best construction plans for 20' or 24' yurt?

[lemon_verbena]

i'm having trouble finding building plans for building a yurt from scratch for any size larger than 16'. any leads? i'm looking to build a lived in year-round canvas yurt for my family of four in the pacific north-wet. thanks!

[Bob Rowlands]

Google: clan yama kaminari yurt

Click on yurt build.

Scale up the rafters to 1x4, and the plywood roof ring to 6" width x 36" diameter, solid 4x4 blocking in the ring, glued and screwed with urethane construction adhesive, scale up the lattice to 3/8ths, and you'd be good to 21'. Use a 1/4" cable and wrap it entirely around the yurt including OVER the door frame. That wall 'WILL NOT' collapse.

Note*: You'd have to lay out the yurt you want to build on a flat surface, in section, to determine the rafter angle and length. You don't need to use a calculator or do any sophisticated math, or computer program, to do so. In fact stay away from that or you'll probably err somewhere. Draw it out and lay the rafter in place, and transfer marks onto the rafter. It will fit perfectly. That's how I laid out my roof.

I wouldn't go any larger than 21' with the Kaminari plan without engineering stamp.

To gain footage, gang or even three 21' Kaminari yurts together for extra footage. That would give you 692 sq. feet to 1038 feet without having to resort to scaling everything up and having an engineer stamp your plan.

I built the 16'er in the Kaminari plan from scratch. It is fantastically strong. Pics on here under 'Homemade yurt'. Every lattice cross at the deck level is anchored to the wood deck with angle iron and 1/4" through bolts. It has easily withstood everything ma nature threw our way last winter. We live in a high wind area with no trees sheltering the yurt site.

As for load I'm 210 pounds and can hang mid span off any pair of adjacent 1x3 rafters no problem. In a rain only-no snow load- area I'm thinking you could go 21' (1x4 rafters) no problem based on my yurt.

Good luck.

[lemon_verbena]

thanks so much! very helpful.

[Bob Rowlands]

You're welcome.

[Is-ith]

I realize this is a really old thread. For the construction of a 21' yurt as described above what would be needed to have a 7' or 8' tall walls with a peak height of the

dome

going up to 12' (central ring height). The plans linked are for a 5'8" tall walls and an 8' tall central ring. Thanks for the help.

[Bob Rowlands]

Good luck. The kaminari plan is a camping yurt, with no engineering. A yurt with 7 to 8 foot tall walls and 21' wide isn't a camping yurt, and should be engineered by a good carpenter, at minimum. Forget 1x3s for rafters, and 1/4" lath for wal, or a ring 30" wide. Not gonna happen.

[r_alan22]

I was thinking about building my yurt myself from the ground up, but then I found a DIY yurt kit from simpleterra.com that I really liked so I decided to go that route instead. It was definitely more than if I’d built my own, but it took a lot of guesswork out and was fairly easy to set up. Total cost for the yurt kit was $42,460.

It’s a 49.2ft yurt, with 2164 sq ft of living space. It came with the following:

- Easy to Assemble aluminum and bamboo frame
- 4 protective layers, inner fabric, insuation, waterproofing, and an outer canvas
- 2 glass windows
- 1 wooden door
- Roof ventilator

I built a wooden platform for it to be on so that it’s off the ground, which I highly recommend. It keeps water out, and being on the ground eats up a lot of heat. Mine is eighteen inches off of the ground, with footings two feet down in the ground. I put

insulation

batting in between the floor joist to keep heat in.

With how much living space we have I ended up building walls inside for three rooms, two bedrooms and on office. I also built walls for a bathroom so that we have privacy. On top of the walls I built a loft which we use for guests when they come over. There’s also space for storage up there.

An added benefit of building a platform is that it provides storage space underneath it. We live in our yurt year round so we wanted modern conveniences in it. I ran plumbing and electricity, which comes up through the platform. Running it was the same as in a traditional built home. Really with yurt living, anything that’s in a traditional built home can be added to a yurt.

Total cost for everything, including appliances, was around $55,000. Still much cheaper than even some tiny homes.