Here are a few feedbacks from our customers yurts, all around North America. If you haven't done so yet, do not hesitate to send your yurt picture and a feedback about your own Groovyyurt experience!
Feedbacks
Rahdé G.
Outaouais, QC
I have now lived the 4 seasons in the yurt. The experience has been really great and very comfortable. I really like the shape and the finish of the Mongolian ger. Materials are natural and in winter temperature is perfect inside. Also, Groovyyurts service was excellent. I had to ask for support a couple of times and it was always given quick and great support. For me, the experience with the yurt has only been positive!
Groovyyurts' story on Radio Canada
If you'd like to see where Groovyyurts and its yurts are coming from, check this TV report from Radio Canada! It's in French, but gives a good idea... or in English Radio Canada's Homestretch report : click here
Kelly & Family - 5-walls carved yurt
Salt Spring Island, BC
Hi Yves, yurt living is great. I originally bought it for my family to live in while I build a house, but because there is no hardship living in the yurt, the incentive to get the house built is taking second priority to enjoying the summer. Thank you for all your help and diligence in getting our yurt to us in good order and on time, it`s a great experience living in what is not only a work of art but also looks, feels and smells of natural materials. All the best, Kelly
Mary Steigerwald
Santa Fe, NM
Our beautiful yurt has never failed to charm anyone who has seen it. The details are exquisite; it is sturdy and cozy, even in the fiercest of winter storms here in the New Mexico mountains. I would not hesitate to recommend a Groovy Yurt to anyone who is interested in having one for his or her own.
Edge Habitat Wilderness Sanctuary
www.NewMexicoWilderness.org
Eric and Cynthia
Boulder, UT
We are very impressed with our yurt experience. They are very forgiving. The yurt stands pretty as we set it up back in Sept. (remember the first time you set one up?) - lots of good wind, rain and snow since then. We are learning a lot. They are extremely practical for someone getting on to a raw piece of land while constructing their living structure - a point that we are making. We are really looking forward to doing this our selves.
Lucy & Dwight
Val-des-Monts, QC
Our yurt seems to have turned into a Quinzee or looks like one. Dwight and I slept in it last night and all was great, we needed to test it as the temperature was dipping down to minus 19°C (-2F). Got the wood stove on at 4pm, and filled two mason jars with water and put them on a rack on the woodstove. In two hours they were hot and I put them under the covers to warm up the bed.
We were toasty warm, its awesome. There was a tiny Christmas tree with solar powered lights. Dwight threw a log in every couple of hours.
Just practicing as we have guests coming this weekend. I will send more pics later this week.
And asken later about the success of their B&B[...]: Oh yes, I am waiting for a couple that I expect any minute, tomorrow another couple comes and on Monday I have four more!!!! It has been much better that I would have thought. I put up a youtube video on the web site to give people more perspective on the local.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db268LYva90
http://www.lonewolfcabin.com
Audrey & Jean-Denis + 3 kids
Saguenay, QC
It is our second winter in our 6-walls yurt. We had to adapt, but we are very happy. It is so calming, that I was only waiting for getting back in our yurt after the birth of our 3rd child ! The thermo dynamic is excellent in the yurt and easy to manage, once you get it. We have now a complete different approach to nature. We did not add any windows and are now much more aware of what’s happening around us !
Steven Jenkinson
Deacon, ON
If you are lucky enough to have a little land somewhere, land enough that when you get there, almost every time, you find that you breathe differently, then you'll probably have the chance some day to start wondering big thoughts about where you and the people you love are from, really, and how you might live a little differently if you knew, and how in some mysterious way that little piece of land is part of your wondering and part of the answer, too, since it would give you the place to do your wondering and a place to be from.
If this is true for you now, or if it might come to pass some day, read on:
If you are reading this, you've already done some due diligence on yurts, to use the Russian word, or gers, to use the Mongolian word. You've seen how companies in Oregon, California and elsewhere figured they have made very nice adaptions of gers for the North American climate and market. Some have track lighting, windows and the like. They are some kind of dwelling, but there's nothing of their origin in them. They're more like a Disneyfied tourist idea of how the Mongols would do it if they had the time, money and infrastructure. And they cost, too, you have noticed.
Read more » If you are reading this, you've already done some due diligence on yurts, to use the Russian word, or gers, to use the Mongolian word. You've seen how companies in Oregon, California and elsewhere figured they have made very nice adaptions of gers for the North American climate and market. Some have track lighting, windows and the like. They are some kind of dwelling, but there's nothing of their origin in them. They're more like a Disneyfied tourist idea of how the Mongols would do it if they had the time, money and infrastructure. And they cost, too, you have noticed.
Whey you find someone who is doing some good in this world, you should sing their song. Yves Ballenegger and his partners in a little shoestring business called Groovyyurts, once in a while when the weather, the wars and the frontier customs will allow, drive their truck across Europe, Eurasia and into Mongolia loaded with donated medical and school supplies for a country just now trying to find its way out of almost a century of colonization, and they drive back months later loaded with gers made by ma and pa shoestring businesses in Mongolia. Near as I can tell, no one on this end is making a killing, or even a living, from selling gers. People on the other end, though, are making a living building and selling something precious and noble and well known to them, a true thing from a living culture. You could poke this story with a stick, I don't think you'll find slave labour or exploitation or expropriation or mercenary, predatory cultural piracy or any of the other things that tend to paralyze North Americans with a conscience.
But how good can the gers be for the price they're charging, coming from half way around the world as they do? I didn't believe they could be very good, and so I went to look for myself. The millwork is handmade, which tends to make people used to machined stuff nervous: you can see the carpenter's thumbprints, and everything isn't regular, and they are spectacularly beautiful. I can't say the same about the furniture, which I don't think would fare too well in anything other than a very dry climate, but the ger woodwork is good for your heart to see and stand in. So I bought three. They don't go together like the modular backyard shed kit you can buy, or look like the slick post and beam one room thing you can get from a good contractor. They go together like a living thing, not quite dead level, not quite ninety degrees. That's their genius: their irregularity is their great strength.
Yves at Groovyyurts is an honorable, handshake deal kind of man, and he believes in what he sells, especially after he sells it. That means if you feel out of your depth a little his experience and willingness to show up at your place and help you put the ger up is solid. He and I are still talking, six months later, as we've worked through a few minor kinks with my gers as the seasons have changed, which tells you something about the ger's quality and about his. I still plan to talk to him someday about changing the business name, though.
All in all, this whole endeavour is good for your soul and good for the soul of the world, without qualification. The price is fair, the people you are dealing with on this end are good, and the people making the gers have some tangible encouragement to keep their corner of the world alive. Please consider buying your ger from Yves, anywhere in North America.
In case you were wondering, I've already paid in full months ago for my gers, and I've got no kickback of any kind for this. My only motivation is to reassure you that, all in all, this is as good as it sounds and looks.
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