The Yurt

After taking many day trips to explore the land, we decided we needed a place to stay overnight. We thought about a tent platform but wanted something a little more substantial. Susan's sister Donna pointed out an article about yurts which got us thinking about them. After some research, we bought a kit for a 16' yurt from Nesting Bird Yurts (now Ranier Yurts).

First, the platform below is what we started with. Susan and I built this platform over a 7 week period working only on Saturdays. Unfortunately, the last major work day seems to have badly injured her knee so she will need arthroscopic surgery to fix a torn meniscus. (This is a piece of cartilage between to bones of the knee.) During the yurt raising she set up the food and drinks since she isn’t very mobile.

The platform (Picture 1)

The yurt we bought came as a kit. We got to choose the size (18’ diameter), color, number of windows and doors, amount of insulation, and accessories. What was delivered was an enormous collection of pieces some of which were quite heavy. Fortunately, the delivery truck had no problem making it up our road then backing across the grass to the staging area. Unfortunately, the staging area was still a good 200 yards from the yurt site and only half of that distance was navigable by a 4 wheel drive. (More on this later…)

We drove home after the Thursday delivery excited by the prospect of finally getting the yurt set up but also worrying about how to get some of the heavy and awkward pieces down the trail to the platform. Fortunately, we heard that night that Jeff, our nephew was going to come. He has lots more construction experience than I, is younger and stronger, and very bright. We already knew that Donna and her husband John were coming along with our friends the Petta’s. (The Petta’s make heavy use of our Tahoe house in the winter so are always looking for ways to pay us back.) Both Holly and Adam (and Jessica his girlfriend) were also going to come.

Saturday morning, I started out early since I had some last minute hardware I had to pick up. I also wanted to get to the site before anyone else. When I arrived at our gate at 10:30 AM, no one was waiting so I figured I’d have a little time to set up. I unlocked the gate and drove up the road to the staging area only to find the pile of yurt pieces was missing. At this point, the first thing through my mind was having to call the sheriff and tell him that our yurt was stolen. Earlier in the week, we had talked to a guy who has done some work for us about moving the pieces down to the site but decided our crew could do it. At this point, my only hope was that he had gone ahead and done it anyway even though we told him not to. As I walked down the trail to the platform, a large pickup truck came into view along with 2 guys sitting on the platform chugging from water bottles. I noticed the entire pile or yurt pieces divided between the ground and the back of the pickup as Jeff greeted me. He had left San Jose at 6:30 that morning and had made it to Boonville at 9:30 AM. He also had a friend with him who “thought it would be fun to put up a yurt”. When confronted with the locked gate, they dismantled the fence next to it, drove around the gate, then reassembled the fence. They then found a path through the trees where the pickup would fit and moved all the yurt pieces to the site. (Jeff’s pickup is huge and has wide tires so it can go over almost anything and negotiate steep hills. After he drove it out, I was hard pressed to find his track.)

Incidentally, Jeff seemed to be in very high spirits so I asked him how work was. He said he had been locked out of his office the day before and he was no longer with his company. He founded this company and sold it last year. With the sale, he was obligated to stay 2 years but he has been very unhappy with the directions the new owners are taking. He has been hoping they would fire him for the last 6 months. When I asked about a settlement, he smiled and said, “the lawyers are talking”.

We then went to work assembling the pieces. The lattice wall on the perimeter went up first. This started simply but the height had to be within ¼” all the way around. This entailed pulling and pushing to stretch or compress it to adjust the height. Once the height was correct, the lattice wall was attached to the platform by screwing through straps that project below the top of the platform. A cable is then strung all along the top of the lattice wall. This is what the low ends of the rafters attach to. The high end of the rafters attach to a “compression ring” at the top center of the yurt. The yurt company recommends renting scaffolding to hold this in place until enough rafters are up to hold it. Since our site made scaffolding really difficult, I had built a jig out of 2x4’s to hold it up as per the advice of the yurt company. Well, it turned out that the compression ring wasn’t that heavy so we attached 2 rafters to it and Jeff and Adam held it over their heads while standing on stepladders while others attached the rafters to the perimeter cable. It was very quick and easy and rafters held up the ring just fine. After that we put the rafters up as fast as they were passed inside. (For those engineers in the group, the rafters are locked to the compression ring with a clevis pin and the cable with a retaining bolt.)

Planning for the rafters after the lattice wall is up

Setting the first rafters (Jeff and Adam)

While they bulk of the group was assembling the frame, a smaller group was trying to tape the insulation together. Each layer of roof insulation comes as 15 wedge shaped pieces that have to be taped together. Since we are out in the woods on a hillside, they found a semi flat, grassy spot part way down the hill where taping would be easier. This lead to a new sport of “suicidal grass sliding”. One of the crew discovered he could get down the hill very fast by riding down on a large piece of packing cardboard. After his demonstration that that you could actually survive this, several others tried it and someone even tried to convince one of the many dogs to try it.

All the rafters up (Jeff’s halo)

Second insulation layer going on

The roof is made up of 4 layers: first, a white cotton liner; second and third, insulation with a silver reflective outer layer; and fourth, a waterproof outer layer. Unfortunately,
an afternoon breeze decided to arrive at this point. Fortunately, Jeff (again) had the answer and brought back some clamps from his truck. We used this to keep everything from blowing away until the outermost layer was on. Each layer was passed up through the central compression ring where Jeff’s friend John was staged. He held it in place and worked to unfold the layer with help from outside. Once ½ the layer was on, John pulled the other half across his head so that the whole roof was covered. It sounds really awkward and was but it worked quite well. Once the outermost, waterproof layer was on the roof was heavy enough to withstand the normal afternoon breeze. (It is more securely attached later.)

The walls of the yurt have 2 layers: first, a combined liner and insulation layer then the outer weatherproof layer. We paid extra so that our walls came in panels that we are easier to attach and can be replace or rearranged. Each inner and outer panel had to be attached to a cable that was part of the roof. Although this wasn’t particularly difficult, we all had tired, sore fingers by the end. The last step for the walls is to run a cable around the bottom of the panels and so that the wall system is tight.

Inner wall panels going up

Outer wall panels and skylight on

Almost exactly at 6 PM, we tied a rope to the skylight and pulled it up the roof to the compression ring and bolted it on. We were done.

The deck is the next project

The skylight and one of the windows

That night we went out to the Boonville Hotel for dinner then walked back down the trail to the yurt by flashlight. I was glad I had assembled our new futon before dinner since all I wanted to do when we got back was go to sleep.

What’s left to do? Finish the deck. Build a free standing cabinet we’ll use for a kitchen. Dig and build an outhouse. Rig up a solar shower. Put in a wood stove. Lots of fun stuff.

Finally, the crew: