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You’ve been looking at yurt photos and dreaming. You have your spot picked out. You can envision the finished yurt sitting right there on your spot. Are you wondering what this project entails? What does it take to go from “dirt to yurt”?!
Where will your yurt be?
First, you need land- a parcel that you own or one that you can lease, rent or borrow long term. A Colorado Yurt is intended to be left up year ‘round. Our engineered yurts will stand strong in snow, wind and weather. We recommend that you check with your local building department to ask if your yurt will need a permit.
Next, select your spot on that land. Take into consideration such things as views, prevailing winds, shade, suitability to build a yurt deck and access to utilities such as electricity, water, sewer and/or septic.
Getting ready:
Your Colorado Yurt will need a deck (options are explained here). You will likely need some site preparation before the deck building begins. This often involves moving dirt, leveling the site and digging and pouring concrete piers for the deck base. At the time of site prep, you will also need to prepare for utilities (if you are plumbing or wiring your yurt). This may include extending lines to the yurt site and “stubbing” out for future hookups.
Building the deck can be a DIY project, or you can hire a contractor. We have suggested deck plans that you can use or share with your builder. Often the same contractor can erect the yurt. As the deck is being built, you will also bring the utilities up through the floor to where they will be needed inside the yurt. A floor plan is a good idea at this point. This can be as simple as a rough layout of where you want to have your utilities or it can show wall dividers and appliances. See some suggested plans here. Finished flooring can be done now (if you can protect it from weather) or after the yurt is pitched.
Ordering and Receiving Your Yurt:
You can order your Colorado Yurt at any point in the above sequence. Our lead times vary depending upon our workload and season. Currently, we are 10 to 12 weeks for a yurt order. When you place your order, we’ll ask you questions about your location, how you’ll use the yurt, your weather, and your budget. It’s a conversation where we help you decide the best selection of options to get the yurt you need.
Yurt delivery day will be exciting. We usually ship to you via freight carrier (unless you live nearby- where we can deliver). Your Colorado Yurt comes in several large crates. It helps to have a forklift or tractor with forks to unload the crates. They’re large and heavy. Alternately, you can have a crew of friends on site to unpack the crates by hand. Trucking companies are not incredibly patient, so have your tools and work quickly to disassemble the crates and offload the contents. All the hardware and yurt components will be in the shipment.
Pitching and Finishing Up:
Pitching day(s) need to be warm, with calm winds if at all possible. You and your crew (or your contractor) will need to review the instruction book carefully before starting. A list of tools (including scaffolding details) is included in that book. Your crew should be willing, capable, physically fit people who know how to read instructions. For a small yurt- 3-4 folks can handle the job. For a large yurt, you will need 4-6 sets of hands. Things like wood stove outlets and glass windows are installed on-site.
After the yurt is set up, interior finishes can commence. You can lay finished flooring (if you didn’t include that in your deck build), install free-standing space dividers and/or a loft (you don’t want to attach weight-bearing structures to yurt walls), finish your utilities, set up your appliances and bring in your furniture!
Keep in Touch:
The final piece in your yurt journey is to keep in touch with us. We always love to see in-process and finished photos. Your experiences and stories are important to us. We want to hear from you from planning to pitching to move-in to enjoying your yurt ten years down the road. We’ll be here.
