Jenny and Harry's Yurt

[glenn kangiser]

Jenny and Harry (Harry51) are getting progress going on their Yurt (house type as opposed to tent type), just a few thousand feet up the mountain from my place.  Harry's place was where the fire people nailed down the Telegraph Fire on this end of MT Bullion.

Since muldoon made a quick visit here, we wanted to let him meet as many of the CP members as possible, and Harry invited us to drop by to see what he was up to.

Here is a shot of Harry and muldoon looking over his project. 



hmm Looks like I annoyed them and they were actually looking at me.

...and here is another one of the sidewalks we poured -about a week and a half ago.  Yeah -- I actually worked on that part of the project as well as on the wall pour with Harry and crew. 



You know, Harry hmm this part of your project gives me butterflies...



So -- now it is started and if Harry doesn't get to posting once in a while- maybe I can help him update it.

[Redoverfarm]

With that view it sort of looks like here.  Get Harry on the ball Glenn as this would be interesting to watch the progress and the finished product.

[glenn kangiser]

Jenny and Harry can nearly see to the Pacific ocean from there - probably about a 300 degree view with just the mountain behind him - Coast range on a clear day.

Harry has been going to post some but he's been busier than a one legged man in an -ss kicking contest.... make that busier than a cat covering up crap...

I think he is committed now as there are some materials sitting around just waiting on him.

[harry51]

By way of background info, our project began about 15 years ago when we followed a sign we happened to see on a weekend drive in the hills, advertising property for sale. The road degenerated from good to cow path, requiring 4wd if you wanted to drive, but when we came to the end, the views were breathtaking. We were hooked.

We called the realtor, gave him $50 earnest money, and made an offer. It was accepted, and so started our journey. The first thing was to install a substantial gate. Jenny's dad gave me some 4" pipe and some assorted smaller pipe and steel, and I built one. We installed it, and that stopped the local kids from using the property as party central.



The property came with a couple of deeded easements through it, so I built a multiple lock arrangement to avoid having a chain with a bunch of locks in it. One of these days I may put a plate steel guard on it so only the bottom of the locks would be accessible. The guard would also protect the bolt between the gate and the gatepost. I hope I get around to repainting it some time soon!





Next, we fenced the two open sides of the property, which amounted to 1 mile of iron posts and barbed wire to install up and down the mountain through the brush and rocks. After that, we improved the bad part of the road leading to the upper end of the property so we could build where the views are best.

Jenny and our dogs discovered a spring one day while I was working on the gate, and after digging it out with an excavator, Jenny and I developed it and piped it to a 3000 gallon tank. We installed a 13,000 gallon tank just below the upper property line, and put in a half mile of pipe between the two. I built a pump station at the spring tank, using a vane pump from Grainger's powered by a 8hp Honda gas engine. It pumps about 1000 gph against 600' of head. I built a 40'x50' steel building between the upper tank and the spot we picked for the house, so both are supplied with water by gravity.

Since this county allows a separate permit for the septic system, we built it first.
That process is detailed at: http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=944.0

We wanted a house that would take advantage of the views, and we chose to go with a 50' yurt with 20 sides, bought as a kit from Oregon Yurtworks.

http://www.yurtworks.com/ 

It will be 1937 sq. ft of living area sitting on top of the same area of drive-through garage, root cellar, and storage below.

I have undertaken to build the house from the foundation up through the living area subfloor. The kit as we bought it consists of the wall sections and the roof sections. The kits usually come with floor sections as well, but I chose to build my own floor with parallel joists as opposed to the wedge shaped sections the factory supplies. The kit walls come with windows, doors, siding, rigid insulation, etc., installed. The walls are 94" wide, and will be set with the crane. Two steel cables with turnbuckles go around the circumference of the erected walls at the top. Then a 6' steel ring is supported above the center of the building and 20 glulam beams are bolted to it and to the walls. Another steel cable is threaded through the glulams just above the walls, and the triangular roof sections are screwed to the top of the glulams. The roof sections come insulated, roofed on the outside with 40yr comp, with 1x6 tight knot cedar board ceilings on the inside. Once the cables are tight, the falsework under the steel ring is removed. The center of the ring is covered by a triple wall, electrically operable plexiglas skylight with rain sensor. We get a nice breeze up the hill most afternoons in summer, and we hope the combination of open windows below and open skylight above will result in useful cooling. Our part of the roofing will be to flash and roof around the steel ring, and roofing the seams between the roof sections. We will have a 4' overhang all the way around the house, which will keep much of the summer sun off the walls, but still allow solar gain in the winter months. We will have an elevated deck around the house, except on the side where the lower story is earth sheltered, where the deck sections will be poured concrete.

