Pallets Provide Perfectly Practical Palatial Platform

UPDATE: August 2018
We had a yurt leak that has lead to rotten "floorboards" but still: 5 years service!

Lessons learned, am now trying to rip it up, and the damn thing is still remarkably solid in most places, regretting the use of screws over nails as that is making the job harder, but conversely - obviously added to its strength.

UPDATE: August 2016 - 3 years in and still holding up

The wood needs the occasional scrub and it is bowing a bit in places, but impressively still there, all things considered.

Original Content:

A fairly obvious project, so more for interest in the sense of "yes, that works" I present our perfectly practical palatial platform, from pallets

Some background

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the deepest darkest parts of Norfolk lies a large legoland estate containing our tiny legoland house. This house has a problem, namely two increasingly large children taking up space with their long, gangling teenager legs, eggs-boxes and modern ways.

So we did the only logical thing possible:

We’ve now put a yurt in our garden
If that seems middle class, beg your pardon
but it isn't pretension
it’s more that an extension
was too much a financial burden

But, before you erect a yurt you need a platform for it and (at the required size of 6x6 m) that was going to be yet another big dent in our non existent pot of gold.

Can you guess what we did?

Step 1: Bits and Bobs

You will need

Some Pallets (6x6m platform = 12 3x1m pallets)

Some previously flattened area of ground

Some weed matting or other semi-permeable sheeting

Some wood treatment (we used this stuff: http://www.lifetimewoodtreatment.co.uk/product/gre...)

Cladding timber (we used some 10mm tongue and groove shed cladding (definitely not good enough to be used for anything solid like a deck you'd be mad)

Lots of screws

Several decent screw bits

A few spare brick, rocks and other precise levelling equipment

And finally, ideally, you need to be a good 40kilos lighter, 10 years younger or just not be a wussy office jockey with not a day's decent manual labour to you because I built this 2 years ago and I still ache.

Step 2: Spray Away

Treat your pallets and cladding

I have no pictures of this, but you still need to do it

Step 3: Precariously Position Pallets

I'm sure you get the idea

Spread your weed matting

Pallets, as level as possible, as close as possible

Prop up with bricks and rocks if (or where) needed.

Step 4: Clad Away

We screwed the tongue and groove cladding to the deck - I know nails would be quicker/cheaper/better etc.

But I had screws

And I figured anything that might help grip it all together was a good thing

Step 5: Ta-Dah! - Just Add Yurt

And there you go

For a budget of about £100 We've a platform that has lasted 2years so far and I think will see us through another winter at least