Setting up a yurt is a fun experience, and can be done both alone and with a group of friends / people you've bribed into working for food. It varies in time depending on the size of the yurt, and only requires machinery if the Yurt is 30 feet in diameter or bigger. For experienced individuals, setting up a small 15-20 foot yurt can take a day as two people, or two days as one. For bigger yurts, it usually takes between 3-5 days - and for the biggest yurts it usually takes a week as scaffolding becomes a requirement, as do machines.
Setting up a Yurt is normally done following the blueprint / guide that came with your Yurt. It is super handy when you're setting it up onsite, but not very handy when you're looking to gain some knowledge ahead of time. So that's what I'll be covering here - with resources at the end of the post for video's I've found that showed the process pretty well, as well as PDF's / websites that give more information on the process.
Note: This assumes a western Yurt, and not a Mongolian Yurt with its center post, also do your own research as well, as there are bound to be things I miss in this post.
Note: Pacific Yurts and Yurts of America both come with a guide - other manufacturers may not.
Building a foundation for your Yurt is a relatively recent thing. The original mongolian Yurt, called Gert, didn't have a foundation: It was placed directly on the grass.
Today however, we realize that worms and beetles are not the most interesting bedside fellows, so a foundation is greatly advised. There are usually two foundations made for Yurts:
There are a ton of reasons to use one over the other, but the most common is the raised wood platform. It provides an option to place the platform on concrete posts, making the structure more earthquake and windproof, it can influence the amount of light in wintertime where you need sun the most, and it can provide storage underneath the structure.
As this post will not be covering this, I recommend looking into other resources for this - I've placed a couple at the end of the post under the Video section.
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Description of Insulation and the purpose of it - why there are 2 of them
Attaching the first insulation layer
Attaching the second insulation layer.
Attaching first insulation layer
Attaching second insulation layer
Foundation:
Yurt Platform Build - Layout and Piers - JoeSimple on Youtube.
Yurt Platform Build and Yurt Assembly - GypsyCat Homestead on Youtube.
https://www.yurts.com/downloads/ - has an immense amount of information, though most is Pacific Yurt specific.
