How to Live in a Yurt: How we built the floor

First thing’s first! We found the perfect spot for the yurt, now we need a floor. We decided that a porch area would be pretty cool, so we included that in our plans.

First thing to be done was dig square holes for the pier blocks. These pier blocks placed on top of 16" square garden paver blocks provide a solid foundation with adjustable height brackets. We dug and leveled a lot of holes past the “gopher line” so that they wouldn’t mess the with leveling at all.

After the foundation was laid, framing had to go up! We placed 4"x4" pressure treated lumber running cross-ways placed into the adjustable height brackets placed in the pier blocks. The 2x6" pressure treated lumber is run 16" apart and rest on the 4x4" cross support. These were all leveled with the adjustable pier block brackets.

1" wood strips were placed along all the 2x6" floor joists to receive the 1.5" thick foam insulation.

After putting down insulation, time for the tongue-and-groove plywood floor to be installed!

After cutting the plywood floor to a nice 16’ circle, just perfect for the yurt to sit on, we then installed a “bumper board” all the way around the perimeter of the circle so the walls of the yurt could have something to nestle up against. This is actually a little dirty secret because without the bumper board, setting up the walls without them falling off the edge of the floor circle would be muy difficult. With the bumper board it's a piece of cake!

Then the roof rafters can be installed within the metal cable to provide a tension system. Putting up the rafters to the center, circular support is quick but hazardous work without a hardhat. Once the first 8 main rafters are installed the remaining go in quite well. We only had one rafter fall out during the process.