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Planning to build a yurt in Czech Republic

The metal quarter only needs the pipe hole cut. Bought the pipes today. Looks like the shape of my tono will really ask for very little bend in the covering material. Standby for some pics of a finished dome...hopefully in a day or two.
 
My insulation arrived!
Now I have no excuse anymore and need to finish all the details and build this thing.
 
Finishing the ring. Meanwhile, here's couple pics from yesterday's and today's progress.

Making template for the stovepipe hole shape. Guess it can be calculated somehow, but in my case, the tape technology was much faster :)


Metal shield cut and attached. I got these large sheets of thin steel very cheaply in my favourite off-sale hardware. No idea what were they ment for, they are painted white on one side and grey on the other. Too bad they are just a little smaller than I needed, so I had to make it from two parts. At least it made cutting the pipe hole easier. I used solid copper rivets for strong, non-corroding connection.


The shield was sprayed black and one of the transparent panels attached. I put a bead of silicone between the layers. Mind my homemade washers under the nails :)
 
Totally cool. Nicely done knecht.

I gotta tell you I'm really looking forward to is seeing a photo of you two relaxing by the woodstove inside the new yurt. If there's one thing I love in the winter it is sitting by a wood fire when it is below freezing outside.

The public is fortunate to have this site, and in particular, this thread about building a yurt from scratch. Good job all around.
 
Glad you like it. I have all four sections covered now, just need to make a top cap to go over the upper edges of the covering panels. Pics will follow tomorrow, when it's all done.
Really looking forward to have the yurt complete as well!

I have to say, my plans on covering the dome have changed every now and then and I was just modifying the whole idea on the fly...which is why I now have the ugly white silicone there, which will - hopefully - keep the rain out, but if I knew what I'm gonna end up with before, I would have bought some transparent type. I would also buy much thinner polycarbonate. This one (10mm) did bend easily over the dome, but the last panel had to go over two of these thick layers and was really hard to make it lay "nicely" around the edges. Just something to remember in case I built another one.

I'll be glad if other yurt fans find their way here and learn from my mistakes. I've found much help on this site and this is the least I can do to repay.
 
I read a book entitled 'Flight' by Chris Craft, pre NASA engineer, and later the launch director for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. Not any old knuckledragger becomes a US launch director. In his book he states that they too made it up as they went along. No joke.
 
With all the UFO jokes I hear about the ring, this thing may fly as well :)

Just finished forging the top cap, now waiting for the paint to set. Then I can attach it and finally have the ring complete!
 
Allright, here it is, all done. Just a quick indoors photo, will take some better tomorrow. Sorry for the low quality. Guess I should also clean my camera lens :)

 
No picture tonight (was too dark), but the ring and baganas were erected and all the rafters are in place. Things seem to fit quite well together.
Tomorrow we want to put the roof insulation and tarp on it. Any ideas or experience with putting up a heavy roof tarp on quite high yurt with no acces from the inside (insulation in the way) and hard access from outside?
 
I've been thinking about it and I guess we'll put the roof cover up first and secure it around the ring. Then tuck up the lower edge on one half, lay the insulation and pull the cover back over it. I think that if we were trying to pull the cover over the insulation, it would drag the insulation around and in the end, it wouldn't save much time or work.
 
IMO you need as much help as you can round up. I installed the roof cover over my uninsulated yurt, by myself, and had to work from the inside as much as from the outside. Plus used a ladder for smokehole detailing.

I'd suggest watching a few YouTube videos of Mongolians doing such to get an overview of the cover install on top of insulation. Good luck.
 
OK I just watched a couple YT vids of yurt cover installs. They folks doing the work had obviously done it several times, and made it look easy. If it is just the two of you, plan on a person working up in the smokehole, and one down walking the perimerter. What I saw was essentially alot of unrolling of neatly rolled/folded liner, insulation and cover materials. I'm thinking they know what they are doing. I wrestled an untidy wad up there by myself. It takes two to do it efficiently. Good luck.
 
Problem with our yurt is that we have the deck under it and it gets pretty high in the front part. Everything must be reached from a ladder.
Here's a picture of the roof with temporary foil cover. Got some snow over night.


Uncovered, ready for the real roof.


We used a long ladder as a rail of sorts, with improvised sled, carrying the roof up (partially folded for "easy" unfolding, with the center hole on the bottom of the package). By the wood shed in the background, you can see our Magnum bird feeder. Holds 60kg of sunflower seed :)



It's up


Partially unfolded

I was struggling to get the center hole over the ring's rim for almost an hour.

As usual, it was too dark when we ended, so just a quick photo of the covered roof. The whole thing needs some adjusting yet, we need to trim the excess ends of roof rafters to allow the roof cover hang over the edge - as you can (rather can't) see now, it's not fitting over the uncut rafters. I knew this will have to be done and yes, it would surely be easier to do before the roof was assmebled, but I needed to see it all in real before cutting.
Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to tighten the tension cable yet...looks like several weeks in wet weather conditions might have helped the khana laths to set in the new shape and now the cable seems much looser than when we put it there. I wouldn't want to unlock the one in place, rather put another one over it...or use a ratchet strap to compress the thing and hold it, then unlock and tighten the cable...how about that?
 
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At this juncture a ratchet strap would be the easy solution to snug up the wall. However, why do that? The diameter at the top of the wall pretty much matches the bottom of the wall. If the rafters are snug in the ring holes, and anchored securely at the wall, you're good to go. You have the ring atop baganas and that is good support.

I'd trim the rafters, sand/rasp the rough edges, and get that dude covered. The snow is a comin'! lol
 
So in the end we used a ratchet strap to compress the khana a little more, then re-tightened the cable. We've also trimmed the rafters and the roof cover now fits over the roof edge nicely. Still has some humps and imperfections on it, we hope to straighten it once we tuck it up and roll it back down, over the insulation layer.

A look from the inside. I see the dome's wooden support needs some paint attention yet.


As usual, too dark for good pics, but I think the roof is quite visible


And here's the reason it's visible - she took a picture of me, adding some light to the roof with the flashlight on my AK :D
 
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