off 15 inches and then we took the grip clips apart to attach the door panels permanently and added a bottom ring to the structure. We also added an additional grip clip at the center of the fabric panels and attached it to the bottom ring ,just to pull it tighter to the roof structure. The spacing around the bottom was not equal, the window panels ended up being shorter so it didn't work out quite as well with the brackets so we ended up adding a wood trim ring around the top of the bracket to hide the ring.

On Sep 8, 2006

Bob: Sorry for the delayed response. I wanted to make sure the artist was okay with it. She is... so yes you may use the photos on your web site. It would be nice if you could identify the project as Roberts Street Chaplet Project. and list me as the architect. Thanks.

I think we'll try to order another roof structure, but it might wait a month or so.

Thank you again for all your help. The Chaplet has been up now for better than 6 weeks and has weather some nasty thunderstorms.

Julie N. Rokke

Thank you so very much for producing an excellent product! We recently purchased one of your 20' dome greenhouses and had it shipped to our land on an island in Southeast Alaska. This was our first trip to see our land after buying it (we could only stay a week this time), and since we knew it was a rainforest there (over 120 inches of rain per year) and our land is "raw" we knew we would need a shelter that was easy and fast to put up, and that would handle the extreme amounts of rain normal for the area.

For the week we were on the island we set up the dome
over our campsite to keep it dry and comfortable. You
can see from one of the photos that we put our tent
inside the dome. The only dampness we had inside was
from condensation inside the dome - when it rained the
rain hitting the outside of the dome would sometimes
knock loose some drops of condensation creating a few
"raindrops" inside the dome, but it really was a minor
amount and much better than being in the real rain.

Now that we have returned home we are having a builder
on the island construct a raised deck on our property
on top of which he will permanantly mount the dome -
when we go back next summer I'll send you some photos
of the dome mounted on the deck. For now the dome has
been taken back down (it is so incredibly easy to set
up and take down - Thank you!) until the deck is ready
for it.

The dome really made the difference in our trip to the
island this time, I don't think that having just about
any tent out in the open would work well in the
Alaskan rainforest - but with your dome overhead it
was as comfortable as camping in the backyard. None
of the local residents had ever seen such a thing and
were amazed at the superb design and how well it
worked, word got around fast and many of them came by
our camp just to see the dome. I think you've got a
huge untapped market in Southeast Alaska - the locals
were especially impressed when they found out the very
reasonable price.

We (and other island residents) will most likely be
ordering more domes from you in the future, so keep up
the good work!!!

Best Regards,
Roger DiPaolo

February 28, 2006

This little 10' Greenhouse we bought form you 8 years ago keeps lasting. I am very impressed. We live on the wettest part of the whole island and anything we want to keep dry we keep in it: our tools, fertilizers, etc.

Hawaii

Barbara

January 31, 2006

Hi Bob-

Sorry for not doing this sooner. I was cleaning out my email box and found this message from you.

A picture of the dome at our field camp in Colorado is attached. As you can see, the location is very exposed. When it was put up, the crew were making bets as to how many days it would last. Most felt the wind would take it out in fewer than 10 days. 60 days later, it was still standing despite some intense storms with very high winds. The ropes with bungees helped tremendously. It would flex in the wind and pop right back into shape. Twelve of us regularly ate our meals inside. It was a wonderful shelter. We'll see how it does next season.

Bob-

We used 12 inch steel stakes for the guy lines. In the rain, the dome worked flawlessly. I don't have any close-ups of the the bungee-guy lines, but I spliced 24 inch sections of standard bungee cord into 20 ft lengths of nylon rope. I have attached another photo of Bob Patten, a master flintknapper, doing a flintknapping demonstration inside the dome.

Todd

Todd Surovell
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Wyoming

On Apr 2, 2005

Hi Bob:

We're very interested in purchasing a dome or two. I'm still
concerned about wind, but for many reasons, it seems like our best
option. There are a number of comparably-priced rectangular
garage-type structures, but the major downsides are that they are very
heavy (800 to 1000 lbs, good for wind, but bad for moving around and
erecting) and the steel/aluminum bases of the frames are difficult to
set up on lumpy ground. I like your idea of incorporating bungie into
the guy lines. That should help quite a bit.

Thanks,
Todd

Todd Surovell
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Wyoming

Hi Bob,

Thank you very much for sending the Grip Clip Pro’s overnight to my office. As you can see in the pictures, they turned out to be a BIG SUCCESS.

They help up very well in the rain and heavy winds.
I attached a few of the best photos that we could get
with out renting a helicopter.

Thanks again and we will definitely be using them again.

Sincerely,
Micah Williams
Advantage Project Builders

Bob,

We used a total of about 20 of the Grip clips around the edge of the tarp and 4 in the center. And yes they did hold up to the heavy winds. They were very easy to attach with 1 ¼” gold screws. I didn’t find any problems with them at all. You can put some of the pictures on the website if you want. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks again,
Micah Williams

Skagway Glacier Dome

Have been using your 18' ES Yurt Dome up here in Alaska on the Glacier for a hang out spot for the crew. I love your product. I can put it up my self in 30 minutes. We had to do some repairs and and I just used part of the wrapper it came in to make a patch. The dome, being white blends into the glacier and does not distract from the beauty of the place. It is really spacious inside, good for getting out of the rain, a relaxing space. Kids love it and think it is a big igloo.

Thanks,
Tori
City of Skagway

On Oct 24, 2005

Hi Robert ,

We have used the Yurt Dome Tents for a couple months now in Mongolia.

The tents have helped us out very much in our work. Please see some of the photos we took this time using the two tents.

One of the days during our trip, the temperature dropped to minus 10 centigrade (which is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit).

Since the weather in Mongolia is cold, hot, windy and sandy, we will be making some modifications for the two tents, and may be ordering tent parts sometime soon. Please see the attached photos (size reduced for email) and give us your suggestion. Hope everything is going well with your business.

jack

To: Jack Shibata

Subject: Thanks for the photos of your use in Mongolia

Thanks for the great photos. Can I put a few on our site?

What are you working on in mongolia?

What problems have you found for the domes?

I noticed that you lowered on of them. How has that worked out for you?

Sincerely

Robert Gillis

October 27, 2005 3:21:51 PM PDT

Hi Robert,

Please feel free to use the photos. Out in the desert areas of Mongolia, we have strong winds of 45km per hour, where it's difficult to stand. One of the tents, we guard with our vehicles, and the other we lowered to reduce the wind. It has worked out good for us, and even in strong winds, the tent that is lowered does not budge. So far, we have not had any big problems, except that the wind comes in through the layers that are overlapping, and we are considering ways to prevent that, since in the spring and early summer, Mongolia has strong winds and much dust. As you have seen in the photos, we use lights in our tents, so we have added a lining inside the tent to prevent from showing up. The most we have had together in one tent so far was 31 people. In the past it used to be difficult to be together for meals, but with the tent guarding us from wind, and lights in the tents we are able to have our meals together wherever we are. Our work in Mongolia is Christian related work where we pass out Bible literature. We also do charity work.

