yurt platform/land pics

[surfivor]

here is a pic of my yurt platform with storage container in back ground ..
notice hack stairs I did with pieces of cedar, left over wood and chain saw:




I have been creating a clearing for permaculture type stuff. Leaving some deadwood around to prevent weeds from popping up ..
notice tricky cedar clump in back ground, trees leaning on each other .. just bought a come along winch, hopefully that will help ..


driveway:




hardware cloth around yurt platform to discourage porcupines or other criters:

[fritz_monroe]

Cool, thanks for sharing.

[Greatswampa]

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your pics. what did you use to band around the outside of the circle?
Also, i don't know where your located, but you were saying how you left the dead stuff to keep it from growing in. Where i'm at it would fill in with raspberries and would be a greater mess to deal with.   
GS

[surfivor]

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your pics. what did you use to band around the outside of the circle?
Also, i don't know where your located, but you were saying how you left the dead stuff to keep it from growing in. Where i'm at it would fill in with raspberries and would be a greater mess to deal with.   
GS

 It's some kind of masonite plywood, not sure exactly what else they call it .. The guy had told me that was a tricky part when I asked about doing it myself .. I helped him build it, it's bent around .. it is refered to as the bender board

I'm in Maine, I hope to clear out some of the wood, but I am not sure I can create enough of a sunny clearing and get a ton of stuff planted there at the same time. I want to plant jerusalem artichoke, ground nut, lambs quarters, amaranth, maybe some sweet potato, but not sure when I will have it set up for watering from rain barrel either ..
wild onion or something would be good, some fruit/nut trees .. I got hucklberry bush ready for spring too and red mulberry .. this is like zone 4b, not sure if mullberry will grow there if they say it's good to zone 5 on a website etc .. I picked some mulberries in Mass and sprouted the seeds myself .. this clearing is maybe 450 feet from the road and the yurt..

 I allready planted a few rapsberries on the west side of the clearing, some from my mothers garden, some from down the street on the land .. I also transplanted a few elderberry plants .. see if that stuff takes ..

 I was also torn between cutting more trees while I have the time to do that and thus let in more sun .. and not being sure what to do with all the wood and what sort of weeds where going to pop up. I have cut quite a bit, but still it's not more than 4 or 5 hours of full sun in a few areas I don't think .. I made a few wood piles of birch, maple and put tarps over that ..

 The other complexity is if I plant stuff and later drop more trees, I have to try to avoid trees falling on stuff that I planted.

 one part of the opening on the south east side has been getting wet, but it was not really wet there all summer, only the last few weeks ..

[PAGUY]

Looks like a great start. 

[LvsChant]

wonderful! Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Greatswampa]

Hi,
Have you thought about maybe getting some stuff going in big containers while you still working and then you could move them if you have too until you see how they weather. I'm at about 2000' in Vermont so i have a short growing season. I'll be curious how you make out with the sweet potatoes. We have good luck with the elderberries where it's really wet. Oh and thanks for the info on the board.
GS

[Sarey]

Oh wow. That is going to be really nice.

Is your home in an area where you get snow. I've always liked the "idea" of living or at least having another option for guests but here in Maine well, there is snow and cold to consider.

[wdrobins]

Thanks for those pictures!  I'm really interested in seeing how that yurt turns out.  I'm collecting ideas for the future.

Did you buy a yurt kit?

[surfivor]

Oh wow. That is going to be really nice.

Is your home in an area where you get snow. I've always liked the "idea" of living or at least having another option for guests but here in Maine well, there is snow and cold to consider.

 This yurt with a snow package to reinforce the rafters with 2x4 as well as 2x6 rafters is rated at 98 pound per square foot I am told which is pretty decent I think ..

the company is out of NH and there design is pretty much the same as colorado yurts one of the larger companies.

http://www.whitemountainyurts.com/index.php

the guy in this video is coming up this week to help set up the yurt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMfQWerZRpA#


Right now I have a 23,000 btu kerosene heater. Hopefully that will work for awhile. I want to get a wood stove ..

[wdrobins]

That's cool!  Thanks for the posts.  Keep it going.

[LvsChant]

Does the yurt have good ventilation for the kerosene heater? I'd guess so, but don't know just how airtight these things can get...

[surfivor]

Does the yurt have good ventilation for the kerosene heater? I'd guess so, but don't know just how airtight these things can get...

 You can pop open the dome in the center a bit if you want. It has a high ceiling. People use these heaters in homes .. I like them because they are portable, can heat a work area, move it around ..

[wdrobins]

Will you be adding a bathroom?

[d0j0w0]

Yurts are cool.  Are you going to insulate the floor of the platform?

