FELT ISSUES

We felt (groan - sorry, just couldn't resist) that this important component part justified its own page. There has been some very strange information published about Mongolian felt, some so outlandish we thought we ought to provide some facts.

 

Mention Mongolian felt and an image of felt being dragged through the steppe behind a horse springs to a lot of people's minds. This is the sort of felt that looks like this:

 

 

 

Unfortunately the smell is less romantic than the image - so I'm afraid that our felt is made with state of the art stainless steel machinery........but still made in Mongolia, so still helping the Mongolian economy.

 

As far as we know, we are the only importer of Mongolian 100% processed sheep's wool white felt - we think this is really important for several reasons:

• Pure sheep's wool is naturally fire resistant

We did a simple fire test - 10 seconds with a cooks blow torch on each of two samples - one 100% pure wool, and one a polyester/wool mix. The polyester 'felt' just ignited and continued burning to ash, whereas the pure wool simply singed. Polyester mix felt - usually 70% polyester and 30% wool is highly flammable - given most yurts have wood burning stoves and often have candles burning in them we will not provide this highly dangerous insulation. Sorry, we know our 100% wool is expensive - indeed it is the single most expensive component part in our yurts - but we would never want it on our conscience that someone died in a fire because we had cut corners to get the price down.

• Polyester mix felt imported from China (which we know other importers of Mongolian yurts use) is illegal even in Mongolia! The reason for this is that the diameter of the polyester fibres is so small it can be inhaled with very dangerous associated health risks. If you are comparing prices you may want to check this out - cheap is so rarely cheerful in reality!

• Because the length of fibres in Sheep's wool are shorter than the fibres in polyester mix felt, it does not suck the water up in the same way - so if your felt liner touches the ground (and they tend to) it will only get wet for an inch or two - thus reducing the amount of damp introduced into the yurt.

• Using Mongolian felt helps the Mongolian economy - but whilst this is important to us, we do realise there is no reason to assume it is important to you! However, It does make us cross when other suppliers pretend they are helping the Mongolian economy when in fact they are importing the component parts from China and Russia. Rant over - phew, feel better for that.

• Because our felt is white it helps reflect light into the yurt - other suppliers offer white cotton liners to do the same job - this covers up the felt which we think is a shame and also in our damp climate the liner is vulnerable to mould spotting. We initially tried liners - but they lasted only weeks before developing black spots with a horrible mouldy smell - so we ditched them. The lanolin in our natural felt makes it resistant to wet - (have you ever seen a mouldy sheep?).

• One of the most bizarre claims we read is that 100% wool has no tensile strength - err no - neither does a tea cosy! Tensile strength relates to tension (as the name implies). The felt layer acts as the insulating layer - keeping heat in and heat out - so the yurt is warm in winter and cool in summer. It doesn't provide any strength at all - why would it? The wooden frame, tensioned by ropes provides the strength - the fabric layers sit on top and add weight - which is helpful in high winds - but not tensile strength. Peter's job is in the high tensile membrane structure trade - high tech fabrics such as PTFE that are tensioned with huge steel cables, but funnily enough, never felt!

• On the subject of strength though, 100% sheeps wool felt is so strong that we have trouble tearing it with two of us pulling against each other - so you don't need to worry about it tearing.

• We could supply the rustic hand made Mongolian felt - all wool so safe enough but it comes complete with dung! Very smelly and also, being brown in colour it wouldn't reflect the light in the same way the processed white felt does.

Well I think that is about all I can think of to say on the subject. Oh, just one final point, we get lots of enquiries from yurt owners who would like to add a felt liner to their UK made yurt; we are very sorry but we don't sell felt liners as an individual item - they are made to fit our yurts and are included in the price - an exclusive luxury just for our yurt customers!