We have had a few poles get brittle and break in the cold, but otherwise there has been no problem. The dome tents are designed so well!

thanks a lot,
jack

On Sep 20, 2005, at 3:54 AM, Kim Lane wrote:

Hi there Bob-

Just wanted to let you know how utterly FANTASTIC our yurt worked out for the burn this year!!

As you may recall we were a little nervous about collecting it right after we flew in from the UK and then having to erect it on the playa without a training run....well we got to the playa as the sun was going down on Sunday nite, the wind (which picked up to a dull roar the next day was just starting to blow) and my intrepid hubby insists we go ahead and put it up- in the dark!!!

Well it took us 45 min to get it up, a bit longer to do the rebar but there it stayed for the remainder of the week.

The shadecloth worked great and it never got unbearably hot during the day - it was a beautiful year weather-wise tho!

So just wanted to give you feedback- we loved it and plan on using it every time we manage to get back for the burn- we've stored it in SF.

Here are some photos you can add to your site if you want.

Aug 4, 2005

Dawntree Studio"

Three summers and counting.

Thanks for a great product.

Beats renting a warehouse.

I use the studio 24/7/365 days a year. Heat in winter w/ kerosene heaters.

Is there any sort of thermal liner that would make ac practical in the summer?

We make a full liner that would help with AC. Accessories: http://www.shelter-systems.com/accessories.html

What is pricing for 30'x16' dome?

The 30 by 16 is $2800 Shipping $390.

Thanks

-Henry Mitchell

July 31, 2005

The yurt is a geodesic yurt dome.

Its yurtish-ness is its portability, its assemble-ability.
Its dome-ish-ness is in its curved surfaces, and its over-all curved structure.

Those are the two criteria that majorly contributed to the selection of this particular 'structure' to make the test-bed prototype structure with.

The prototype will be used to test various interactive technologies and scenarios with user groups/ audience- participants.

The processes for design and construction, as well as these testings will be documented throughout.

Its bigger and heavier but smaller and lighter than I expected.

Inside, its light and high- ceiling.

for photos with more info see below:

bests

Ann Morrison

Dear Robert Gillis,

Everything went well with putting up the dome.

We hope it will have a nice time on our alpine pasture and not be blowed away by the next strong wind. We have anchored it very well but we don't know how resistent the material is ... As we put up the dome we asked ourselves how the rain stays out if the wind comes from aside -- but times will show.

The stone floor fits very well and the atmosphere inside of the dome is really great. The acoustics are also very fine; we sang some songs in it and they sound good.

The costs for shipping have been about 100 USD sheeper; not so much as I hoped but ok. The customs checkpoint didn't understand what a 'dome' and 'poles' are, and wanted to know what kind the material for both is. Maybe it would be easier to declare the dome as a tent and give information about the material.

Soon I will sent you the link to the complete built-up documentation of the dome.

Sincerely,

Anna and Manuela from
Germany / Italy

March 24/05

Bob

A number of years ago we bought a bunch of the domes from you to use on the trekking trips in Bhutan. They were a great hit and we want to place another order.

Here is a photo of the Dome Tent at Chemolhari: Base Camp in Bhutan. We Love the tents!

Best, Brent

Geographic Expeditions

On Feb 15, 2005

Robert,

I've attached a couple pictures of the tanks we've installed at the South Pole this past "summer" season. We put in eight tanks this season, and plan another 20-30 each year over the next 5-6 years. The fabric held up well. I've also attached a press-release about the overall project in case you're interested in a bit more about it.

The tanks are a part of what we call "IceTop" which itself is a part of "IceCube" (see attached press release). In the pictures are seen two of the 1000 gallon water-tanks, out of eight total installed this past summer (austral summer, that is, mainly Nov, Dec, and Jan when flights are able to get in and out of the pole) season at the South Pole. Wrapped around a framework above the tanks are the "sunshades" for keeping direct sunlight from hitting the top of the water, since at the South Pole the sun simply circles around the sky while staying essentially the same distance above the horizon day after day (finally setting near March 21 and not rising again until Sept. 21). This allowed the water to freeze more rapidly, a surprising problem even at the south pole, because of the rather large thermal heat capacity of water it takes roughly two months for the entire tank to freeze. Two light sensors, identical to those deployed deep within the icecap, are frozen in the tanks, with two tanks being deployed on the surface above each IceCube hole.

So, I'll be ordering more material soon.

Cheers,
Glenn

Dear Bob, We want to thank you for providing us such
tents for temporary shelter relief. These tents stood
up to the weather changes for the six months that we
experienced. As you can see on the pictures attached,
we found sand bag to be good anchors for the tents.
The more it rains the heavier sand bag became. The
heavier sand bag also became better anchors. The sand
bags were 25 lb per bag and 10 bags per tent.

Thank you very much

Julian Chang

Bob-
Dawntree Studio is into the second winter now. Keeping warm. Had planned to build a "hard" studio by now, but considering a 30' dia. yurt come spring instead.
Thanks-
Henry

Hi Bob,

Guess we got disconnected this afternoon. I spoke with my colleague who used the 8 foot dome in chile and asked him to send a picture of it.

It seems to me his dome was shorter than the one we just received from you. Can you tell from the picture whether he has something different/shorter?

Thanks,

Jay

It is an 11'

Bob,

The 31.5' dome we bought from you a couple of months ago was delivered to the US Army in Korea along with the specialized satellite trailer we manufactured for them. This was the first of several units to be completed over the next 24 months for this application.

Some problems on dimensions have arisen, and I am forwarding the E-mail form our Client's field engineer to you. Not sure what might be possible, but please let me know your thoughts on this after you get a chance to go through the questions below.

Thanks,

Jim Abbott

We got the tent up and it turned out not to be so difficult. We had three guys doing the crown, and we spent about an hour doing that (the first few sets of squares…. Then the next morning we set out with 6 guys and it only took us 2 hours to finish it. Then we moved it with 8 guys. We simply stowed the antenna, lowered the feed, and lifted the dome over the antenna.

So, now we realize that it wasn't calculated out so good as to the space required. While it does fit, when we steer CW or CCW, the antenna extends over the trailer and with the low elevation, it actually starts to rub on the dome ceiling. We don't get too far before it gets dicey in either direction. One thing that is a problem is on the antenna…at the top of the joint where the antenna folds out there is a hinge that sticks up several inches. This then grabs or presses on the material. On Photo#0031 I marked up to show.

The other photos also show some of our temporary solutions. We went out and bought some additional PVC and started creating extensions to add a few feet of lift to the front portion. This may or may not work…we are worried about stability.

Could you contact, or send me the contact info of the manufacturer that you worked with?

We would like to know, is it possible to extend the heighth of the tent by 2-3 feet all the way around? This should give us the clearance we need.

If this is not possible, then #2 solution is to go with our extensions. Then we would like to get 20 spare panels that we could use as a skirt along the bottom…of course we would need some way to attach the stuff to the existing panels?

We are just about done for this round. I think I worked out a few calibration problems I had. I am going to take a week of vacation, then travel back out here on the 5th of December for a week. We will be showing everything off to some of the Big-Wigs of our programs.

