New member's yurt plan

[MG1917]

Hi all,

Longtime lurker, new member. I thought I’d tell my plan to those who share an interest in yurt living. For my yurt, I’m thinking of a 30’ modern yurt with the following specifications:

- 30’ modern yurt with a French front door, fiberglass rear door, and upgrades (wall and roof

insulation

, snow and wind kit, tinted and opening

dome

,

center ring

fan support, etc.)
- 5 glass windows, no fabric windows
- foundation: 8 ¼” SIPS platform (R-32) on 4x6’s on helical piles (10 or 12 1 7/8” piles)
- Toyo oil heater
- electricity
- plumbing
- mini-split AC unit
- track lighting
- ceiling fan

Here is my attempt at designing a yurt floor plan:







You can see it is an open design, with the exception of the two walled-in rooms. The second room is a utility/storage room that would contain the washer/dryer, safe, electrical panel, water heater, chest freezer, and storage space. The idea would be to run plumbing and electricity from the utility/storage room, through the walls on either side to the bathroom on one side (sink, toilet, and bathtub) and the kitchen on the other side (fridge, dishwasher, and sink). Electricity for the loft would be run through the ceiling, and electricity for the rest of the yurt (near the TV, etc.), would be run along the perimeter.

The venting could be done through the ceiling of the framed-in rooms, but I’m not sure where those would vent out to. I guess it would have to be done through the wall (similar to the manufacturer’s stove flashing solution) or through a convenience panel? Obviously not through the fabric roof. On that note, I’m not sure yet where the mini-split unit would come in through.

Above the rooms would be a loft, which would hold a queen bed and computer desk. There would be a landing above the utility/storage room door.

All of this work would be completed by licensed professionals. I’m realistically looking at an outlay of probably $80 - 100k (which does not include furniture, the land, or any related improvements). I would probably be building this yurt in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In the above budget estimate, I am including $4k for permitting/inspecting/etc.

Anyway, thought I’d share this idea and plan with the yurt community, as I thought this crowd would understand and might appreciate it. Welcome any thoughts or suggestions.

[Jafo]

I like it, though I don't know if I would have the second room. The walls take up precious space. I understand it for the bathroom, but the other room? Not so much. Remember, you have 710 sq. ft to play with, not a lot and it fills up faster than you might think.

I like your approach for the rest of the room where you take advantage of the wall space!

[Jafo]

Also, I can't tell from your diagram, but you may want to consider a second door. Most municipal codes require that anyway..

[Drunken hobbit]

Yeah I was going to say I like it too. Much better than some of the eccentric plans some people have posted on this site over the years.
Best wishes

[MG1917]

Originally Posted by Jafo

I like it, though I don't know if I would have the second room. The walls take up precious space. I understand it for the bathroom, but the other room? Not so much. Remember, you have 710 sq. ft to play with, not a lot and it fills up faster than you might think.

I like your approach for the rest of the room where you take advantage of the wall space!

Thanks, Jafo. The other room is a utility room which would hold the water heater (possibly a Toyo on-demand oil water heater), chest freezer, washer/dryer, fuse box, etc. Floorplanner lets you design to scale (you can even change the dimensions of items/structures/furniture/appliances to match specific models you have in mind). You can also virtually "walk through" your design, which lets you see how it might feel/look walking around in your space, how much space you have to work with, etc. Based on my modeling, I though the utility room made sense to house some of the stuff that might be awkward to place anywhere else in the yurt, such as the Toyo water heater or the washer/dryer stack. The alternative would be to put that stuff outside, in an adjacent shed, for example, right?

Originally Posted by Jafo

Also, I can't tell from your diagram, but you may want to consider a second door. Most municipal codes require that anyway..

There are two doors. In the top picture, the French door is at 12 o'clock, and the fiberglass door is at 6 o'clock.

Originally Posted by Drunken hobbit

Yeah I was going to say I like it too. Much better than some of the eccentric plans some people have posted on this site over the years.
Best wishes

Thanks, Drunken hobbit. I am not an engineer or a contractor, but I have a layman's understanding of the concepts. I know the yurt should weigh approximately 10,000 lbs. with the SIPS panels and all the furniture/appliances/walls/etc. Code in most parts of Virginia is 30 psf snow load, so make it 30,000 lbs. 12 helical piles (1 7/8") can be good for over 90,000 lbs. 10 helical piles would give me more than enough safety margin if the manufacturer felt an 11' distance or so between piles was okay – approximately 80,000 lbs. or so (a safety factor of more than 2). The SIPS themselves are very strong -- 8" thick SIPS can easily span 10’, so this might be what my foundation looks like (modified from the

Pacific Yurts

SIPS foundation plan):


The green lines are the beams and the red dots are the helical piles. The black rectangles are the SIPS panels (the size of the panels in the middle is 4’x10’, I think). This design should be very simple and yet extremely strong, with a high R value. As an added bonus, this platform/foundation is also theoretically movable/portable: the SIPS can be taken apart and loaded onto a truck to move, and the helical piles can simply be unscrewed from the ground, loaded up, and moved, as well. So the benefits of this design are many fold. The downside, of course, is that it is somewhat expensive.

