Build yourself a portable home - a mongolian yurt

Yurt/Gher Construction 101

A guide to Building Yurts...or more specifically, how I built mine!

Based on Knowledge Gained from "Doing it Myself", and reading about it on-line.

I've now built three yurts, for myself and friends, and we go camping in Luxury in these a few times a year.

If you like the outdoors, but you hate having to crawl around in pokey little tents then this one's for you!

We sleep two of us in luxury in this tent, in a full queen-sized bed! Of course, sleeping on the floor, like a plastic tent, you could probably sleep 20 people, easily!. :-)

We have dedicated hanging space for our clothes so they don't crumple or anything, and lockable boxes for our belongings (or a lock on the door works too!)

When we invite other camping-inclined friends over for a party in our tent, we can confortably fit 15-20 people in, sitting around on cushions and lounging on the bed and on the rugs on the floor... now that's what I can a party tent! :-)

If you like pictures, please be sure to have a look at step 9 - it's got over 50 assembly photos on that step alone !

Step 1 Overview of the parts and process.!

I'm going to cut right to the chase, and assume you know the following (in principle):

1) What a yurt is, and what it's made from.
2) How all the components should look when together.
If you've ever seen a yurt in the flesh, or photo's, or read a bit about them, that's enough.

As you can see from the photo/s, there are a few major components, so I'm going to write about each of these in turn, with some background info, and how to make them, and after that I'll show you how it all comes together for the assembly!

• Dimensions and background.
• Timber Components

- wall
- roof
- door.

• Metal Components

- roof hub
- bolts, pins, pegs.

• canvas components

- wall
- roof
- roof cap

• Assembly!

below are a few sample pictures of some components, just for intereste sake:

Comments

[sodaking1]

it all comes down to this haters going to hate. the only thing I can see is people finding fault with something they can't do. the guide look great, who cares what the first pic is or the last pic for that matter. The creator of this, did something that I only wish I could do. Its like the guy said, it's not about what my finished product looks like it's what yours looks like when its finished. Personally I would love to try this and have my own tent that's big enough but durable to move with out distorting the thing

[tricker69]

Awww Geeez, looks like Ive got "another" project coming in my near future, lol. Great instructable. The wife and I have been pricing yurts and been getting sticker shock at the commercial sites. I just want to say thanks for making it look so easy, a caveman can do it. Looks like a great winter project to enjoy in the spring and summer camping season.

[mista.v]

If we can't exactly weld or anything, is it best to try to go through all the work of a wood hub or to make one with PVC or other pipe?

[davidbuzz]

[sarcasm] If I can't fly an aeroplane, is it best to have someone else fly for me, for me to learn to fly, or for me to take the bus? [/sarcasm] Please just think about what you are asking before you type them, alright?

[zleebme]

LMAO :D

[dzent1]

I have been rather astounded at the snarkiness and acid tone of some of the comments about David's yurt. It's an awesome feat of building that he didn't have to share; many of us are extremely glad he documented the process so well.
You guys who quibble and sniff about terminology just come off as pathetic. I don't see any of you publishing your "correct" versions anywhere here, especially in this kind of detail - are you just so hungry for some kind of validation that you have to p*ss on the welcome efforts of real makers like David? Just sayin'...

[sd-shit]

well said dzent1, I love the info here and I'm on to off the grid living, peace, love and unity!

[zzoe]

Hear, hear!

[the doctor who]

i like it but needs clearer pic

[TinkerWorkshop]

FYI, the yurt in the presentation image (the one with an orange door), and the one described in the tutorial are not the same. The yurt with an orange door, the professorially made one, uses completely different technology to be built. The yurt (ger) with an orange door uses two-poles-ring setup, the traditional Mongolian way. Would it not be more useful to have an image of your final product instead of a yurt not made by you?

[Valas Hune]

What is wrong with you guys????
The first thing that is mentioned in the instructable is that the yurt with the orange door isn't his but an original and what the final outcome should be and then he goes into detail about how to do it.

you guys are complaining that you read it and it wasted your time? you clearly missed the first thing he said.
"this is a yurt made by real mongolians! (not by me). You can see mine in the instructable!"

[davidbuzz]

All images in this instructable have mouse-over text that tell you precisely what it is, including the picture you mention. Yes, that's built by mongolians, in mongolia, and it's purely so peoplke can see that their finished product *should* look like when they are finished. It's for inspiration and motivation.

[hannahelastic]

I gotta agree with tinker, using that image as the very first photo is misleading. It's cool you included it for inspiration, but maybe right there isn't the best place for it.

[TinkerWorkshop]

With all do respect... Your tutorial does not describe the way to build the yurt in your title image, building process is quite different. The reason I've looked a the tutorial is because of the first image. I found it quite misleading after looking through the tutorial.