The strongest way to add a 2 feet to the bottom of the dome is to first:
Tie pairs of pole connectors to 20 new HD clips.
Unclip the 20 plug clips with the single pole plugs at the base of your dome.
Add and shingle a skirt of material to the bottom that is wide enough for the height you need + 1.5' using the 20 clips with connectors you have just assembled.
Clip the plug clips along the base of the added material allowing 11" for a skirt 2' directly below the connector clips.
Cut and insert 20 new full length poles to create the ring around what was the base but soon will be 2' above the ground.
Cut and insert 20 new short poles to your added extension. Choose a length so that the tension on the covering is the same as the tension on the main part of the dome. These short poles are difficult to install because you can not bend them. It will be easier to install them if you first remove the vertical pole above it; insert the short pole then reinsert the long pole; or use a pulley system to tension the base clip cords with extra long cords after adding the poles to clips .
Stake out.

Let me know if this works for you. Send me a photo of the finished dome with the added height.

Bob,

Thanks for the quick and detailed response.

Could you provide these extra materials?

I'm sure they can find and cut the PVC, but could you provide the other stuff and the extra material needed?

HD 10 (with cord) $30 ship $5; You need 20 so $70. The price on the Fabric is $8/yd + shipping (it come 6' wide) so it depends on the height you want to rise the dome. Best not to rise it any more then needed as extra height increases the wind loading. The connectors you can cut from 1.5" PVC.

Also, could we do this up front for the remaining systems? (That is, deliver it a little bigger as this modified one would be?)

Sure, you can use the photos. I believe the shots I sent you are ones I took, so feel free.

The yurts were a mixed blessing. First, they looked very cool and definitely served the purpose of supplying culturally neutral shelter. They also looked great in the various photos and served to soften the mil look towards a much more civ look.

We did meet with a couple of challenges. The first was that when assembled by a small group of men that have just met, the large quantity of testosterone cancelled out any common sense that might have dictated actually reading the instructions before attempting to assemble. Thus I question whether they were assembled as you would have done it, particularly the flooring.

The second thing that was a challenge was that it got way too hot without insulation. It was very common to be dealing with internal temps of greater than 107 F by midday. We ended up using industrial strength Velcro to attach the Reflectix to that part of the dome from about 5' up in the primary dome and circulating the warm air with lots of fans. Several other attempts were made to increase the air flow but some of those messed with the structural integrity of the dome. We were subjected to variations in the weather, always hot, always humid and sometimes raining. And when it rained, it poured. Typically at night when we were gone, so it meant creating the venting at the top or leaving them open at night to cool wasn't an option.

Several people suggested some kind of easy open, easy close venting in the "ceiling" of the dome, but I'm not sure how you would do that and still assure that it would be rain proof.

Live and learn, as the saying goes.

Thanks!
Gay

Did you try useing the vent tubes that came with the dome to create openings up high to vent hot air? These will pry open the shingling to create an overlapping vent that prevents rain from entering.

The best way we have found to keep the domes cool is to shad the structure using shad cloth (90% shade preferred, but 60% still works) (you can get this at most buliding supply stores) pulled over the outside frame of the dome and tied to the clips of the dome. This blocks the sun before it gets inside the dome. Vents are fine but shade is best.

I really wish I had slowed down for a moment to document our cozy little camp at Burning Man. I do have this photo that shows the dome... and you are free to use it or crop it as you would like. I have big plans for the camp next year and will make an effort to gather some good images of the dome. My thanks (and apology) to you.

Last year we bought one of your 14’ domes and used it for our chili-cook-off store. It went over real well; we had it painted like the surface of the moon. During the competition we experienced a short Texas summer rain where it dumped over 5 inches of rain in a little over 2 hours. The dome handled the wind and rain superbly and as a result we were one of the few teams that stayed in place and finished the competition. I’m sending you a couple of pictures per your request. Thanks,

Thanks for your help on the phone! You had good answers for all my questions/issues..:). I have attached a picture of the bubble dome mounted on a backyard deck at my home, which backs up to a golf course. I live in Friendswood, Texas, which is about halfway between Houston and Galveston. This leaves me a decently dark suburban sky for astronomy work. My home-built 17.5" Newtonian telescope now lives under the bubble.

You mentioned using 8 "d pull rings" (I think you called them this) to hold down the dome to your deck?

They are called "flush ring pulls", basically a flush-mounted, flip-up handle, manufactured by National (part no. N203-752). They can be found often in the cabinet hardware section of hardware stores. Sure, you can use the photo

At your request, I am attqching two pic's from the float trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. This trip was July 13 to July 20,2004. Pic 163 was taken at Rock Island camp and 141 was taken at Marble Creek camp with Marble Creek Rapid in the background. We enjoyed the use of the dome as it rained on several occasions on this trip. We spent 8 days, 7 nights on the Middle Fork this trip. We have enoyed the yurt on the Middle Fork Salmon River and the Grande Ronde River in Oregon. We also used it for a backyard graduation party for our granddaughter.

Dan Hinman

Please find attached a couple of photos of the 14' Yurt that we recently
purchased from you and used as our base tent for our Arctic exploration
program. The tent worked very well in this environment, 20 km south of the
Coronation Gulf. Without trees to support any structure, the free standing
yurt worked very well for us, even in the strong 40 mph winds we
occasionally had.

The only negative to the structure was that it is not completely sealed, so
the mosquitoes were a problem inside the tent. Good product, thanks.

Thanks for the great photos. Would it be alright to put them on our site to share them with others?

For windy and buggy areas like you were in, use sticky back Velcro strips on your doors that we offer on the Accessory page shelter-systems.com/accessories.html or you can get locally to hold the doors tightly closed.

I noticed that some of your top poles are bowing outward excessively. This can be corrected if it bothers you by trimming off 1/8" to 1/4" from each pole. The overall effect is to take some tension off the poles; the covering will then not tend to bend them as much. Do not trim off too much. If it does not bother you then don't bother as it will have little effect on the strength of the dome.

The tent worked out great!
We had up to 50 audience members in the tent and it did not feel cramped.

Attached are some photos. Unfortunately, for a series of reasons, we did not
get a photo of the show with audience. I'll try, if we remount the show.

On June 8, 2004, an extremely rare celestial event will unfold before the eyes of geographically and meteorologically fortunate viewers: the passage of Venus between the Sun and the Earth, causing the fiery methane-enveloped planet to appear as an undulating silhouette with an aqua-green halo, floating upon the face of the Sun. The phenomenon is known as the Transit of Venus and occurred last in 1882.

In order to distill all of the subtle nuances of the Transit, artists Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand are creating a Machina Helioscopica, a telescope with a compound lens attached, allowing the telescopic image to be projected on a screen without the use of any recording media or electronic amplification. A coelostat will follow the Sun’s trajectory and send its reflected image from a rotating mirror to the telescope.

The yurts that make up Dawntree Studio are approaching their second summer now. Still look good. Still dry and

tight. Get a bit warm in the afternoons- so we make sculpture mornings and evenings and do our gardening and nap afternoons.

The lighting is excellent - better than outdoors. At night I bounce the

floods off the skin. The reflection provides a very even, yet bright light
to work by.

