Interior partition wall and loft framing suggestions?

[Scotty]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. My partner and I and our 1-year-old kid live in a 30-foot Pacific Yurt that we put up in a real big rush on our due date last year. We currently have it set up as just one big space, which we love, but are planning to build out a few rooms with a loft above in about a third of the yurt in a few months. I've been doing some online research on how people have framed this sort of thing and haven't come up with a lot. PY says not to attach anything to the rafters, but I did find a video from Shelter Yurts where they put blocking between the bottom part of the rafters to attach loft joists too... seems pretty safe to me.

I'm a carpenter, so feel pretty confident just making something up that fits my floor plan, but am curious what other folks have done. No need to reinvent the wheel if there's already a nice one I can copy!

I searched the forums here a bit but didn't find anything. If anyone has any advice, or a link to a relevant post here or elsewhere, I'd appreciate it.

thanks!
Scott

[albalmuth]

My two cents are that lofts are hot in the summer and hot with the stove on in the winter. It would be good to hear from people happy with their upstairs space, in addition to just being pleased with their construction project. Otherwise, good for storage.

[Bob Rowlands]

Never been in a yurt with a loft. Have been in open two story house with vaulted loft. With the wood stove cranking at night, and no ceiling fan to destratify the air up in the loft, it was uncomfortably hot. We had to go down to the main level in order to get some sleep. I think a fan will circulate and mix the hot air making a loft more livable. Just a guess though. If there is a

dome

vent above the loft that might solve the problem.

[Scotty]

We have a pacific yurt with an operable

dome

and plan to install a ceiling fan at some point. The loft won't be anyone's primary sleeping space, just used for some storage and guests crashing. As much as anything, the loft if a by-product of the rest of the design - I don't want the walls to go all the way to the ceiling since that will diminish the open feel of the main space more that 7' walls will.

Any framing input from folks on strong, efficient methods?

Thanks!

[albalmuth]

Maybe my framing strength needs were different because I did not put a ceiling/loft floor on my partition room. Also, I have the stout alpine version from Co Yurt Co which comes with 2x4 wall studs bolted onto each rafter with two metal plates and L brackets attaching them to the floor, plus all the other devices to prevent twisting of the yurt under snow load. Then the partition wall was attached to blocks between the rafters at the full stud height, and at the wall studs at the partial stud height. I had no cracks after this winter with some snow loads to test it, so I would say I am happy with this form of attachment for my purpose.

[Bob Rowlands]

Thanks for that info.

[Scotty]

Thanks @albalmuth. I ended up running the loft/ceiling joists in line with the roof rafters. I sistered new studs to the existing ones so that I could rest the joists directly on those (maybe overkill, but

Pacific Yurts

strongly recommends not relying on the exterior wall or roof for strength). I'm pretty happy with how it all came together. The non-parallel joists make the new room ceiling and loft floor surfaces a bit of a pain, but I'm going to leave the bottoms of the joists exposed on the ceiling and I like that they will give the circular vibe of the yurt inside the little room.

Now we can talk above a whisper after 7pm!

[Amythest]

Hi there, I'm researching how to build a room for my daughter with an additional sturdy sleeping loft above. Any advice from your experience would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[Scotty]

What size/shape are you thinking? The framing details depend a lot on the that and also on the height of the loft/ceiling...