[surfivor]

Will you be adding a bathroom?

 the plan is compost toilet

[surfivor]

Yurts are cool.  Are you going to insulate the floor of the platform?

 at some point possibly .. You have to put plywood underneath so mice won't get into the insulation

[Roswell]

very cool.  Keep the pics coming. 

[surfivor]

The yurt has gone up. I put a wood stove in .. I was up there for a couple of days and have been trying to bring in wood (by hand) before alot of snow falls .. I had cut alot of birch and some maple/oak into 10 foot logs last summer and put them under a tarp .. I took those out and cut them to size and split them by hand and they have been burning ok. I don't have the wood stove pics online yet, I used a cedar log to hold the stove pipe up .. I dug as far as I could into the ground (2 feet) and then put two chimney blocks on the ground with the log in the middle ..

 I want to insulate the floor. The boards underneath are 2x6 with about 14-15 inches between them. I am looking for recommendations one what type of plywood to use underneath to hold the insulation and create a sandwich of insulation ..

 notice my custom stairs thrown together with cedar logs. A bit of a hack for now, I just stuck a board on the top step as it was a bit slippery with just a log (not shown in pic). Not sure if there stairs would be suitable for my 80 year old mother to use if she ever came up, probably not.

 I called an insurance company who  said that a yurt is a portable structure and my home owners insurance should be able to cover me as personal property. I had talked to my agent several months ago and did not get that impression from him, but am planning on calling him tomorrow and if he can't do it for me, I will look into other insurance companies .. I seem to have a fear of a tree falling on it. Cedar trees seem to creak alot in the wind and exacerbate my fears a bit. I had to drop 2 trees that where dead after the platform went up. It was a bit of a stressful situation as for one the trees where on the property line and I had to get permission from the guy next door. They where leaning towards the yurt platform and I needed help from other people to drop them with chains and winch so they would fall off to the side ..

[Nicodemus]

That looks great!

How's the inside temperature/comfort factor when you have the wood stove going?

[surfivor]

That looks great!

How's the inside temperature/comfort factor when you have the wood stove going?

 Without the floor insulated, it seems I can raise the temp 20-25 degrees from the outside using the small wood stove. I am missing one small insulation panel on the wall .. and did not put all of the window panels on yet ..

 When I run a small portable kerosene heater (25,000 BTU) with the wood stove, the temp inside can reach maybe 40 degrees above the outside temp .. So it was 15-20 degrees outside, I got it up to close to 60 inside. This also seems to work decent with the kerosene heater turned down low to burn fuel more slowly as even with a low flame it puts out quite a bit of heat.

[surfivor]

here's wood stove pictures



I decided to be cheap and cut a live cedar tree on my property for the stove pipe. My neighbor told me after so many years the insulated pipe
may break down and at that point, it touching the cedar would not be good anymore ..

 This thing is actually very slightly cockeyed and it was coincidental that the cedar was bent slightly inward ..

 The log was set strong enough into the hole that I was able to lean a ladder onto it and climbed to the top to secure the pipe .. the top of the log I estimate must be 12 or 13 feet off the ground ..




dug a hole, had to use pick as top of ground was frozen. 2 feet down hit large rocks and could not go any farther. Stuck cedar log into the hole and put 2 cement chimney blocks on top of that .. I used the kind of chimney blocks that come in two halves otherwise having log in the middle would have been problematic. The top chimney block halves are reinforced with 2 steel bands which seemed critical to keep them together ..

[Sister Wolf]

TW & I are convinced, after seeing your pics.  We'll doubtless be buying a yurt to live in on whatever property we buy, until we're able to build our own house.

Thank you so much for this thread, surfivor.

[surfivor]

TW & I are convinced, after seeing your pics.  We'll doubtless be buying a yurt to live in on whatever property we buy, until we're able to build our own house.

Thank you so much for this thread, surfivor.

 Hey, cool ..

 Do they allow them in CA ? I guess some people just throw them up despite whatever ..

 There are some books on yurts and how to build them, a couple of decent ones I put below. There are some online resources as well.
check out www.yurtinfo.org

I studied yurt construction from
books and online sources last year, but ended up just hiring a yurt company to make the yurt. The rafters, lattice wall, and base
probably are not that hard. I found the fabric part to not really be detailed or easy for me to grasp. I guess you could buy fabric
from a yurt company as long as your yurt frame comes out to the exact right size, otherwise I guess it involves an older sewing machine
or hiring a canvas company ..

 What appealed to me is that you could take it apart and move it, sell it etc .. kind of an interesting novelty as well ..