[Valas Hune]

first thing he says in his instructable is:

"this is a yurt made by real mongolians! (not by me). You can see mine in the instructable!"


clearly you didn't read through it.

[davidbuzz]

(removed by author or community request)

[TinkerWorkshop]

Great reply. All your "professionalism" just went out the window. Congratulations.

[cyprian916]

agreed it would be better and also i see no image comparable to the real yurt's picture I.E. a nice picture of the finished product.

[makalove]

[nods] what they said. using somebody else's finished product for your lead picture is misleading. then to discover that you don't even have a picture of your finished product at all was disappointing. please consider revising your instructable.

[davidbuzz]

I agree that not having a picture of my version of the 100% assembled "finished product" is unfortunate, but the simple reality is that I don't have a good one to upload at this time. Attached is a small picture, of a "tent city" with my most recent your ( red roof, white walls) on the left.

[tim_n]

Appreciated to see your Yurt, but all in all it's a circular folding tent which to anyone else looks like a Yurt, but obviously you've attracted some Yurt experts. Shame they didn't post an instructable on Yurts first showing their take. Very much appreciated, ignore the negative comments, I'd prefer to see the lattice bits because that's the most complicated bit to make. Good 'ble and remember guys there's a 'be nice' policy!

[keebmn82]

I take loads of pain killers and even I understood your point. So I dont think its misleading at all. I think some people are overly critical. Great Instructable! Thanks for posting it.

[unusedprofile]

Damn man, thats a nice yurt! ive seen smaller ones used for camping but damn, thats awesome. im going to construct one of these for the summer and go camping.

[phazerave]

very nice. but I have one question, would it withstand burning man... everyone builds geodesic domes, I want a yurt!

[jonnyxx]

I also love it when people start saying it should be called a "ger" and not a yurt.
From what I have researched, it would have been ok for the mongolians to call it either. Gur means "home" so if you used it as your permanent home, you would call it a Gur. If you were on the road, like conquering half the world or something, as mongolians do, then it would have been a yurt as it would have then been just a temporary "dwellling"

I have a question for the physicists out there. I am positioning in an area somewhat prone to lightning. If I was to use a metal Khana (wooden trellis walls), would the metal trellis act as a Faraday cage with respect to protection from lighting as you would get in a car or a plane?
Cheers, jonnyxx.

[jonnyxx]

Hi David. Just discovered this site.
Was amused to read some of the above comments re your yurt.
I have just acquired a beautiful river valley in Tasmania, Australia. It took everything I had with nothing left over for a house so I got interested in DIY which I have never been good at. Anyway, after agonising over all the options, including geodesic domes, mud brick, earth tubes, straw bale, containers and even a hole in the ground, I finally decide on a yurt as being the best way to go given my lack of skill set. Needless to say, I have done a lot of research and now, having just finished the clearing of the land with zero power tools (hard, but the clearance to thinness ratio is high:) I am ready to start on the yurt.
What I loved about your article was your ability to think outside the square and not be bound by a regimented code of "traditionalism" to achieve the desired yurt, esp in your use of the metal central ring.
Also bjurt's rings look pretty interesting too. I don't think I would have the woodworking skills for the traditional ring but metal I can do or get done easily.
Your ideas definitely fall into the many ways to skin a cat category. Many thanks for the inspiration, cheers, jonnyxx.

[Philthy.Sohoza]

great instructable! withw great pics. i was planning on building a yurt a few years back, but life got in the way. i was planning on useing ab old army tent i got at a reuse center where i live. it's about 20ft to a side and 16ft in the center. i'm now planning on selling it because i dont have any room for it. anybody interested? email @ [e-mail] subject: yurt.

[luvit]

dear sir, please make me one in mine town. i will be greatly greatfully grateful. i will need an alarm system.

[msemtd]

Thanks for doing this instructable David. You have put a lot of work into this project and doing the extra work to produce an instructable for it is very much appreciated. I liked how you had lots of pictures of fitting the roof canvas: a roof over one's head is a major step in any building project!

[Honora]

I spent the odd day or night in gers when I went to Mongolia in 2005. I stayed in Kazak gers which being a Turkic nation, they would call a yurt. I can't recall any smell of yak felt or intestinal waterproofing. It is indeed an incredibly practical type of portable housing. They weighed about 250kg (I guess the felt made it heavy) and this could all be carried by one Bactrian camel as has been said on this blog. Regarding the ability to bear snow on the roof: Mongolia is a desert and the rain/snowfall is very low so there is not much snow on the ground. Because of this, some animals (e.g. horses) are liberated in the winter to fend for themselves as they are able to scratchdown through the snow to forage for grass etc. Whatever survives is rounded up after the winter. This may be one reason why horses are given no names. If there is an unseasonably heavy snowfall, lots of animals die and you will see plenty of corpses come the spring. The year I visited, they'd had a mild winter and the animals were in good condition. It is a fantastic place to visit and the people are the salt of the earth. There are no fences. Unfortunately now there are all sorts of unscrupulous foreign NGO's poking about and the wealth difference has escalated, all because there are lots of minerals there e.g. lithium. The general population are experiencing a dire period as none of the wealth will trickle down to them.