I tried to integrate some efficient design concepts in the interior, as well. All plumbing runs from the utility room out through the stick frame walls -- a very short run. There is no plumbing running clear to the other side of the yurt, nor is there any need to run plumbing through/under the SIPS to reach far corners of the yurt, etc. This design simplifies construction and lowers cost/time of building. As you said, there are some eccentric designs out there by people who have even less understanding of construction than I do (plumbed toilets that back against the lattice wall, etc.). I am the opposite of the “design-build” school that Juicymaters talks about in his blog. I like having a well thought-out plan that incorporates best practices and efficient design principals, wherever possible.

That said, my current design is far from perfect and can be tweaked to make it better. In fact, I just caught something: the stove/range should probably not be that close to the lattice wall. I'm also having some trouble envisioning the loft space above the framed-in rooms.

[Jafo]

Originally Posted by MG1917

The alternative would be to put that stuff outside, in an adjacent shed, for example, right?

You could, or you could make the bathroom just a little bigger to house it all?


I would also suggest venting through the wall. You do not want to mess with the roof if you do not have to. It will shorten the lifespan of it.



With all of that stuff inside, you will also need to consider

moisture

abatement. You will be releasing a lot of

moisture

inside when you say, take a bath/shower or cook. A dehumidifier will probably be necessary.

[James]

Hello fantastic desighn mith take some of your idea if that is ok, i can see putting the office on the loft but unless you are building a kakstan ger I would worry about he slop of the roof on the mongolin ger, I would put the bedroom down stairs and the bathroom and have a dryer over my washer and the utitlity box in the bedroom but you are a very imagtive person I am sure you will work it out thanks for sharing your design

[Pacific Yurts]

Your plan looks very nice. Venting for the bathroom and cooking exhaust could be mounted into your partition walls, and using a 'downdraft' exhaust fan, could actually vent through the platform and then outside. Plumbing vents can go through the yurt wall using a boot flashing (available at your local hardware store) in a similar fashion to the stove flashing. Just make sure the top of the flashing slips under your top cover valance.

A good place to mount the air handling unit for your ductless heat pump would be on the edge of the landing at the top of the stairs. This would face it into the main living space and it should be out of the way. The electric and refrigerant lines could come up through your platform and into your partition wall so they are out of site.

Good luck with your project, it sounds like it will turn out nice.

[MG1917]

Originally Posted by James

Hello fantastic desighn mith take some of your idea if that is ok, i can see putting the office on the loft but unless you are building a kakstan ger I would worry about he slop of the roof on the mongolin ger, I would put the bedroom down stairs and the bathroom and have a dryer over my washer and the utitlity box in the bedroom but you are a very imagtive person I am sure you will work it out thanks for sharing your design

Many thanks for the kind words, absolutely feel free to use the design. Yes, I am having difficulty envisioning how the space on top of the loft will be used, but it looks like there is sufficient room for a queen bed and a desk/chair setup. It's hard to tell in the images I posted, but there is a stacked washer/dryer unit in the utility room.

Originally Posted by Pacific Yurts

Your plan looks very nice. Venting for the bathroom and cooking exhaust could be mounted into your partition walls, and using a 'downdraft' exhaust fan, could actually vent through the platform and then outside. Plumbing vents can go through the yurt wall using a boot flashing (available at your local hardware store) in a similar fashion to the stove flashing. Just make sure the top of the flashing slips under your top cover valance.

A good place to mount the air handling unit for your ductless heat pump would be on the edge of the landing at the top of the stairs. This would face it into the main living space and it should be out of the way. The electric and refrigerant lines could come up through your platform and into your partition wall so they are out of site.

Good luck with your project, it sounds like it will turn out nice.

Thank you very much. This helps tremendously. I didn't know about downdraft exhaust fans. I appreciate your interest in my project. Just FYI, I've emailed with Pete from your company in the past, and he is a stand up guy and very responsive. I've definitely got

Pacific Yurts

in mind for when I start this project -- possibly two years away (I might be retiring then... but then again, I might not; it's a very difficult decision I'm still working through).

[MG1917]

Originally Posted by Jafo

... You will be releasing a lot of moisture inside when you say, take a bath/shower or cook. A dehumidifier will probably be necessary.

That tracks with everything I've been reading. I'm trying to incorporate other peoples' experiences into my build. Moisture seems to be a major concern, which -- if left unchecked in a yurt -- can lead to mold issues.



My design has a bathroom fan, on which I do not plan to skimp, and which I will use religiously. I recently watched an episode of This Old House where they retrofitted a bathroom fan in an existing structure, and they installed a timer switch that could run the fan for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes. I plan to incorporate such a switch and use it each time I take a shower.


Along the same vein, my design has a range hood over the range that I will use every time I cook. I like the boot flashing idea from the Pacific Yurts representative above, and I will likely mount the bathroom fan and range hood exhausts through the walls, via EPDM boot flashing assemblies, with the top of the flashing slipped under the top cover valance to inhibit leaks, as the Pacific Yurts representative explains above.