I made a 20'long, 10' wide, 7.5' tall Quanset Hut,
using about 60 of your Heavy Duty Grip Clips. It's pretty tight.
The clips work great. Here is a pic, before I
installed the door panels.

I am building a second
one to tie both together, with a shade structure, and
when I place doors I will send another pic.

You wanted details (This is sort of a hodge podge of my posts to the backpacker.com forum.):

I made a silnylon tarp no sewing...just grip clips. They are adjustable, do not pierce or damage the material and are no slip.

My 5.5 x 11 tarp with grip clips and lines weighs 8 oz, stake (msr groundhogs) add 1-1.5 oz

I got my fabric from outdoor wilderness fabrics owf. Mine is white/clear and i can see the stars through it at night, but it is opaque in sunlight
____________
NO SEWING...ADJUSTABLE (Custom) PITCH...EIGHT OZ.s INCL. LINES and STAKES. And mine cost me about 25 bucks.

Take One (1) bolt of silnylon from www.owfinc.com (2nds at 3-4 bucks a yd, 5.5 ft wide bolt)

1.Cut the bolt to desired length...Mine is 5.5 ft by 11 ft (5.5 is again the width of the bolt).

2. Use grip clips to secure lines to stakes and hiking poles or trees. (I also use doubled plastic grocery bags filled with dirt or rocks or buried as cheap, dependable sand and snow anchors. Just attach line to the handles for a solid guy out.) For larger applications, use grip clips to join two lengths together to make a 2 man, 10 ft wide tarp (overlap seam for weather tightness).

3. And you are tarping. I often set the lines, poles and guys for a 9 foot length and drape the extra two feet down and stake it to shelter the "head" end. Again the grip clips let me secure the head end stake on the draped over material wherever it works best for a taut pitch.

I rig my tarp using a thermolite bivy (20 bucks, 6 oz) as a ground cloth/splash guard. When it gets windy/rainy I open it and attach to inside roof of tarp w/ grip clips like an inward facing envelope. Keeps me dry in the worst spray.

I have used this system on Lake Superior shore in rain and dry, and dozens of other less weather prone places. Its a lightweight, lazy man's, cheap cheap CHEAP way to go.

Grip clips from www.sheltersystems.com mean no sewing and perfect taut pitches no matter how poorly placed your anchors or guy points. The work anywhere on the fabric, making a non destructive, non slip guy point. I set the guy points FIRST, THEN I adjust the grip clips to fit, and taut line hitches on each grip clip make a tight pitch in almost any situation. (Bonus: the INSIDE on each clip is good hang point for clothesline, loft, or flashlight.)

P.S. 1.1 oz silnylon with the grip clips requires childrens party balloons ($1.00 for 20) as "gaskets". Cut off head (dome) of balloon and unsert between grip clip head and cloth. TOTALLY prevents slippage on the slick cloth.
______

Mister Gillis, the grip clips make my tarp work all the time, no matter how bad the guy out options. They also are best for extra guys on my other tents and my Batray when i need to batten down. Thanks for a great product.

You have the best product out there for joining lines to fabric, and fabric
to fabric, thats out there... I will try to find some pics.

Must tell you though, its just a sheet of silnylon, and does not LOOK
especially impressive, with my junk all spread out under the tarp.

Hi Robert. Some of these photos were sent to us from the gallery which sponsored the show. Cathy's piece is in several of the shots. I will get back to you regarding the use of the photos once I talk to the photographer. We are driving down this weekend (800 miles) to dismantle the piece and bring it home. I will attempt to answer some of your questions. The ICE FOLLIES was a curated art exhibit in which 7 artists from Ontario were invited to create their personal conception of ice fishing. The event received wide media attention including national radio and television coverage as well as a special on Canada's version of PBS. On opening day, hundreds of people ventured out onto the lake to partake of the adventure. And it was an adventure considering the fact that the day before, nearly three inches of rain fell and the frozen lake turned to pure slush. Cathy's piece used, of course, your bubble dome as the basic skeletal structure. She covered the dome with a variety of fabrics including, dyed cheese cloth, bubble wrap, synthetic sausage casings, and various linens. The one interior shot shows some of the workings of the fabric but it doesn't tell the whole story since the art works were by consensus, works in progress and a touring international show is being seriously considered. The fish seen in some of the photos are plasma cut aluminum, rolled and spot welded, creating a dramatic and majestic effect.

Cathy didn't cut an opening in the roof (not yet). Her intent to use underwater cameras and sculptural pieces was in part thwarted by the weather, difficulties in providing electricity to such a remote location, and of course security concerns. The option is still open in the future. We are considering bringing some form of the piece with us when we travel to Newfoundland this summer for an artist's residency. I will send further photos and hopefully permission to use them as you see fit once I get permission. Any of my photos are at your disposal. (The first two sets which I sent were taken by me but the outcome was somewhat disappointing because it was such a dismal day.) Will write again once we return. Zen.

Once we get to Lake Nippissing we will be able to offer a more effective testimonial regarding the practicality and (hopefully) durability of the dome. The particular area is part of a wind and snow belt so the structure certainly was put through many trials. From what we have been told, it has survived unscathed. I did tie it down at 32 different locations, so that must have helped. In any case, I will contact you upon our return and will send additional photos. Bye for now. Zen.

Dr. John Arnone in Desert Research Institute in Nevada built such a chamber by modfying your yurt (picture attached).

"The chamber is a modified version of a commercially available 4.2 m diameter dome-shaped yurt tent manufactured by Shelter Systems Inc. (Menlo Park, CA, USA; Fig. 1a). After modifications (see below) the dome covered an inside ground area of 12.25 m2, with a height of 2.0 m, a volume of 16.4 m3, and a weight of 30 kg. The semi-transparent (moderately translucent: http://shelter-systems.com/dome-coverings.html) woven ripstop polyethylene (PE) skin of the dome is held taut by nylon grip clips that are attached at 15 points to an external frame constructed of 3 cm diameter (OD) PVC pipe. The dome skin is actually made of eight large individual pieces of PE that create a shingled effect, with upper panels overlapping lower panels by about 10 cm. Because of the tautness of the skin, there are no apparent gaps between upper and lower shingles. However, we glued the upper and lower shingles together with silicon cement. The frame is made up of a total of 48 individual tent tubes (twelve 65 cm tubes and thirty-six 107 cm tubes) which enable the dome to be dismantled like a camping tent and stored in two duffel bags; one for the tubes and one for the skin.

We have modified the dome in several ways. We constructed and added a 12-sided tubular base made of twelve 98 cm long×6.5 cm diameter schedule 40 PVC irrigation pipe joined together with twelve 7.6-cm-diameter PVC pipe angles. We drilled one 3 cm diameter vertical hole in each base joint to each receive one of the 12 vertical PVC tent poles that would otherwise be staked to the ground if the dome were used as a shelter. We also shortened these 12 bottommost vertical tent poles by 10 cm to ensure that a sufficient length of PE skin material remained along the bottom perimeter of the dome to be wrapped three-quarters of the way around the PVC base tube (Fig. 1) when the vertical tubes are in place inside the 12 holes. To attach the bottom of the PE skin to the PVC base, and to anchor the vertical tubes in the base, we used adhesive-backed Velcro strips with one side of the Velcro attached to the PE film and the other to the PVC base tube."