[Kryptonite]

I once went WWOOFing on a yurt farm. Good times.

[jimmiek]

I like this .... always wanted to build such a thing ..... I'd like to see how it is dismantled and packed for moving ..... i.e. the lattice work .... does it need to be totally unbolted ..... with 70+ bolts, it doesn't seem that this would go up very fast! Thanks, nice instructable ..... may try it myself!

[davidbuzz]

here's some pictures of the timberwork being folded up, so you can see that no bolts at all need to be undone. It's like 100 pairs of blunt wooden scissors all attached together. ( yes, you can get your fingers stuck!)

[zipknitter]

Great project. I want to build one of these really bad as hubby says he wants to be single again after 40 years, but my being on a tiny($400. a month) income, makes it nearly impossible. Being way out in the country doesn't help much either, but my daughter in law has given me access to 20 acres to build it on. Have gotten enough pieces of canvas to make a yurt 20 ft across, but am wondering just how rigid the upright poles need to be as we get a LOT of snow here and don't think pvc would withstand the weight of snow even with a pitched roof. I would like the top hole covered to keep out mosquitos, or at least shielded, in winter. Could I make a upper canvas circle and raise it a bit above the hole so that the smoke from my stove would waft out without being blown right back down to me? Could it be lowered at night? Have many questions that I just cannot find on the websites that talk about yurts. I helped Dad build houses years ago and have done a lot of remodeling, so at least I am not a novice who doesn't know which end of a hammer to use and have all my own tools.

[davidbuzz]

All your ideas seem reasonable, but you're the one who will need to try, and then tell us for sure. As for the "will it hold up in a LOT of snow", the important thing for you to do is to do an analysis of (a) how much snow cover you get at the worst time of year on a similarly angled roof (b) figure out how much that amount of snow will weight (c) make sure that whatever structure you build is strong enough to withstand at least 3 times that amount ( or whatever safety factor makes you comfortable) (d) enjoy.

[zipknitter]

You came up with a good idea. Last winter we had 8 ft snow drifts piled against the sheds with temps that dipped to -63 here in central So Dakota. Was thinking they would act as insulation during the worst weather. It gets colder in Mongolia but the yurts work great according to a friend that grew up there. With the various types of roofs in this area, figuring out the weight will be a bit of a problem, at least for me. Most have steep pitches that flatten out, as ours does. I called a local college and tried to talk to a dept head about building a yurt and he acted like I was totally joking. Took nearly a dozen calls just to find him, so don't know where to go next. Could not get any answers at all. Think I will need to put aluminum screening across the vent hole to keep skeeters and other bugs out. Have seen yurts on the Oregon coast that had a 2nd canvas cover about a foot above the hole that protected the vent hole from rain, so was hoping that might work here.

[davidbuzz]

...ohm, and don't forget, it's really not about what *my* finished product ended up looking like, it's about how *yours* should look when you make it ( ie the result you are targeting), and the process I followed when I made mine, both of which I have supplied in intricate detail here.

[smeeves]

Simple way to fix the hole in the roof, is to put and umbrella through! Then you can hang a little bag of rocks from the handle so it doesnt blow away. Then the bugs stay out, and its easily removable to look at the stars

[amatureartist56]

I dont see a picture of the triangle or circle that is left over after you cut the wedge so Im not sure how it is put on or tied. Im assuming it is the last step (and covers the hole in the roof ) however you did say you look at the stars through that also. Around here it would let in the bugs especially the blood thirsty ones. So did I miss that step somewhere? Maybe its there but I didnt realize that is what you meant. I was also wondering how both a circle or a triangle worked for this, unless the circle was esentially cut by taking the corners off the triangle, which is probably what was done. I loved your instructable- and thanks for taking the time to do it as well as all the pictures.

[relliotm87]

Hey Mr. Buzz, Im currently attempting a yurt made almost fully of bamboo. Our crop of polystachys vivax(think like 5" bamboo canes) is pushing up through the ground now. Thanks for your thourough tutorial, help alot with the big picture. I will be taking a pictures when completed. I have a question however about your process for "waterproofing" the canvas, i did not see it in your tutorial though i know you mentioned it at the beggining. Ive been experimenting with beeswax but it seems far too energy intesive for how long it lasts and sun will affect it. Thanks again. Rem