 The roof is warrantied for 15 years, I was told the wall may last 10 years. It eventually will break down fro UV light, weather and such I guess and need to be replaced.

 I would perhaps like to build my own small yurt like 16 or 12 feet. I would say a 20 or 24 foot yurt is roomier, but a smaller one would be easier to transport. Mine is 20 feet (300 sq feet). the upper bounds seems to be 30 feet which is 700 square feet ..

 I could see living in New Mexico, Baja, Alaska or someplace in a yurt for several months .. ever been to baja ? Good surfing and less crowded than CA.







this seems to be a popular book, but is not so much about building your own yurt though does have some plans for a platform and alot of other info.

[Sister Wolf]

Do they allow them in CA ? I guess some people just throw them up despite whatever ..

We'll be living in another state when we purchase/build one.

There are some books on yurts and how to build them, a couple of decent ones I put below. There are some online resources as well.
check out www.yurtinfo.org

I studied yurt construction from
books and online sources last year, but ended up just hiring a yurt company to make the yurt. The rafters, lattice wall, and base
probably are not that hard. I found the fabric part to not really be detailed or easy for me to grasp. I guess you could buy fabric
from a yurt company as long as your yurt frame comes out to the exact right size, otherwise I guess it involves an older sewing machine
or hiring a canvas company ..

I think we'd be buying a kit from a yurt company.    I wouldn't want to build my own before we started building the house.  That would be discouraging and hard to do from here.  Something fairly simple (as with yours) would be a much better deal.  I'd rather spend two weeks camping on our property while we created the yurt from a kit, than several months researching and building the perfect yurt while we try to survive off the land.  We'll be doing enough of that "surviving" nonsense while we build the house, y'know?  And I think I'd be putting it at least partway underneath a metal awning of some kind (to help protect it from snow buildup, or water damage from the rain).

The roof is warrantied for 15 years, I was told the wall may last 10 years. It eventually will break down fro UV light, weather and such I guess and need to be replaced.

 I would perhaps like to build my own small yurt like 16 or 12 feet. I would say a 20 or 24 foot yurt is roomier, but a smaller one would be easier to transport. Mine is 20 feet (300 sq feet). the upper bounds seems to be 30 feet which is 700 square feet ..

700 sf!!! That's HUGE for a yurt!  LOVE this idea!    Not sure what you'd need as far as insulation, or a nice big wood-stove goes in order to heat a yurt that big in the winter, but I bet it could be done without too much extra work.

I could see living in New Mexico, Baja, Alaska or someplace in a yurt for several months .. ever been to baja ? Good surfing and less crowded than CA.

I have been to Baja!  It's beautiful, but it's just a little scary right now politically.  I'm not sure I'd chance living down there right now.  But I'd love to see pics and hear stories if you do it!

[surfivor]

I would not go to baja until things improved, I had planned to go there at one time ..


base price for a 30' yurt from colorado yurts without insulation, snow kit or anything is $9385
http://coloradoyurt.com/new2007/pdfs/YurtPriceList.pdf

Some of the bigger yurts seem well suited to lofts and so on. I imagine these must be 30' yurts (not sure):









there is also such a thing as a wooden yurt and classes and kits on making those.

have a look here on that:
http://www.smilingwoodsyurts.com/

wooden yurts:

[joeinwv]

Couple quick thoughts on the yurt -

- There might be a benefit of building a roof over the yurt. I am thinking an open lean to / carport type structure. This keeps sun,rain and snow off the roof and keeps the worst wind off the structure as well. I have seen this in semi permanent camp sites and RV parks. I think there is a member here with a tow behind camper under a lean to at their BOL. Might give a nice extension to the structure.

- Insurance I am thinking you need a 'rider' added for this specific structure, given that it is fairly valuable. I would make it clear that it is temporary, but has improvements and assign a $ value to it. I would also see if you can get some type of blanket liability.

[hillclimber]

Nice yurt!!
There's a yurt just down river from me, but it's old and home made.
I snowshoe to it every now and then. Consumed several beverages in it over the years. As I remember it during the winter there's a little bit of a moisture issue.
Just not enough of a vapor barrier. Ice and moisture builds up on the inside walls and roof. Keep in mind, this thing is old and made with canvas.

[DeltaEchoVictor]

I love this thread...

I've wanted a yurt for sooo long.

[archer]

Congrats for getting your yurt up surfivor! very cool, I've been looking at them for several years now.

SisWolf, some yurt sites:
http://www.whitemountainyurts.com/
http://coloradoyurt.com/
http://goyurt.com/
http://redskyshelters.com/
http://yurts.com/
http://rainieryurts.com/