We purchased your 14’ dome to use as a main base camp tent in a research expedition to Breidamerkurjokull Glacier, Iceland. Despite strong North Atlantic winds, the tent proved sturdy and reliable. We will be taking it on our second expedition there this spring.

I laid down a few tarps for the floor which have made a big difference with the bugs. We had just mowed the grass when I first put it down, which I think is what caused the bug issues to begin with. Getting lots of comments from folks here who see the dome... everyone really likes it. I plan on keeping it up until late October or so (when it starts getting cold and nasty up here), then take it down for the winter. This place is pretty dark and grey in the winter, so I would not plan on spending much time up here anyway. Pretty easy to store away for the winter in the garage, then bring back out again in next Spring.

I will be picking up a bed netting to resolve the mosquito issue. They are not too bad, but a bit annoying when you are trying to sleep. Will get the basic type of bug netting that fits over a bed.... that should fix that. I would like to get the floor option you sell ... the tarps work ok, but it would be nice to do it right and not have any seams with the ducktape - as I have used several smaller tarps and taped them togeher.

We have enjoyed the shelter of your 30' yurt over our excavation site for 5 months now, and are very pleased with it. It casts a perfect, flat light for excavation and photography, and saves us the headaches of covering and recovering the excavation on a daily basis.

We have had some problems in severe weather, when strong, sustained winds were combined with heavy rain. The wind yanked at the plastic guy stakes, which were allowed movement by the rain saturated ground, and snapped off below ground level. That caused loss of tension on the dome, and rain puddled in some of the panels, causing the top of the dome to collapse inward. Several of the connectors broke out on the ends where the cords tie, One near the top of the dome. We made a temporary repair by poking holes in the fabric and passing a cord through them to pull it snug to the connector, but that is about to rip out. These problems are not unanticipated, and are consistent with your warnings about weather conditions etc. It's a large dome that can catch the wind like a big sail, and we're using it in an unprotected location. I've actually been amazed at how well it has stood up against the wind, which have on occasion exceeded 50 mph for sustained periods. It takes vigilance, of course, and constant attention to venting and guy ropes, to allow wind to pass through instead of just piling and bellying against it, and to control airfoil.

We will be taking the shelter down within the next two weeks for maintenance and storage over the winter (we're at 6000 feet, and get more snow than I want to subject the yurt to). I have just submitted an order for some parts needed for maintenance, including two sets of the clips. I also requested a length of that incredible cordage, which I cannot come close to matching in the local hardware store, but which is not listed on your order form. Please let me know what the total will be before shipping.

A question: pieces of the covering fabric are very strongly bonded together in some places. Is that done with a glue, or with heat? We have some minor rifts in some of the panels that need to be mended. Is there a glue or a technique that you can recommend, as to how to go about that? And a related question: what is that incredible fabric? That stuff is truly amazing.

Sounds like you put the Yurt to the test and I am glad to hear it worked well for you.

Not sure what you mean in your question about the fabric being "bonded" as there is no heat welding or glue used. All the panles are cut and then Grip Clipped together. If you need to make small patches or repairs use 100% silicon glue. For patchs just cut a piece from the packing cover or the skirt of your Yurt.

The Shelter Systems' Covering we use is made of a woven multi laninate film and I agree is truly amazing stuff.

I tried my new 20 foor dome this weekend. It can be backpacked in 3 loads. I simply duct tape the dome package to an old backpack frame. The instructions were a little hard to follow, but I can excuse that since the dome was totally leakproof in 8 hours of rain. The way the floor is oversized keeps it bone dry even with water running under it! I also like the way the shape of the dome tends to hold it down in the wind. Those windows are really really neat too. It is ingenious how the panels all overlap and seal tightly when stressed by the PVC. I know it sounds crazy to use a 20 foot dome for backpacking by myself but I love it. It is like being inside a house. Congratulations on a great product and thanks!

Attached are a couple of photos of the Hyde Park Archaeological Excavations Shelters as promised.

As I mentioned, this was taken last winter. In addition to the baby
in the doorway, there are two more alpacas and 10 bales of hay and
supplies inside.
18 feet seems to be a perfect fit for 4 alpacas, in case anyone wants to
know.

Dear Shelter-Systems,

I recently purchased a 30 foot Yurt dome from you to take to Burning
Man 2001. I am writing to tell you how much I enjoyed the dome and what
a great job it did. We attached some PVC and lights to make the dome
look like a big face with spikey hair(it is actually a boognish, the
logo for the band Ween). We were so pleased with it and everyone told
us how happy it looked. I just want to thank you for making such a wonderful
product. Here is a link to our website with pictures of the dome and
our wedding in the dome (just married Sept. 2, 2001, BM'01 Temple of
Boognish)! Feel free to post the night picture on your website if you
want. The boognish looked great from far away!

Once again we thank you for your business.
Sincerly,
Justin and Sarah McCaleb (was Sarah Mims when I purchased it!)

Bob -

The following are some fun pictures using your dome camping
at Pismo Beach. We had a lot of fun. The dome really saved what would have otherwise been a disastrous trip. And the funny part is that neither of us had ever put one up before - and in the wind no less - and I had just received my dome 2 days earlier.

The trip was supposed to be a "test run" for the dome. I'd say it passed with flying colors. One of our campers, Chris Hennes, was so impressed that he just ordered another 20 footer from you for his Burning Man installation.

Bob, We completed 3 1/2 months in the Yurt you supplied us.
We solved the heat problem with a kerosene heater (the quiet kind) which also gave us a good night light. The yurt looked like a glowing dome in the dark. We kept two vents open the whole winter. Temperatures in the 20's to the warm 60's were encountered.
We never had to worry about leaks, even in somewhat windy conditions, from rain or snow (we were snowed in one day).
The airiness of the structure made it very comfortable. We had some regrets when we moved into our house, which is so air tight that my wife, especially, always keeps the doors open "TO GET MORE AIR".
My wife and I were Camp Hosts for 3 months. I commuted to Boeing and helped her with the state park duties in the evening. Our children
13, 10, 7, 6 years studied math, reading, science, biology, and for physical fitness and fun they hiked and observed nature from the sea shore to the forest hideaway.
Camano Island State Park and South Whidbey Island State Park were wonderful places to observe the day to day changes of nature, season and weather from. We are even more aware of the necessity of preserved areas now that we have lived in them for a short time.
The people who do the day to day work of preserving deserve our respect and support.
We are using the yurt for a temporary storage area while I build the various cabinets and book shelves needed in our new house.

Hi Shelter Systems,
We have a 18' yurt dome --- (Bev Feldman, La Canada, CA) -- we've turned it into a outdoor sleeping room on these hot Southern California summer nights. We've decorated it quite wonderfully (if I say so myself --- "The Mists of Avalon" meets "Cirque du soleil".) Last week we were interviewed by TIME magazine on un-spoiling the kids of the 90's, and there was a big photo shoot at our place (we are involved in voluntary simplicity and have a visually interesting place). The photographer just LOVED the dome and what we had done with it, and so it was used in a couple of the shots. This piece was supposed to be a story and run this week, but the NYC types liked it so much they're running it as a cover story sometime over the summer. So you might want to keep your eye open for that story and see if you lucked out with the dome getting some free international PR...

