Building the Yurt


	PART THREE Here's the reward for all that hard work. Take the three sections of khana and attach one to each side of the door assembly. Some cutting and trimming is required to make them fit. The third khana is then attached to make a circle. Make sure that the circle is the correct diameter, then attach 60' length of cable around the top, using a turnbuckle. The cable will support the rafters, amd simultaneously prevent the rafters from pushing the top of the khana out.
It's a good idea to have a few friends at hand when you put up the rafters. In a yurt of this size, the hub is about twelve feet above the ground, so with one person perched on a ladder, supporting the hub, the other three people place the notched ends of the rafters on the cable. It is possible to do this with only two people... we're the proof of that... but it's certainly not recommended. It's very easy to damage the hub if it's dropped or twisted.
	Next, we put the roof canvas up. With one person inside the khana, perched on a ladder, and the other outside the khana, pulling on ropes attached to the edge of the canvas, it is fairly easy to pull the roof over the top. If it's a windy day, it's advisable to temporarily tie down the roof to pegs hammered into the ground while you put up the wall canvas. Besides possbily losing your canvas to the wind, it might also cause rips or punctures in the fabric.
The walls go up quickly and easily. Hook the pockets around the top of the khana, thread the ends of the wall canvas through the gap between the vertical 2x4's of the door frame and attach the ties to the inside of the khana. To secure the roof, you'll need to wrap a 60' piece of nylon rope around the base of the khana. This should tied at 5' intervals to stakes embedded into the ground. Then thread about 300 feet of nylon rope between the reinforced roof loops and the base rope circle.
	So that's it! The yurt is complete! It took seven days work, mostly sewing and painting. The yurt serves as our food preparation, storage, and dining area, and also doubles as a guest room. The directions we followed were from the book "BUILDING TIPIS & YURTS" by Blue Evening Star. The book has excellent photo's and clear, step-by-step instructions. Another great source of yurt building info is the article "The Construction of a Yurt" by Ellisif Fkakkari. HAPPY BUILDING!

POST SCRIPT: Spring 2004
Two years have passed since we built the yurt at Straw Hollow. We sold the property in the fall of 2002 and moved to the west coast, but a friend of ours drove by the property last winter, and told us that the yurt is still looking good and appears to have weathered two cold and snowy winters without any ill effects.
In the meantime, we learned the following lessons about yurt building that we will most definitely incorporate into our next yurt...
1. Canvas. Despite the dollars saved in using painter's tarps, the labour and dollars and aggravation involved in painting them outweighed the savings. Next time we will go with pre-treated, sturdy canvas.
2. Roof vents. It was stiflingly hot in the yurt during the peak of the summer. Three or four roof vents (which may be closed during rainfall) are an absolute must. An extra window is also recommended to increase air flow.
3. Wall shrinkage. Our walls shrank about 6" after the first rainfall, necessitating an extra length of canvas being sewn to the bottom.
4. Mildew. The waterproofing we added to the walls did nothing to prevent unsightly mildew. Pre-treated or painted canvas would be better.
5. Decking. We used concrete, and really wish that we had built an insulated wooden base. It was cheaper from a financial perspective, but looks ugly, is a heat sink and of course is quite environmentally obnoxious, given the resources involved in mining, manufacturing and transporting it.
6. Rafters. We used eighteen, and would have felt better using a few more, maybe up to thirty. It would have made for a sturdier roof, although the hub would also have to be made sturdier and the attachment method modified.
7. Winterizing. We would like to have sewn up an inner canvas wall, and attached insulation to the khana. And next time, we will sew plastic roll-up windows into the window holes instead of just flaps and bug screening.
8. Instructions: Read them thoroughly! We made a couple of dumb mistakes which cost us some time. There were also a couple of typo's in the edition of the book we used, so be careful to understand what you're doing before you actually do it!

That's about all we have to say about the yurt. Good luck with yours; drop us a line or a picture and any advice to aid in our next attempt.