Friday, October 16, 2009

Yurts, yurts, everywhere...

Okay, yurt fans, here is the long-awaited sequel to the first, cliffhanging episode of Yurt Building 101. When last we left off, the yurts were basically a supporting structure with nothing to protect us from the elements. Now, they are finished! Well, almost. To recap, we managed to get the smaller yurt closed in before the rain fell. Here is how the structure of them looked before all the supports you can see lying on the floor were screwed into place and the covering process began.
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Working from the hole in the top, the interior roof liner is unfolded and worked around the top.
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Then the space blanket of astronaut-friendly insulation is unfolded on top of that and super heavy top cover is hefted up thru the hole and carefully unfolded as well.
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The interior insulated walls are hung from the interior support cable and the outside walls hung from an extra flap on the exterior roof. It's kind of like hanging a giant, heavy shower curtain. The skylight dome is carefully fed up to the center and put into place. The whole thing is cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And cinched and tightened. And screwed into place. Tightly. Nobody wants a baggy, wrinkly yurt, after all.
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And here's how it looked before the rain began.
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And it did rain. And the larger yurt did get wet. And the water did pool on top and drip thru the floor boards into the insulation, which also dripped, and it was not a pretty sight. BUT. The sun came out and dried up the landy, landy and everything was fine and dandy, dandy. And we managed to get that one enclosed before the next rains fell and now I think we are out of the danger zone. Today we are supposed to get 6 inches of rain so that should be a good test.
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Now we are building the mudroom/bathroom in between.
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We had high winds a few nights ago and I lay awake listening to the howling gusts and imagining all that work flying around up there with my mother-in-law's words in my head, "It can get pretty windy up here you know," but am happy to report that in the morning they were intact and they were like, "What?" when we showed up all concerned and everything. Bella finally found a wall she can color on without getting in trouble.
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And here's a view of our dining/living room view. Lovely!
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K3

2 comments:

  1. Oh wow, the Yurts are coming along and it's pretty cool. My kids have decided that they want a Yurt. I promised to let them camp in one this summer, LOL.

    Have a great day,
    Diane

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  2. Kelly, love the photos of the Yurt. They look beautiful. So how much does it cost for heat and electricity?

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