I'm also writing a story to be submitted to the LA TIMES about our experiences of turning the yurt into something magical and taking refuge from the heat. If that goes, I'll point you to it.

Needless to say, we really love our dome.

Bev Feldman
La Canada, CA

As per your request, 1 am sending you a photo of your shelters in use by CHRS, Inc. The 30 foot dome is in the foreground and the 20 foot dome is in the back to the left. We are currently using them during our archaeological excavations in Monroe County, Pennsylvania and look forward to using them for years to come.

I was thinking about Burning Man 2001 planning today and visited your web site to see what was new. Andy Nourse and I were glad to see that you had gone out to check how Shelter Systems domes did on the playa in 2000 -- and glad to see our own (DSCN0495.jpg) among those you photographed.

Our Shelter Systems dome did well. For the first few days it was pegged only at the base by a ring of foot-long steel stakes. The reflective shade tarp kept the dome comfortable and we put short lengths of plastic pipe between the fabric panels to increase air flow.

One morning Radio Free Burning Man warned that 70mph gusts were expected in the afternoon. We decided to stay close to camp just in case. As the wind picked, we recalled we hadn't guyed the dome down per the instructions. Andy quickly drove several three-foot rebars in the ground, guyed the dome and came back inside.

It was awesome and a little nerve-wracking. But the dome did not flap itself to bits nor did the PVC fold. After a while the wind diminished.

Emerging from our dome, we were even more startled. A few other tents and shade structures in the vicinity had collapsed, flattened or simply vanished. In the distance we could see a metal-frame geodesic structure that had buckled.

Note: that this structure uses a woven porous greenhouse sunshade cover the pores let out the heat, Not, a sheet of black plastic which would cause the poles to over heat and bend out of shape.

Dear Patty

Thanks for the great report. We also were impressed with how well the domes did.

There are real dangers involved with these high winds and we all should take all precautions needed to avoid harm including taking the dome down before the winds get too strong and or getting into a vehicle to weather the storm safely.

Hope to see you on the Playa this year.

Bob Gillis

Understood. At some point it's definitely the better part of valour to take down the dome, guy down down the 4WD and climb in...

It was over 5 years ago when Gordon brought the dome into our yard. The wind once blew it over the fence.We put it under the tree to secure it. A never ending parade of people stayed in it. We never had a night when some one was not in it. The tree protected it from the sun. One time a yoga stayed it in and he said there was too much sexual energy in it. Lots of couples stayed in. We had another dome for a while. We used it for a mediation dome. The one dome we used for people who would come through and then leave. The other we use to put people up for extended periods of time. The domes have been used a lot. We let people use the dome when they had no other place. One woman wrote us a letter to us to tell us about how beautiful it was living in the dome. It helped a lot of people over the years. The dome now is used as a permanent residence. Here is a photo of me in front of it.

I purchased a greenhouse from your company more than 10 years ago. The greenhouse is till being used and the plastic covering is still good. I have and eight foot diameter greenhouse. I think it was the middle of 2 or 4 sizes that you had at the time. I am interested in purchasing the same size or the next size larger. I never thought it would last so long and work so well, and the best part is that I can put it together myself. I usually take the greenhouse down at the end of June and sometimes put it back up in the fall and use it again till December. Thanks for a great product!

As the manager of an 8,661 acre watershed/wilderness preserve, my field crew and 1 regularly spend 2-3 days a week throughout the year in remote camps that require tough and reliable equipment that can survive near-constant use in a subtropical environment. Over the years, we have refined our equipment list, but we still keep an eye out for quality gear that can improve our work conditions in the field,

Since November of 1990, we have been relying upon two of your Shelter Systems domes (18' & 14') to keep us and our gear dry during our regular, overnight+ field trips in the rugged, West Maui Mountains. Set-up with just two people is a breeze in all but the worst winds. Ventilation is great and the headroom (all three of us around Cor so) has your competition (what competition?) beat "headsdown." I'll never go back to those cramped, hot, aluminum-poled, geodesic domes again!

Not even the U.S. Army approved (your tax dollars hard at work!) $1900 MOBIFLEX dome (seen blowing away in the desert in the movie, STAR GATE) could handle the extreme wind and rain conditions that your Shelter Systems Lighthouse domes have readily withstood.

Please feel free to use the enclosed shots of your Shelter Systems' domes in action as you see fit.

Thank you for the details on your experiences with our dome. It may inspire others. You can tie off your clothesline to the holes inside the clips as this would provide an hold fast with out going through the flaps. I was wondering if you might send us a photo that we could include with your commits?

A few notes about our geo dome. Red Top Meadows is a school / treatment
center for emotionally /behaviorally challenged teenage boys. We bought the
geo dome with the idea of having a semi portable warming hut for our winter
wilderness camping program. The idea was to have a structure that could be
set up on snow, with a roll out astro turf floor and install an outfitters
stove. The entire unit could be broken down and transported with snowmobiles
pulling haul sleds. This satisfied our need for portable as well as the
forest services need to minimize our impact by setting up on snow and not
establishing a camp. This was an experiment of sorts. I had done a fair
amount of research for shelters and this was the lightest, cheapest, most
portable and aesthetically pleasing thing I found. Strength was the question
mark. Our program is located at close to 7000 ft in the Snake River
Mountains of western Wyoming. We usually have over 400 inches of snow fall
each year and it is not unusual for temps to go well below 0 . The dome
past its first tests but we learned nothing the easy way. Here is a few
notes that may help the next who try what we are trying. First off it needed
a name. We took one look at it and everyone thought we would start with the
Hindinburg because it looked like it would sail in a big wind and go up in
flames. both were wrong but the name stuck.

-- We set it up in the yard for a week to watch it and see how it handled
the elements. I got the call one morning saying the burg had collapsed. This
was after it had accumulated 5-7 inches of wet heavy snow. One staff got in
the middle, shoveled off the fabric, popped a few poles back in place and
the burg self inflated so to speak (popped back up). Damage was one broken
pole and one damaged hub.
-- If the dome is cold shaking lightly and gentle poking from inside will
shed most snow easily. shake at the window triangles works best.

-- We used 10" square plywood with perlon rope to make deadmans for
anchoring in the snow. One for each pvc touching the ground.

-- We bought used astro turf for 60cents a sq. ft from a company in Texas
and cut it to fit then cut it again for hauling. Heavy but it worked. Were
looking into other alternatives.

-- Putting the stove pipe through the door works but the door is 62"x 62" so
one piece of plywood does not do it. We used a piece 48" x 62" and then
rolled down the door flap and tied it off. We then used a piece of fire wrap
insulation to protect the pvc and the door fabric doing a drape and weave
kinda thing. Worked well.

-- We had an elbow out of the stove then a straight section inside and
another straight piece outside, then an elbow going up. We stabilized the
unit by sinking a ten foot piece of conduit into the snow pack and using
hose clamps ( get the size right first) and bailing wire to secure it. The
mesh spark arrestor needs cleaning every two days or get a dunce cap style
top to the stove pipe.

