D'arcYurt's Build Thread

[Daniel Pittman]

I'm planning a Yurt with no outside doors, pitched on a high deck with the entry from below. Maybe use a few shipping containers as the foundation.

[2 dogs and a Yurt]

Hi D'arcYurt,
What part of MI are you building in? We are looking at building up in the U.P. but are leery of the building codes. Did you have trouble with permitting?
The local building department won't give us any answers and we are thinking of just going ahead and putting up a yurt without a permit but we don't want to run into issues with the county... Any input?

[D'arcYurt]

Originally Posted by 2 dogs and a Yurt

Hi D'arcYurt,
What part of MI are you building in? We are looking at building up in the U.P. but are leery of the building codes. Did you have trouble with permitting?
The local building department won't give us any answers and we are thinking of just going ahead and putting up a yurt without a permit but we don't want to run into issues with the county... Any input?

I am in Sand Lake, about 30 minutes north of Grand Rapids.

I tried doing some prying into codes/regulations but noone could give me solid answers and without officially saying it, gave the impression of "just go for it". So that is what I am doing. I have 10 acres and the yurt is at the back of my property not visible from the road (which is a quiet country road anyways) so most passers don't even know it's there. Plus, so far my nearest neighbors seem perfectly okay with it



UPDATE:

My father and I put in the pitcher pump over the weekend. It just so happens to match the red of the yurt poles!







After ~200 gallons pumped, it still has a greenish hue to it, so I may drive it down further and see if I can tap some better water. It is currently driven down to 18'

[hierony]

Neat! How have you been drilling your well?

In the county I currently inhabit, they do aerial surveys for property tax/rogue building purposes. There was apparently some rather clever fellow that rolled out an excellent 2D rendition of a swimming pool when they were flying over. The county then tried to get more taxes out of him for improvements to his property but were flabbergasted when they didn't find an actual pool on the ground... Hopefully your county doesn't pull some trick like that!

[D'arcYurt]

I drove the well by hand down to 25'

Time for an update! Sorry updates will be slower now that I am in the yurt and have no internet yet.

First weekend in May, we drove up to

Groovy Yurts

Farm in upper Ontario and picked up the yurt! Had some great looks from the customs officers at the border haha!



We began setting up the yurt around 6PM, which ended up taking us longer than expected and past dark! So we finished it up in the morning.





So the yurt is now up! It still needs a lot of adjustments including the platform needs to be cut down to the proper size, but it is up!

The first project has been adding mosquito netting (sorry for the sideways picture) :




ALSO the third night staying in the yurt, I hear a popping sound at night so I go outside to investigate. About 15 seconds later, an oak about 30" in diameter snaps in HALF! Not uprooted, it straight up broke in half! It came approximately 3 FEET from pancaking the yurt!

[Jafo]

Wow, that oak could have wrecked your weekend lol.

[Bob Rowlands]

lol a groovy pancake

[Bob Rowlands]

Back in about 1980 or so my wife and I went on a hike in Yosemite national park, to an overlook in the high country. Peaceful blue skied summer day, and of course absolutely spectacular high sierra scenery. A hundred yards or so from the overlook we passed under a huge tree, maybe three feet in diameter, that was leaning over the trail. I remember thinking that sucker was gonna drop soon. Sure enough while hanging out, enjoying the view, having a snack, that tree toppled over the trail with a huge crash. *BOOM!!* Incredible!

Another time we were in Yellowstone park and hiked a couple miles in to a backcountry lake. Again, it was a beautiful day at the outset of the hike. We had reached the lake and were having lunch when the weather very abruptly changed from beautiful to nasty wind and rain storm in maybe fifteen minutes, and rapidly intensified. The wind was like hurricane force as we beat feet back down the trail hauling @$$ to the car. We were leaning into it and buffeted about. Really weird. Lodgepole pines were crashing down in the forest all around us to where we were actually concerned about getting hit. Sounds funny but it wasn't funny at the time.

