Planning to build a yurt in Czech Republic

[Knecht]

No picture tonight (was too dark), but the ring and baganas were erected and all the rafters are in place. Things seem to fit quite well together.
Tomorrow we want to put the roof

insulation

and tarp on it. Any ideas or experience with putting up a heavy roof tarp on quite high yurt with no acces from the inside (insulation in the way) and hard access from outside?

[Marshall Eppley]

Through the smoke hole with rope maybe??

[Knecht]

I've been thinking about it and I guess we'll put the roof cover up first and secure it around the ring. Then tuck up the lower edge on one half, lay the

insulation

and pull the cover back over it. I think that if we were trying to pull the cover over the insulation, it would drag the insulation around and in the end, it wouldn't save much time or work.

[Bob Rowlands]

IMO you need as much help as you can round up. I installed the roof cover over my uninsulated yurt, by myself, and had to work from the inside as much as from the outside. Plus used a ladder for smokehole detailing.

I'd suggest watching a few YouTube videos of Mongolians doing such to get an overview of the cover install on top of insulation. Good luck.

[Bob Rowlands]

OK I just watched a couple YT vids of yurt cover installs. They folks doing the work had obviously done it several times, and made it look easy. If it is just the two of you, plan on a person working up in the smokehole, and one down walking the perimerter. What I saw was essentially alot of unrolling of neatly rolled/folded liner, insulation and cover materials. I'm thinking they know what they are doing. I wrestled an untidy wad up there by myself. It takes two to do it efficiently. Good luck.

[Knecht]

Problem with our yurt is that we have the deck under it and it gets pretty high in the front part. Everything must be reached from a ladder.
Here's a picture of the roof with temporary foil cover. Got some snow over night.


Uncovered, ready for the real roof.


We used a long ladder as a rail of sorts, with improvised sled, carrying the roof up (partially folded for "easy" unfolding, with the center hole on the bottom of the package). By the wood shed in the background, you can see our Magnum bird feeder. Holds 60kg of sunflower seed



It's up


Partially unfolded

I was struggling to get the center hole over the ring's rim for almost an hour.

As usual, it was too dark when we ended, so just a quick photo of the covered roof. The whole thing needs some adjusting yet, we need to trim the excess ends of roof rafters to allow the roof cover hang over the edge - as you can (rather can't) see now, it's not fitting over the uncut rafters. I knew this will have to be done and yes, it would surely be easier to do before the roof was assmebled, but I needed to see it all in real before cutting.
Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to tighten the

tension cable

yet...looks like several weeks in wet weather conditions might have helped the khana laths to set in the new shape and now the cable seems much looser than when we put it there. I wouldn't want to unlock the one in place, rather put another one over it...or use a ratchet strap to compress the thing and hold it, then unlock and tighten the cable...how about that?

[Bob Rowlands]

At this juncture a ratchet strap would be the easy solution to snug up the wall. However, why do that? The diameter at the top of the wall pretty much matches the bottom of the wall. If the rafters are snug in the ring holes, and anchored securely at the wall, you're good to go. You have the ring atop baganas and that is good support.

I'd trim the rafters, sand/rasp the rough edges, and get that dude covered. The snow is a comin'! lol

[Knecht]

So in the end we used a ratchet strap to compress the khana a little more, then re-tightened the cable. We've also trimmed the rafters and the roof cover now fits over the roof edge nicely. Still has some humps and imperfections on it, we hope to straighten it once we tuck it up and roll it back down, over the insulation layer.

A look from the inside. I see the dome's wooden support needs some paint attention yet.


As usual, too dark for good pics, but I think the roof is quite visible


And here's the reason it's visible - she took a picture of me, adding some light to the roof with the flashlight on my AK

[Bob Rowlands]

Squeeze off a mag for some added fill flash.

[Knecht]

I don't have full auto, so the flash wouldn't be too effective I guess