-- The area around the stove needs to be insulated or else the snow will
melt out and the stove will drop, screwing up all your rigging.

-- The dome heats up quickly to be very warm and cools down even faster when
the stove goes out. condensation was pretty heavy and froze on the inside
wall but knocked off and dried out quickly in the morning sun.

-- We used parachute cord for clothes line for drying socks etc... We
reached through the fabric flaps and tied it off to the hubs. This seemed
most secure.

-- The doors were hard to keep sealed even with bigger clamps once the
fabric was cold and iced up a bit the clamps just want to pumpkin seed off.

-- The dome did well in some pretty good stiff wind gusts and held 3-4
inches of light snow with out a problem. If the dome collapses the legs are
what take the weight. We are goping to try 450 psi / pvc pipe for the leg
sections.

-- The material is incredibly strong. We tested a scrap piece with a hole in
it. We could not get it to tear any further and we tried. I also tried
burning it to see what would happen. It melts but does not burn.

-- Replacing a hub was easy. I'm not looking forward to a grip clip
replacement. Should practice before its necessary. The local hardware store
had all the PVC I needed but none in the lighter 200 psi stock. Also, 10
footers come with a flared end so there is some waste when it comes to
cutting spare parts

-- Were looking forward to what we can use the Hindinburg for next. It is a
beautiful structure that gives off good vibes. Hope these notes help some
one -- Cheers -- Mark Ames -- Red Top

"Comments"

Here is an image as we walk it to its place in the snow. We set it up where it was warm and then carried it one mile. Andre

"Comments"

Just wanted to let you know that we purchased two of your domes to use as dining tents on our treks in Bhutan. They were a HUGE hit with our clients and our local trek staff as well. The trekkers came to call the 20' dome the "Taj Mahal" and enjoyed luxuriating in the roomy interior. We did have one gusty day that lifted the dome off the ground (our staff hadn't tied the guy lines tightly enough) but other than that, they held up extremely well. If you are interested in any photos, we hope to have some up on our site in the next few weeks. Look at our site and go to the Bhutan section (go to Asia first, then to Bhutan). All the best! Brent Olson Geographic Expeditions

"This photo was taken on the road from Moron to the Dharhat Valley and Lake Hovsgol in northern Mongolia. The tent is used as a general dormitory for our Mongolian guides (who think it is really cool since it is lighter and easier to move and pack than a yurt and it allows them all to sleep in a big lump together, as they are used to doing. They are not so keen on our 4-person backpacking tents. Each to his own.). We also use it as a cooking/dining/meeting tent whenever the weather is bad. It packs on horseback pretty well. The big attraction of the tent for me is that it provides a level of security and comfort in remote regions when traveling with a large group. The difference between huddling under a tarp in the rain and being in the dome is all the difference in the world. In the event of emergency or prolonged bad weather we have a place to keep people safe and secure." -Kent, Boojum Expeditions, MT

Hi Bob. Here are a couple of shots from this summer when we used the tent on the first raft trip on the Chuluut river in Mongolia. Cheers.. Kent Madin -- Boojum Expeditions Uncommon Adventures

"I have been completely satisfied with the quality and appearance of our dome. So far it has handled the 20 inches of rain and wind storms very well. The dome is my year-round home. I have a bright, airy but warm home inexpensively. The tipi style doors are a 100% improvement over zippered doors. Living in the dome, one becomes intimate with the sun, clouds, and waning and waxing moon. I love it." -Paul Guree, CA

"The dome has performed well, has stood up to the elements and is quite the conversation piece. We grow a garden in a place noted for a very short growing season. It's been a product that more than lived up to our expectations."- Bob Woodward, OR

"I'm really happy with your design because the ability to cross-ventilate this dome is very important in the tropics. The use of different membrane panels is also a nice feature. My goal is to perfect this structure so that it will eventually be a self-reliant living system powered by solar panels." - Peter Ziegler, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics

"The LightHouse 18 makes for a wonderful portable classroom at our nature preserve. As soon as an area begins to show some wear and tear, we move the tent. It is truly living lightly on the land." -David Wicks, KY

"Just skied down from the high camp and the tent is great. It is a warm and cozy place in this storm we are having and we could not have included 15 kids and 4 adults without it."-Susan and David Beck, Sierra Ski Touring - Mammoth, CA

"Our dome has been very useful. For eight years it has been doctor's office, guest house, and teenage crash pad." -Elsa Etchevery, CA

"We are very pleased with our Solar-Dome greenhouse. We have been able to get a head start on our vegetable garden, start perennials in mid-summer, save a lot on plant costs by purchasing seeds, and bringing into bloom any exotic plants requiring humidity higher than natural for our area." -Bernice Linchester, IL

"Dear folks, This is from Oklahoma. I spoke with you on the phone on Wednesday, ordering some new liners for our 18'ers and 20'ers. This will be our 3rd summer season with a Shelter Systems tent camp. So far, we have nine tents, a mixture of 20'ers, 18'ers, 14'ers, 8'ers, living & greenhouse tents. Even our seven cats have their own tent! Thursday, the day after we called you for the liners, we had a storm come through. We'd set up several tents, but had not staked all of them down. Okay, that was stupid, but it did have amusing results. Three of the tents took off rolling, one making it through a grove of trees, over a low concrete wall and out across the south pasture. There was a little tearing of this three-year-old tent at one junction (actually, that may have already been there), and one pole fell out. We picked it up, moved it back to the site, and (finally) staked it down well. Of all three tumbling tents, one lost a pole, and another had a window pole snap. Can't help admiring how durable these things are. They even stand up to our sins of omission in properly tying them down!"

"Enclosed are some slides of my old 'Freedome' which I lived in for 4 years (2 in New Hampshire and 2 in Alaska). With the double-walled design and a little wood stove, it was a 'God-send' of a living situation for me. Allowing me to live 'cheaply' anywhere. Thank you so much. It was a 'threshold' period of my life and enabled me to affordably explore new places, opportunities and lifescapes. I currently use my Light House as summertime living quarters while building log cabins for clients in remote parts of the state. I think that in summertime the LightHouse is a nicer alternative to the traditional Alaskan wall tent, being roomier, lighter and less prone to mildew. If the Sourdoughs' had Domes , they would have used them!"

"We used a full sphere 10' Bubble dome as a 'earth container' for a recycling program on Earth Day."