Also, had a large whirlwind which is a mini tornado, come roaring up on our house. The noise rapidly intensified in a few seconds I thought a jet was about to crash. We live right next to the AF Academy airfield. I jumped up as the roar went straight over the roof of our house. Never heard anything like this, ever. Not knowing what it was, I ran to the dining room window and saw the funnel had just jumped off the roof and was spinning like a 100 foot tall top wobbling to the east in our backyard, DIRECTLY towards my yurt. It hit it. The yurt jumped up a foot, the cover instantaneously expanded like an atomic bomb went off in side, and then did the reverse sucked tight to the frame. All in an instant. This was before I built the deck the yurt sits on. Wall lath were broken, yurt cover OK. Good thing I had the yurt anchored to concrete piers in the ground otherwise it would have been the second yurt destroyed by Ma nature.

Lastly, last year our house was hit by lightning. *BOOOOOM!!!!* The bolt hit the roof, eleven feet above my wifes head. She was soaking in the bathtub at the time. Absolutely amazing.

Also, got caught in an electrical storm climbing 14ers with a couple friends here in CO. Within a few hundred yards of the summit our aluminum pack frame was singing, rocks were singing, all body hair standing straight up, blue crackling glow everywhere. Lightning bolts hitting within a hundred yards, no lag time for crack boom it was instantaneous I could see the strikes. I just curled up in a ball and prayed I'd see my family again. That was singularly the most terrifying experience of my entire life. Emptying a cylinder full of .44 mag slugs over a Grizzlies head in Alaska backcountry came in second. lol

[trihartsfield]

Originally Posted by Bob Rowlands

Back in about 1980 or so my wife and I went on a hike in Yosemite national park, to an overlook in the high country. Peaceful blue skied summer day, and of course absolutely spectacular high sierra scenery. A hundred yards or so from the overlook we passed under a huge tree, maybe three feet in diameter, that was leaning over the trail. I remember thinking that sucker was gonna drop soon. Sure enough while hanging out, enjoying the view, having a snack, that tree toppled over the trail with a huge crash. *BOOM!!* Incredible!

Another time we were in Yellowstone park and hiked a couple miles in to a backcountry lake. Again, it was a beautiful day at the outset of the hike. We had reached the lake and were having lunch when the weather very abruptly changed from beautiful to nasty wind and rain storm in maybe fifteen minutes, and rapidly intensified. The wind was like hurricane force as we beat feet back down the trail hauling @$$ to the car. We were leaning into it and buffeted about. Really weird. Lodgepole pines were crashing down in the forest all around us to where we were actually concerned about getting hit. Sounds funny but it wasn't funny at the time.

Also, had a large whirlwind which is a mini tornado, come roaring up on our house. The noise rapidly intensified in a few seconds I thought a jet was about to crash. We live right next to the AF Academy airfield. I jumped up as the roar went straight over the roof of our house. Never heard anything like this, ever. Not knowing what it was, I ran to the dining room window and saw the funnel had just jumped off the roof and was spinning like a 100 foot tall top wobbling to the east in our backyard, DIRECTLY towards my yurt. It hit it. The yurt jumped up a foot, the cover instantaneously expanded like an atomic bomb went off in side, and then did the reverse sucked tight to the frame. All in an instant. This was before I built the deck the yurt sits on. Wall lath were broken, yurt cover OK. Good thing I had the yurt anchored to concrete piers in the ground otherwise it would have been the second yurt destroyed by Ma nature.

Lastly, last year our house was hit by lightning. *BOOOOOM!!!!* The bolt hit the roof, eleven feet above my wifes head. She was soaking in the bathtub at the time. Absolutely amazing.

Also, got caught in an electrical storm climbing 14ers with a couple friends here in CO. Within a few hundred yards of the summit our aluminum pack frame was singing, rocks were singing, all body hair standing straight up, blue crackling glow everywhere. Lightning bolts hitting within a hundred yards, no lag time for crack boom it was instantaneous I could see the strikes. I just curled up in a ball and prayed I'd see my family again. That was singularly the most terrifying experience of my entire life. Emptying a cylinder full of .44 mag slugs over a Grizzlies head in Alaska backcountry came in second. lol

Not sure I would want to hike with you!