Sugar Shack, A 20th Century Yurt

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Making the straps was an easy-but tedious-job. Our yurt would have 20 rafters, and we'd need two straps per board ... so we made 40 in all. Every strap was bent to an L-shape ... and then a right-angled, 2" lip was bent off the shorter arm of each "L". We drilled a hole through the center of every lip (so that each pair of straps could be bolted together inside the center ring ... as in Fig. 1) and bored another hole an inch or so in from each end of the longest arms (so that we could nail the "L" to its rafter).

Next, we drilled holes through the lower ends of the 2 X 8 rafters (we first added reinforcing 2 X 8 gussets to the ends of key rafters, to provide added strength) and inserted 1-1/4"-long metal "eyes"-which we cut from 3/4" pipe-into the openings (later we'd string the cable through them). Also, my partner built a prop-made from parallel 2 X 4's with a crossmember at each end -to hold the roof peak and center ring in place temporarily as we raised the rafters.

With everything ready, our son helped us put up the rafters (by hand) and bolt them onto the ring. Each board was abutted to the ring and fastened to the circle with its pair of straps. The strips were attached along the narrow top and bottom edges of the rafters, so that the short arms fit vertically into and along the inside surface of the well casing (see Fig. 1), with the 2" lips projecting at a right angle toward the center of the ring. The projections (which should not quite touch each other) were then bolted together.

Once the rafters were in place, we inserted the steel cable through the pipe "eyes" at the perimeter of the house and joined it with a turnbuckle. When we tightened the screw slightly by hand, to our surprise it raised the roof 1/4 " off the temporary stand! Success! With the cable tightened, we then

attached the rafters to the walls with framing anchors.

We finished the roof by applying chipboard sheathing ... 30-pound felt ... rolled roofing ... and tar and desert sand. Then we lined the roof's interior with fiberglass, leaving a 1/4" to 1/2" air space between the chipboard and the insulation. Finally, we applied trim board to the ends of the rafter tails, and covered the outside panels with resawed pine finished with a wash mixture of one gallon of gray paint, two gallons of linseed oil, and two to three gallons of thinner.

FINAL TOUCHES

Completing the interior of our house was the most rewarding part of this project. The only inside wall in the house is that which closes off the bathroom, the closet, and a utility area ... and-of course-it's not load-bearing. We installed leftover fiberglass insulation in the bathroom walls as a noise dampener ... but the inherent acoustics of the design are excellent anyway, and noise isn't a problem.

'Then we added the homey touches: wood paneling to cover the inside walls above the rock ... aromatic red cedar in the bedroom and linen closets ... washable grass-cloth-design paneling for the ceiling ... and a little woodstove with its pipe vaulting skyward through the roof's center ring.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print