Building a yurt from begining to end

[nncharlieb]

Hi All

I am new to the forum and to the world of Yurts but discovering lots ...quickly!

We are in the process of setting up a Glamping business and have decided to make our own yurts from scratch. Any input, ideas or tips would be much appreciated !!

A little info .......We are planning on 4 or 5 20" Yurts. Our land is set surrounded by mountains, the weather is very hot in the summer but we can also have very heavy rain fall and high winds other times of the year.

We have begun with our first attempt and after much research and planning things seem to be going well so far ( hope I haven't spoke to soon) I will upload some pics of the progress as we go.

look forward to hearing from you's

[Jafo]

I have zero experience building yurts from scratch, but if I were to try, I would have gone with something small, like a 10 foot yurt so I could work out the kinks and take less of a chance wasting materials. What makes you want to build a 20 footer right off the bat?

[nncharlieb]

Ah well its for a glamping business so the size does have to be big enough to accommodate the customers. We did start with a model to test it out ...which will now be a nice little dog yurt for my pup :-)

[nncharlieb]

What we could use some tips with is the

dome

- we have the platform, side walls, rafters and

center ring

in place so far (and so good) but we have no

dome

as yet.

[Jafo]

A 10' yurt is actually pretty comfortable for 1-2 people. I wrote up an article about

Surely Yurts

and took some pics of Steve's personal 10 footer:

A Visit To Surely Yurts » Living in the Round

[Jafo]

Various manufacturers will sell you just the dome, such as

Pacific Yurts

,

Colorado Yurts

, etc..

These people also deal in domes directly so will probably save you some $$:

EZ Tops World Wide manufacture acrylic and Lexan skylights and domes.

[Jafo]

This post here actually has a price list from the last company I mentioned:

http://www.yurtforum.com/forums/yurt....html#post2633

[Bob Rowlands]

I'm a carpenter and scratch built my 16' yurt. I opted to not do a clear dome over my roof ring. I notice nomadic Mongolians don't have them over their smoke holes either. I merely exit the 6" wood stove pipe through the center of the roof ring, in the same fashion they do.

But, to protect the interior from rain, snow, and to help keep the heat in during the cold times, I figured out a way to make a $5 smoke hole 'Chinese cap' from sheet tin, that matches the pitch of the roof rafters. It overlaps the roof ring and roof canvas by 4" all around. I made a 7" hole in the center of the china cap so it easily slides up and down over the 6" stove pipe.

Having the china cap hole at 7" allows me to 'jam' prop the cap up on an angle and off the roof ring in the summer. I simply jab it with a pole until it sticks. Propped up like that allows for natural cooling in the warm months. I roll the side wall canvas up a foot or so and tuck it in the lowest rope and let the breeze happen. If it rains heavy I bop the cap with my stick and it flops back down thereby sealing the interior. No fancy expensive plastic dome necessary.


I agree with Jafo that building one smaller yurt would help get the kinks out of building more. My 16'er easily accomodates four cots, several folding chairs, plus wood and other storage. Good luck with your yurts, and your business.

[SunTime]

Hey there. Here is a video we made setting up our yurt. Feel free to ask us any questions about the process and what it takes. We can help with

insulation

if you don't want to use that space aged unnatural stuff.

Mongolian Ger (Yurt) Set Up - YouTube

Colin

[Marshall Eppley]

Nice video jafo where did the like button move to?