Tuesday, December 21, 2010

How to move a yurt platform

After taking the yurt down, we still had some daylight, so we started working on the platform, but it took all of the next day to finish taking it apart, and a Julie and I spent 1/2 of a 3rd day wrapping up. The platform was way more work than the yurt. Keep that in mind if you ever think of getting a yurt quick-and-easy structure. (It is possible to put them on the ground with no floor, but that's more temporary.)

Taking apart the platform was so hard that I wrote a question about it on the Home Improvement Stack Exchange. From that question:

Decking was 1 1/8" tongue-and-groove plywood, fastened with 3" Robertson (square-drive) screws. The deck was painted after installation, so some paint was in the screw heads. A regular cordless drill wasn't strong enough to turn these screws, but an combination drill / impact-driver was able to do it. However, maybe 1 in 10 screws had their drive heads stripped instead. Too much friction / too much torque. We used a Sawzall to cut those screws out. Went through 4 Sawzall blades.
Framing was 4" x 6" joists on 4" x 4" posts on concrete piers. Most lumber was pressure-treated, but about 1/3 of the joists were not. Beam-to-post caps were nailed in to the joists and posts, 3 nails on each side. We spent a lot of time hammering a Cat's Paw under the nail heads, and then prying them out.
Insulation was 4' x 8' sheets of 2"-thick foil-faced foam board, between the joists, secured with 1/2" x 1" lath strips, which were fastened with 2" screws. To be able to get the Sawzall in to place, we crawled around in the dirt under the yurt to remove the foam. These screws were also hard to remove, and sometimes we had to break the lath instead.
I was tired after each day of work, but the 3rd day left me deeply exhausted. The work of loading 30 concrete footing blocks kicked my butt. Many of them I had to carry up hill. I'm guessing they weighed 50 lbs each, so we put 1500 lbs of concrete in the back of the truck. Maybe more.

My new yurt location is pretty flat, so I don't necessarily need the posts. I can just lay the joists directly in to the brackets on the concrete footer blocks. However, I'm considering using the posts anyway, just cut short (6"? 12"?).  It would be easier to crawl under the yurt with a little more space. Getting all 30 blocks in just the right location, with the ground under each block perfectly flat, is tricky. Making all the blocks be exactly the same height is even harder, but cutting posts to the same length is easier. Also, I already have all the posts and brackets I would need. Downsides are more fastening required and the need for steps up in to the yurt.

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