New member's yurt plan

[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.

[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.

[Swykes]

We have just moved into our 32’ yurt. The platform is constructed on a 48’ x 44’ deck. Due to the topography of the property, our contractors built a utility room underneath the yurt. It is insulated & heated. It contains a grey water holding tank, a fresh water holding tank, on demand propane hot water & venting. The bathroom vent goes through the floor to this room, and the vent for the Nature’s Head composting toilet also goes through the floor to the same area. The platform is insulated with spray foam. We decided that the fewer holes hat were cut in the walls, the better. The weather in winter here can often get to -40C, so we needed a system that would not freeze. The yurt is totally off-grid, so everything needs to be efficient.

[Drunken hobbit]

Originally Posted by Swykes

The bathroom vent goes through the floor to this room, and the vent for the Nature’s Head composting toilet also goes through the floor to the same area.

Where does the moist vented air go, once it is in the room under the yurt?

[Swykes]

There is a vent in the utility room. It is just a passive vent, no fan.

[MG1917]

Originally Posted by Jafo

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.

Hi Jafo, I cannot edit my original response to this, but I had another thought: I believe the mini-split unit I am looking at has a dehumidifier function, in addition to air conditioning, and I understand it is also an effective heat pump. It would thus serve triple-duty: A/C, dehumidifier, and backup heat source.