Winterizing a Ger

Gers change through the year. In the summer, they're light and cool. In the winter, they're heavy and warm (provided you keep your fire going). To ensure this, they are modified twice a year. These processes are called "winterization" (дулаалах) and "summerization." Peace Corps has requirements about how and when the gers that volunteers live in are to be winterized. As you may recall, the frost came on September 7. Three days later, on September 10, my хашаа (hashaa) family came and said they were going to winterize my ger. Looking up at the bright sun, I thought, "Whatever," but we got down to work and worked up a sweat. There was more sweat on their part than mine, because I spent so much of the time taking pictures. My hashaa dad seemed to think it was funny, but they all understood that this was all really interesting to Americans, even though it was pretty mundane to them. Even though it didn't seem like winterizing was urgently necessary, the the Mongolians, naturally, turned out to be right: two days after that, we got our first snowfall.

Phase I: Adding Insulation

One of the great things about gers, compared to houses or apartments, is that you can easily take it apart, fix something, and put it back together without too much time, effort, a work permit, or contractor's license. Phase I consisted of improving the insulation of my ger by adding more felt. This is the biggest step in making the ger warmer. It can be compared to putting on thermal underwear in that you have to take off your clothes, put on your thermals, and put your clothes back on.

Step 1

The first step in winterization, naturally, is to strip the ger almost naked. The ropes are surrounding it are untied and the outer canvas layer and the waterproof covering are removed, exposing the layer of felt inside.

This is my felt-y ger with the blue tarp lying on top.

Step 2

The next step is to add more felt. Felt layers are what keeps insulates the ger. In the summer, there's only one layer, and in the winter there are usually two. You could add more, but I've been told that if you too much felt, if it gets wet, it won't dry out quickly enough and can get moldy. Each layer of felt actually consists of five or so separate pieces: three long rectangular sheets that go around the sides of the ger, and two pieces, shaped sort of like half-moons or wedge fries, that go over the top around the central opening.

Mongolian men hauling pieces of felt

Unless you're a giant you can't reach all the way across the top of the ger to pull the felt pieces up and lay them out neatly. We heaved the top pieces as far up the top as we could. We used a roof-pole to reach over the top, pick up the felt, and spread it out as needed. Then we pulled the felt back down to get it to the proper height.

A roof pole helps to manipulate the felt when it's out of reach on top of the ger.

Spreading out and pulling down a piece of felt on the roof

The men use scissors or knives to puncture a few places in a piece of felt. Then they run string through the holes in different pieces to tie all the felt together and keep it from falling off the ger.

Securing a piece of felt

We also put up a clothesline inside, because it will eventually get too cold to dry clothes outside.

Ger with new felt layers in place

Mongolians are wonderful with spontaneous, DIY responses to certain issues that come up in the middle of certain processes. In the case of my winterization, it turned out that the top felt pieces didn't completely cover my roof. So they made up the difference ... with a quilt made out of old clothes stitched together.

Notice the butt part of some jeans in the quilt draped across the top of my ger door.

Step 3

The last step of the insulation phase is just the reverse of the first step: putting back everything you took off in order to add more felt. We took this opportunity to add more plastic tarp as well, since I had some leaks the last time it rained heavily. At this point one of the other English teachers helped us, and since she is a short little woman, she was small enough to climb on top of the ger to smooth things out around the roof hole, without upsetting the balance of the ger.

Putting the tarp back on

Putting the outer canvas layer back on

Gers have two ropes that encircle the walls of the ger and secured to poles on either side of the door frame. They're another way of keeping the ger together.

Putting the encircling ropes back on. Left: history teacher; Top: English teacher; Right: hashaa dad / social worker

The top of the ger has an opening, which is covered with a square piece of cloth (not pictured). Each corner of the cloth has a rope attached to it. Three of these ropes - in the back and on the left and right sides of the ger - are threaded under and tied around the encircling ropes, then tied to a rock or brick on the bottom of the ger. The weight keeps the flap from blowing away in the wind. I think it also stabilizes the ger itself. Are there any engineers reading this who can explain how this works? The last rope - in the front - is not tied down with a brick. This way you pull it back to open the top of the ger, or pull it forward to close the top of the ger.

Tying a brick to one of the ropes running from the roof flap. In the larger view, notice that this rope is also tied around the ropes that run around the ger in a circle.

Phase II: Sealing the Bottom and Erecting the Ping

The second phase involved sealing the bottom of the ger with dirt and erecting a shed called a пин (ping) in front of the ger. For this phase, my hashaa dad recruited Class 10b students to do the dirty work.

Step 1

In preparation, students took strips of plastic tarp and put them around the base of the ger, tucking them into the lowest rope that runs around my ger.

Putting sections of tarp around the bottom of the ger

Strips of tarp tucked into the ropes

Then the students hauled buckets of dirt (not hard to find) over to my ger and dumped it around the base. When it surrounded my ger from one side of the door to the other, they ramped it up against the base and compacted it with their feet. The floor of the ger is always the coldest part, because cold air seeps in under the canvas and felt. The hard dirt blocks air coming in around most of the bottom. And in the event rain or melting snow dampens the dirt, the plastic protects the ger from moisture.

Hauling dirt

Compacting dirt

Step 2

Then they put up the ping. This was actually the small outdoor kitchen that my hashaa family used during the summer, taken apart and moved across the yard. The area in front of the ger door was cleared and a wooden floor put down. Then three wooden walls were put up, and finally a metal a roof, which also helped hold the whole thing together.

Making grooves for the crossbeams of the floor to fit into

With the floor of the shed in place, the walls can be put up

A little dirt is cleared from the bottom of the ger so the ping can be slid right up against the ger with no gap.

Fitting all the parts together and putting the roof on.

The inside of the ping

Ger with dirt ramps and new ping in place

Phase III: Windows

Phase III consisted of putting glass windows into the opening at the top of the ger. The windows actually rest on some wooden strips nailed to the sides of the beams inside the roof opening. With these in place, the flap can be opened a little bit to let light in, without letting warm air out.

Installing windows

Phase IV: Sealing the Ping

I don't have pictures, but later we ramped dirt around the bottom of the ping too, and put tied a rope from the roof to some heavy, rusty car part, probably for the same reason we tied bricks to the ropes from the ger's roof flap.

Phase V: Insulating the Door

The last addition to my winter ger was insulation for the door itself. This consisted of a sheet of felt, inside a pretty-looking cloth cover decorated with a traditional knot design. Hashaa dad set this up against the front of the door and secured it with some wooden strips nailed into the door through the cover. The sheet is bigger than the door itself, so it also covers the spaces between the door and the door frame.

Now my ger is all set for winter!