"Dear Bob, Thank you very much for the prompt service. So far I am very pleased with my greenhouse. I had carrots germinating in 90 days - a record for my Alaskan garden." -Pat Kegel , AK

"It's a wonderful space, playing tricks with a mystical light and always letting in the full sound of the wind in the trees and the babbling brook. If I ever have to move, it will be easy to take my dome with me. I think it's way cool." -Tom Zajac , CA

"...We recently had a freeze with a low of 22°. The plants in the greenhouse had minimal frost damage; plants outside were lost. I was impressed with the performance of the greenhouse this winter." John White, Dept of Horticulture, Penn. State

"We used 14 of your domes at the San Ignacio Whale Watch Base Camp. They are truly extraordinary and were instrumental in providing the high degree of comfort and protection we needed. We had some very strong winds and heavy rain and the tents performed flawlessly. For strength, size, cost and aesthetics, your tents are ideal." - Kent Maden, Baja Expeditions, MT

"Greetings from New Mexico. We are the folks that bought two of your 18' domes. We took them on the road - traveling 2,000 miles with 16 kids - exploring Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, The Grand Canyon, and Hopi. Our experience with the domes on the road was quite marvelous. Kids (ages 11-14) learned how to put them up (often with impending storms) and we loved the cooperative effort that took over our shelter lives. They also faired very well with the rains. We have used lots of different shelters over our nine years of camping with groups and were very impressed. We came back after two weeks traveling feeling quite endeared of our two domes. Thanks." -John M. Leod , Our Children's Earth, NM.

"We own a sea kayaking and whale watching expedition business in Mexico and have found your domes to be a great asset when the Baja weather goes bad. Your domes have held up against strong winds and rain and provided a sanctuary for cooking, sleeping, socializing and even dancing to the cumbia music of our 'Pirates of the Gulf' Baja beach band. Thanks!" - Mary Harter & Ricardo Amador, Mary Aventuras, Mexico

"I tried my new 20 foot dome this weekend. It can be backpacked in 3 loads. I simply duct tape the dome package to an old backpack frame. The instructions were a little hard to follow, but I can excuse that since the dome was totally leakproof in 8 hours of rain. The way the floor is oversized keeps it bone dry even with water running under it! I also like the way the shape of the dome tends to hold it down in the wind. Those windows are really really neat too. It is ingenious how the panels all overlap and seal tightly when stressed by the PVC. I know it sounds crazy to use a 20 foot dome for backpacking by myself but I love it. It is like being inside a house. Congratulations on a great product and thanks!"
Bill Appel

"Last year, I purchased the Geo-Dome 18. It's been great having it because I use it as a greenhouse environment. My neighbor purchased one three weeks later, because he was so enthused by it. They definitely sell themselves. Some other friends are interested in having one too. I am trying to sell them on the 18', because of how much more versatile this size can be for a garden environment. I call mine 'a tropical greenhouse' due to the fact that I have fruiting papaya and banana and pineapple, plus regular vegetables!" - Paula Halsey, NC

"We are a group of environmental scientists who purchased your White Solar Dome 20 for use as a portable field laboratory for water quality investigations in southeastern Massachusetts. Our project ran for two years, and we used the Dome throughout the four seasons, in ALL kinds of weather. It kept us dry and warm, and hey, our electrical equipment liked it, too. The 'pipe forest' you can see in the foreground is our 3-D well sampling network that we use for our research. Inside each pipe are 15 thin plastic tubes that go into the ground water and sample water from a particular depth. Sometimes we sat for weeks at a single location, and other times we moved the Dome from one site to another several times a day. One day after moving the dome quite a few times, we left it for the night, forgetting to stake it down, as your instructions say. Well, in the night a big storm blew in. We're talking a 20 Foot East Coast Tumbleweed! However, despite being blown 300 ft. and smashed into a pine forest, the Dome could be set back up in twenty minutes with no damage done. The Dome was the best product on the market for meeting our needs for a dry, cozy portable field site." - J. A. Davis, MA

"Here is a photograph of our Crystal Cave being used in the excavation of the Dowell Site in January 1989. This structure made doing Archeology in the winter not only feasible but even pleasant. It is easy to assemble and easy to move. The only problem we had was in high winds when it blew away. This was solved by using Tee fence posts and ropes to hold it down. It has since held up and stayed in place in sustained winds of 30-40 mph." - Robert Lafferty, Mid-Continental Research Assoc., AR

Thought you might enjoy seeing how well your dome works for a wheelchair. I love it and had tomatoes for 8 weeks after the first frost. It has stood up to our often high winds of 30 - 40 mph." -Mime Power, NM

"I live near Arcata on the coast of California. We get lots of rain here, yet I've lived comfortably in my 18' Dome Tent for the 2 years and have not had a single problem. My tent was warmer than a lot of my friends' houses because I had a little wood stove and the tent was cozily small. Yet it was bigger than a rental room. I would not have had the comfort or privacy that this tent has allowed me. It also allowed me to get through without paying a lot of rent. I've had to take it down, not because of any problem with the tent, but because moths and gophers ate holes in it when I left it for 4 months unattended. I had electricity via solar power." -Jennifer Hawley, CA

"I purchased the Lighthouse 18 last November. It has withstood all weather for the past year including being crushed flat by an all-night wet snow last January. I shoveled hundreds of pounds of snow off of it, crawled inside and popped it right back like new. The only damage was a pinhole in the roof." - Richard Markley, OH (Note: Shelter Systems does not recommend that you allow snow to build up on your dome; best is to take it down for the winter or at least to knock the snow off with a broom or melt it off with heat inside.)

"Success on the North Ridge of Mt. Everest is dependent on maximum performance from each detail of equipment. Only the best product is selected. Thank you for the standards of excellence that helped our team stand on top of the world! The Solar-Dome gave us a great place to eat and meet. The white material gave a bright feeling to even the gloomiest of days." - Colin Lynch, 1995 American Mt. Everest Expedition, CA

"In 1986 I ordered a Gro-Dome 8 and it has been in constant use since then. It was getting rather 'feeble' after such a long life [1993] and recently some tree branches fell on it and finished it off! I need another one. I've really enjoyed using it." - Margaret Davis, VA

"We purchased our first dome, a 21', from you in 1985 before moving to our property here in Last Chance. It was a trial run at the time, as we knew we were moving to 12 rural acres, and we wanted to have some immediate living space to use while we began to develop our new home. We tried the dome for a year before moving and it met our needs. At the time we had two young daughters.

"As we made the move, we purchased two 17' domes to complete our 'dome village.' The smaller domes served as our two bedrooms and the 21' unit housed our kitchen and dining room. We enjoyed this setup for five years. Our location in the Santa Cruz Mountains is a wet one, yet the domes handled the climate beautifully. We were able to concentrate on establishing our gardens,
building workshops and experiencing our property before actually picking a building site.

"We have now [1994] completed construction of our home and still the domes live on. The original 21' dome that served us so well as kitchen is now helping produce our food. It occupies a prominent place in our garden as a greenhouse, and last summer we harvested an amazing crop of melons. (We have attempted melons several times before and, at best, harvested a golf ball or two.) In the dome we were able to create an environment that produced the most unbelievably sweet fruit, and for almost two months! One 17' dome we use as a guest bedroom and the second provides great storage for our accumulated junk.

"Your domes have met a great need for our family through the years. I have appreciated your willingness to consult with us as we have had questions. Personally, I have impressions of my children through their young years living independently in their own space, and I know they will always remember these years with fondness. You truly helped us live our dream." - Steve Pitzer,
CA

Questions? Orders & Customer Service: Toll Free 866-777-1066 or 831-464-2002 eleanor@shelter-systems.com Technical: 650-323-6202 bob@shelter-systems.com. Copyright © Shelter Systems 1976 - 2008 All Rights Reserved

Yurt, Dome and Tent Testimonials and Customer's Photos

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