I wasn't two days finished, when already I had wished I had gone with more, smaller, Yurts. Building a 24' Yurt all by yourself (for the first time) is a bit of a pain in the butt and at times, can be dangerous, unless you are quite careful. If I started over I would have actually built 3 Yurts. An 18 ft, a 16 and a 14, all attached, but all totally portable. You could literally pull off a bedroom and take it camping with you. Any Yurt is VERY portable mind you, in comparison to any structure with comparable sq. ft floorspace and room volume. Sometimes it is kind of hard to grasp how the thing stands at all, I once had an engineer sit in my Yurt having coffee and he looked around, for about 10 minutes, saying nothing, and then finally he said, you know, this just does not make sense that it even stands! I guess if he were to break out all his formulas and calculator, it would make sense, but I do know what he means LOL. First time visitors often make similiar comments regarding "beefing up" this or that - but, you know, I'm quite satisfied with it's strength, just as is. The cable that encircles the entire yurt, woven through the tops of the khana wall sticks, for example, is only a 3/16" aircraft cable. Guests have said, well you could just make this 5/16" instead couldnt you?? Then I go to the edge of a rafter and demonstrate how little amount of load actually exists at at any one load point by easily sliding the cable in and out of the rafter slot, with next to no effort at all. Often I get the question, well jeeze, you know we live in a normal climate - why didn't you opt for flexible foam insulation istead of this silver stuff? (aluminum reflectics) - the answer is two part - Firstly, flexible blue foam insulation (as used for sleeping mats for camping) could be very useful - especially for say Arctic applications - however - I would still have reflectics both on the weather side, and the interior. If done in a sealed fashion, this would like give you somewhere in the department of R24-R30. The point being, you still need the reflectics. You'd understand when you walked into my Yurt, and it's -10c, I light the small airtight woodstove, and VOILA, not even an hour later is 21c. Insulation alone is not going to make that happen. Radiant heat is very instant on!
Some would argue that the "look" is not appealing, but for me it's more about practicalities.

Smaller Yurts would be so simple to heat, you'd likely have the opposite problem. In a 24' diameter Yurt, with a rafter length of 11.6', and 42" hub on top, your roofvent is about 11'9" inthe air. An incredible amount of warm air collects here. With a smaller Yurt, this is reduced. (keep in mind this design is for Northern areas where snow is of concern. If you took this dimension down to the 18 ft Yurt, you'll find that the heat is closer to your head. I have a 12v RV roof vent fan, to help push the air down, and for winter I'll likely create a reflectics false ceiling to help hold the heat down a bit, in the sleeping area. Concrete pads around the base of the woodstove, and some backing panels (between the stove and the khanas) that will be mostly insulation, with a solar rescue blanket covering, to bounce and retain heat as opposed to losing it to the outside, close by the stove.