New Adventure

[Maid marion]

Hi - I'm a newbie
I have recently bought one 10' and one 16' yurt for my Son and I to live in. Scary thing is they're due to be delivered very soon and I've procrastinated on putting down the floor. Mainly because I don't know where to start. I'm exploring the options of earth bags, with plywood over the top, this seems like a reasonably priced option, and a useful form of

insulation

.
Has anyone done this before any fors/against.
I'm very new to 'yurting'.

[Marshall Eppley]

Welcome to the forum you came to the right place for yurt info.

[Bob Rowlands]

Hi Maid Marion. Procrastinate no longer. It's time to make a plan and get after it.

You don't need earth bags or any fancy floor if you need to get the yurts up pronto.

Buy two HD cheap poly tarps at WalMart, Home Depot, Harbor Freight or Lowes. Buy the tarps a MINIMUM of two foot larger than the diameter of your yurt.

The yurts will sit atop the tarp. The tarp edge folds up at the wall under the cover, making a tub so water stays out.

Clear and flatten the site. Lay out the tarp. Erect the yurt on top of the tarp. Fold the edge of the tarp up the OUTSIDE of the wall, and tuck it under the lower ropes that snug the yurt. Trim the tarp to the height you want. The yurt cover drapes OVER the tarp.

One better than that is to lay two layers of plywood atop the tarp, each layer at right angles to eachother, and with no seams in alignment. Screw the top layer to the lower layer with plated deck screws. Screw length. If two layers of 1/2 plywood or OSB, use 1" screws. If a layer of 1/2 and 3/4, or two layers of 3/4, use 1.25" screws. The screw are at Depot. Buy them in 5 lb boxes.

To cut to size, find the yurts focal point and pencil the yurt diameter plus 1.5 inches. Cut the circle. Don't cut the tarp underneath. Erect the yurt. To keep the yurt from moving around on the platform, andchor it to the floor with small 'L' brackets about three inches long per side. They come in '2' packs at Depot or wherever. Roll out cheap indoor outdoor carpet for a REALLY nice floor. Your done.


Winters coming. Good luck.

[Maid marion]

Thank you so much, that will be my task this week. Finding 2 tarps. I have cleared the area of overgrown thistles and levelled the ground of sorts, it needs to be done better if not to wake up feeling 'shipwrecked'.

[Bob Rowlands]

If the ground isn't rocky, it can be leveled very nicely with a spade, shovel, hoe, pick, rake, and your eye. A wheelbarrow is always a plus if you are moving dirt on or off site.

Start by chopping all plant material out. Work the bumps down and fill in the low areas. It helps if you kneel down like a golfer reading a green. Eyeball the site from different vantage points. You'll really start to 'see' the site leveling out.

It is important to make the effort to get your site prepped well, because once the tarps go down and the yurt is erected, additional grading isn't gonna happen without a big hassle.

It is work but you can do it. I graded my site by hand with those basic tools and it IS a sweaty job. Take heart because erecting the yurt is a piece of cake in comparison. Good luck on your builds.

[Maid marion]

Fab, this is just what I need, were talking step by step. The ground is rocky, and very 'routy' if there is such a word. I can see how it would help kneeling....
Many thanks

[Bob Rowlands]

Well, you are in for some work. Get a pick axe at Depot or Lowes. That, with elbow grease, will get rocks to basketball size out.

If the scope of getting big deep embedded rocks out, and ruts and holes filled is really just way beyond what you are up for, you could buy a couple tons of 'road base', and bring that up to suitable grade. If you can't guess about how much, just tell them what it looks like in sq. yards. A square yard is 3x3x3.

Have the driver do a tail gate spread on both sites instead of a direct dump. He'll know what to do.

Get it spread out to grade abd get it level. Drive your vehicle back and forth over it to compact it. You can clean up the edge and corral the fill with metal landscape edging held by a few screws at the lap. That stuff is at Depot too.

If you have bonafide ruts from water erosion, ditch around your yurts as best you can to direct the water away from the yurt pad. Once infiltrated, road base will erode in a heavy rain.

Good luck.