Anyone purchase a Smiling Woods Yurt?

[Bob Rowlands]

Good post Melissa. Once you get your estimated costs figured out-on paper- item by item-I'd add 10%. Just trust me on this. I have built one house. Our banker was married to a builder. She said, "Bob add 10%.". And those were wise words. We went exactly 10% over.

[Bob Rowlands]

btw that was for our construction loan in March 1999.

Off topic. Sales prices have SKYROCKETED here in the front range of CO in the last three years. People are selling their homes in CA for BIIIG money, and incredibly a few are paying >!!!CASH!!!< for their 800K -1,000,000K new homes and still pocketing >hundreds of thousands of dollars < in the process. That's here in the HOT market along the front range. And lemme tell yuh those prices are rapidly escalating because people involved on the cream end are VERY greedy. There aren't enough zeros in their income.

First hand story. We had our little 724 sq. ft. one bd/one bath condo on the market in 2017 and 18 hours later 10! offers OVER what we were asking. A bidding war erupted, BAM son. Six years ago we listed it twice for a total of a year, and couldn't find a buyer. I just read where those units are now 60K !!! over what we sold ours for just two years ago. Why? Just because. Supply and demand. None of any of that amazing $ increase begins to match wages of folks building the homes.

Back to topic.

[HawaiiYurts]

That sounds in the ballpark. Sounds like the labor cost to construct is pretty low, but good for you if that's the case! A typical equation for labor is to double the material cost, so you pay 65k for the kit, foundation, and interior wall materials, estimate another 65k for construction of the kit, foundation, and interior walls. Some places are even higher for labor. Other things to consider: Gutters? They didn't have an option when we were looking. Our clients added a covered deck and theirs was two story. We also have codes that required stem walls for the foundation.

I'll say again, I like

Smiling Woods Yurts

. They're a great value for what you get. But I think some people see that $60,000 pricetag and have no idea that there's another $60k to go to implement it. (In our client's case the kit didn't include about $60k in additional materials including the deck materials, foundation, ceiling, gutters, interior walls, so their true material cost was I think closer to $120k - It's been a while since I looked at the details though).

Thanks for sharing your real time experience, amaralice! That's what it's all about - all of us sharing real knowledge and experience to help others <3

[Bob Rowlands]

Melissa, thanks for bringing 'building costs' into the light. Hopefully that will help folks looking to build a yurt.

[1daveman]

We are almost finished assembling our 41ft yurt from Smiley Wooden Yurts, and are quite satisfied with everything. For those commenting about pricing- SWY tells you to expect final costs to be 2 to 3 times what you pay for the kits. We ended up on the lower end of that...

The quality of the lumber was good - the pieces fit together as well as expected, and they helped through the entire design ordering and construction process. We are satisfied customers... We are just now getting ready to hang sheet rock and cannot wait to move in!

[Jafo]

Originally Posted by 1daveman

=We are satisfied customers... We are just now getting ready to hang sheet rock and cannot wait to move in!

Would love to see some pictures when you get time.

[1daveman]

Ok - I am not sure how to do so, so added a few in the construction gallery.
I linked afew of them here.

[Jafo]

Looks good. That's a big yurt and a beautiful location!

[Bob Rowlands]

Nicely done.

[yurtgurl]

Hi Everyone

I purchased a Smiling Woods Yurt and wanted to share my experience. Because when I was doing research, there wasn't a lot of information available at the time about the company. So, overall their product is high quality. What you get delivered is basically the structure/the shell. And everything inside you or your contractor have to build. In my package, I decided to go with a pop out room which was included in the initial design. The company informed me that Smiling Woods would send the roof material for the pop out room and the cedar siding, but my contractor would have to build the room itself. Once we received the tractor trailer, we realized that "the roof material" meant that they sent the metal roofing (no rafters included). Also, they didn't send enough cedar siding for the pop out room and we had to find some on the East Coast which was not easy to do and was expensive.

In my package, I went with the more affordable option of the birch plywood ceiling panels. My yurt is in the Northeast of the country, which is very rainy. The assembly of the yurt actually happened in the snow and rain. In order to cover the structure, the metal roofing needed to be attached first. And consequently, the

insulation

and ceiling panels installed later. There's no way in this climate that you can install the panels and

insulation

first. So, the way we had to do it was very hard. Basically the metal roofing was installed, then spray foamed inside with insulation. Then, with scaffolding, slide each panel up through the rafters and basically toenail the panel in with a brad nailer. Very hard. Lots of the panels are warped and also had to be trimmed or actually some had to be made bigger. It was a seriously hard thing to do. After installation, sometimes the panels pop out and I have to climb up there and try to pull it back in. I don't know if the tongue and groove would actually be any easier, but you probably wouldn't have the popping out and warping problem.

Also to note that there is no way fiberglass batting insulation would work here. I wouldn't use anything other than sprayfoam to make sure you have a seal to avoid any condensation and add strength to the roof...which was of a significant cost.

My particular design was more difficult because I had an existing concrete pad. So, the company told me the designer that they normally use in house probably wasn't the best to handle my design due to the unusual engineering of the pad. So, we had to use an outsider designer that they recommended who was very good...but came with an extra couple thousand dollar cost.

I called the company and emailed A LOT during my assembly. And they answered the phone every time and tried to answer all my questions. I never had a problem with communication. Having said that, the salesman sometimes would say things things that didn't seem to quite pan out. But, every issue I raised they did address eventually.

Some things I had assumed would be included in the package. For example, fascia for the outside trim. And if you want to match the cedar included in the package, it's hard and expensive to do that if you live on the East Coast. But no extra trim was included. As said above, of course, insulation is a huge extra cost that I hadn't considered and wasn't included.

Overall I love my yurt and anyone who visits is very impressed. It's absolutely good quality. I feel like the company presents the package as a do it yourself yurt. While I am no contractor, I built out the inside rooms and loft myself. There is NO WAY I could assemble this yurt by myself. You need a professional contractor with lifts and heavy duty equipment to place the compression ring and roofing on. Also, the yurt is tied together with heavy duty metal cables. There is no way I would trust a layperson to handle that. So I recommend using a professional.

The things that are included like the windows and the doors were very good quality. The doors are beautiful and solid, had to finish them with varnish, just like the ceiling panels were unfinished too.

After one winter so far with the yurt being heated, I did have some condensation issues from the skylight. I would say when it's really cold, single digit temperatures, condensation pools around the bottom of the skylight and drips down onto the floor. It's not a lot. It's a few drips. I addressed it with the company and they recommended some caulking which I have yet to do because I had to order an 18 ft step ladder to get up there. I have a feeling the caulking isn't going to work. But I will try it. I tried circulating air on it, but that did nothing. I think I will have to somehow prevent warm air from reaching the skylight in the winter. But would love to hear if anyone else has addressed this issue with a wooden yurt as opposed to canvas.

If anyone has any questions about Smiling Woods or my yurt construction, please feel free to ask. Overall it's been an amazing adventure and experience and very grateful for my beautiful home.