Coydon Wallham

For the "Speckled Longhaus" I just completed, all of the upper joinery was between round poles around 1-2 inches with lashings using twine. It was a $5 roll from Home Depot, 9lb breaking strength, of unspecified "natural fibers". I used the whole roll, and can place my full body weight on any of the arches or main spine with the frame being held together by this stuff. The knots were the square lashing at intersections and the sheer lashing (without frapping) to complete the arches.

I cut the ends of the arch poles with my 1" tenon maker and stuck them into deadman(?) logs in a gravel trench. Those tenons however were the weak point of many arches that broke on me when completing the arches. If I do something like this over, I would simply anchor the frame with holes and "gravel socks", expecting only a few years use out of them.

On the canvas, the 12oz "duck" cotton canvas I bought for the yurt and used on the Longhaus has kept water from leaking through the main sections, but does wick through where the support poles (uni rafters) touch the fabric, resulting in drips here and there. The site I bought from, bigduck.com, has 3 or 4 types of untreated cotton canvas and I am still trying to decipher exactly what each one specifically entails. Regular duck is described as having HD yarn used in one direction, but lighter yarn in the other. "Army Duck" is described as having HD yarn in both directions so is tighter of a weave and gives better water resistance. I'm still not sure how to compare the 10.5oz Army duck they sell with the 18, 21, or 24oz regular duck weaves as far as overall performance in a tent situation, looking to pool Permie knowledge on this one...

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:

Coydon Wallham wrote:How arbitrary and used are the "living room" and "dining room" designations?

They are pretty accurate. But the dining room has a door out to a deck in the back yard. The back yard has the wood shed 75 feet away. So I think Peter is right that it makes the most sense to build a shorty in the dining room side.

What I'm getting at is that if the majority of the mass is to remain in the current "dining room" and hence the more cozy, welcoming space, could it become the more used recreational area with the current "living room" becoming the occasional space for more formal meals?

John C Daley wrote:Why is this term used, uni (rafters)?

Uni is the term for the parts that run from the wall to support the center ring, which is known as the khana. The Uni support the fabric for the 'roof'. I'm not sure if these terms come from the Turkish or Mongolian cultures, but they have been common in the literature I've read.

As far as I know, the closest equivalent in English to the Uni would be a rafter.

paul wheaton wrote:Stephen thinks we should build a hypocaust.

I can't think of any structure there that would work with a hypocaust unless it were redone from the foundation up. Would he be suggesting a new building, say up in ant village on some allocated plot that happens to be in the process of development or anything...?

(I told Kate that the Loo With a View thing would end up going to his head...)

Glenn Herbert wrote:From my experience sewing tent roofs to cover a 28' x 18' portable building with a 2x4/6 framed hip roof (three iterations over a 30 year period), simple 1" overlapped seams triple stitched along the selvages running vertically work fine without leaks. This is the same as commercial canvas rental tents before they went to plastic roofs. I did use flat felled or similar seams for the hip ridge seams, as they were cut on a significant diagonal and I didn't want fraying to be an issue.

In the rush to make progress on the original structure, I think I just glossed over this comment. The flat felled has certainly worked for me here, but sewing it for long seams is a real time sink. Does the triple stitched overlap only work for selvedge edges? I'm guessing the direction of the overlap on those could be shingled to prevent leaking if the seam were not perfectly vertical?

John C Daley wrote:I am wondering how this project went.
I found this site which was mentioned early in the discussion. campingyurts.com

It could be said this went too well. Five years later and I am so comfortable in this yupee (yurt) that I haven't gotten around to finishing the next iteration, other projects are taking precedence.

The key of course is the RMH. It is doing an awesome job, but the next yurt will include an RMH that heats an insulated floor. Once done, I will rehab the current one for better efficiency.

Feedback on the current structure is that the tung oil coated frame has been flawless. Along with the 45* roof slope, it has withstood all of the snow loads thrown at it. I had an original tension ring around it in the Manilla Hemp rope that snapped, but the structure held based on tension from the wall fabric and I replaced it with polyester rope.

The doors have been less than ideal as I never thought them through in the first place. A few times a year I rig up something with lath, carboard, staples, etc. to deal with the upcoming season as well as possible. These are also on the top of the list of complete redos once a second yurt is done.

The roof jack for the exhaust stack of the RMH has been worth the month or so it took to initially build and install it. Once or twice it has leaked a few drops in a rain storm, nothing disasterous. The window was at first a pain to open and close (but very helpful to have as an option at the peak of the structure), but then I noticed the edge of the window just barely catches on the edge of metal overhang from the other side, so now I can just pop it open and closed from the ground with a stick. The small window does a great job of lighting everything up on a sunny day.

The final problem has been the cover. I mentioned previoiusly here that it was "12oz" canvas, but I was mistaken. It was #12 duck, which is 10.5oz canvas, about what bluejeans are made of. The south side of the top is now riddled with holes. It looks l ike a weird planetarium sometimes with the dark blue background and specks of light spread around.

One thing I noticed is that the big box lumber I used for the uni (rafters) was not completely dried. With the heat of the noon sun hitting the dark blue fabric, sap will still ooze out of spots around knots. Also I am set up under some large Red Pines and they occasionally drop some sap. Seems to me the sun hitting either of these sap points is causing the fibers in the canvas to degrade. The North side of the top has spots with dried sap on it, but no holes.

Once the cover for the new yurt is done, redoing this one with #8 18oz fabric will be the priority.

None of the stitching has shown any sign of failure to date. I used extremely high grade (#138?) nylon thread the first time. The Longhaus shed tarp was done with #69 since I couldn't locate that massive spool of the other stuff I bought back then...

Jay Angler wrote:I would go with making a lath sandwich, but at the end may want to do a half roll to the inside, so that water running down the tarp doesn't sit on the lath and soak through?

If I was going to sew something like that, I would do it by hand with a back stitch, so you're going over segments of the bug screen.

I'm not exactly sure what "charcoal aluminum" is, but it doesn't sound like something I'd want to try sewing on a machine.

I'm thinking I should find the tiniest screws I can that will go through both pieces of lath to minimize the size of the holes in the cloth and the screen. Any other fasteners that would be a strong option here? Maybe a good excuse to pick up that brad nailer/stapler to add to my cordless tool collection, but trying to save up for a new roll of canvas is the priority.

I would screw them together, then roll up the hem to save going through an extra layer of fabric and not expose the screws to the runoff. That would be with an idealized tarp model. However, this tarp has the tie off nylon loops along the edge, so rolling it over would not be an option from what I'm thinking. The tarp is vertical at this point, so any moisture soaking through would not go further in to the shelter than what is already likely to splash through the screening. I would think the lath would last a few years like this, especially if I take the time to give it a tung oil treatment. Probably not worth the time and cost of the oil though...

"Charcoal aluminum" seems to be aluminum based with some paint fixed to it for corrosion protection (and visibility improvements). Some other stuff I have that looks similar I think is fiberglass, and the aluminum is much stiffer and more substantial. They say it can stand up to cats playing on it, so hopefully decent enough shear strength for this application.

Jay Angler wrote:I always thought that if space wasn't a factor, a fedge* on top of a hugel would at least make the deer work harder to get in!

*My word for a hedge that's also a fence.

If it were dense enough to block views I bet it would as deer won't jump if they can't see a good landing spot...