So, as is visible from Glenn's pics, much of the cement work is now finished. Since he and Muldoon visited, I've completed the waterproofing of the back side of the retaining wall. We started with a coat of HLM 5000 rolled on about 3/32" thick. Then we covered that with Miradrain 2000 thimbleboard, which will direct water down to the french drain at the bottom of the wall. 

 

We shot the Miradrain onto the wall with Glenn's powder gun, (Thanks for the loan, neighbor!) then glued the built-in filter fabric overlaps to make sure they stayed put during the backfill operation. Here Aaron demonstrates his deadeye marksmanship with the contact cement.

 

Finally, we installed flexible perforated pipe covered by clean 3/4" crushed gravel inside a geotextile envelope. 



After an inspection by the county, we backfilled behind the wall. We used the Case 350 loader to take dirt from a narrow alleyway behind the shop building. That was a win/win situation, as the access to the shop is much better with a wider alley. We moved the dirt with a dump trailer Jenny inherited from her uncle. The dump bed on the trailer was originally mounted on a chain drive dump truck built in the 1920's or earlier.



The loads averaged about 3 yards. We made 49 loads to fill the hole. Took about 2.5 days to get it done.



Here's Tom pushing the dirt in behind the west butterfly wall....

[glenn kangiser]

Oh - there he is now.  Thanks for the update, Harry.  Looking good.

[Sassy]

I like the butterflies!     Good progress...

[harry51]

Here are some pics showing the process from bare ridgeline to where we are now.

Here's the excavator preparing to cut the pad into the ridge.



We did run into a rock or two..........



We dug the footings with my bro-in-law's Case 580C. There were lots of boulders in the way, so the footings got kind of wide in places.............





Here we are with the forms in place and the rebar going in.



We're ready to pour!



Access to the pad is tight, so we used a boom pump.............



And the fun starts!



The fun continues...........



And continues into the night!!!!



The next morning things looked good as we kept the green slab wet.



We set the heavy steel door frame to the root cellar so we could integrate it into the wall rebar. Aaron guides it into place as I run the crane.



The rapiform clips for the wall forms, the wall rebar, and the keyway to anchor the retaining wall.



A longer shot of the wall rebar, the cellar door frame, and the rapiform clips.



This is the jig we used to build the outer wall form panels. They were made of recycled fruit bin plywood and the slab form boards. It took about 15 minutes to build each section and swing it into place with the crane, including cutting the 2x4 and 2x8 seam boards. We had it all up in half a day.



Swinging in the last outer form panel.



The panels were held together at the radial line angles by these chevron braces.



Another view of the outer form panels in place. Because of the geometry involved, the inside form walls and the cellar walls on both sides had to be pieced together in place. Aaron and I worked for days to get that part done.



Top view of the completed wall forms.......



A high level conference.............



All the forms are completed here, and we are erecting the scaffolding. Almost ready to pour, finally!



The wall is poured!

[harry51]

Quote from Glenn "...and here is another one of the sidewalks we poured -about a week and a half ago.  Yeah -- I actually worked on that part of the project as well as on the wall pour with Harry and crew."

Yep, he did, and it looks good. First time I ever saw a concrete edging tool with a long handle so you can do the job on your feet instead of your knees. Worked like a charm!

Glenn, thanks for setting up a place for us to post. I'll do so as we move forward. Sassy, thanks for the kind words about my Mariposas (butterflies)! I hope you'll get up here to see them one of these days.

[glenn kangiser]

No problem, Harry.  I saw way too many pieces of important information in your project to not get you started here so others could learn from your experience.  Nice way to document it for family and friends also.

The edger was what we always called a walking edger.  I like it because it is easy to go entirely around the project while the concrete is wet and it gets things taken care of fast while it is easy.  A few more times around as it sets up and the job is finished easily without killing yourself.  Let things get away from you a little bit and all of the sudden everything is getting away from you while you are trying to fix all of the other problems.  Soon it is too late and you have to accept an inferior job that could have been pretty decent.

The walking edger is about 6" x 8" or so and finishes far enough in so the finished area can join with the area finished by the bull float and Fresno trowel.

I originally learned of the Rapiform clips here on CP from Mike T and passed the info on to Harry.  Thanks, Mike.

[cordwood]

Nice portable compressor I just hate waiting on those little pancake ones 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Wow, looks like you're going to have great views!  I can't wait to watch it progress.

[harry51]

Nice portable compressor I just hate waiting on those little pancake ones 

Thanks! Makes the old Dodge ride better, too!

[harry51]

Wow, looks like you're going to have great views!  I can't wait to watch it progress.

Thanks, Homegrown, that's why we picked this spot on the property to build.

Here's the San Joaquin Valley socked in with fog... can't see the coast range on the other side in this pic, but many days they're crystal clear even though they're about 50 miles away.



Here's sunset on a foggy day down in the valley....



And here's our view of 13,000' Mt. Dana and Mt. Lyell behind Yosemite....



Here are a couple more fog pics, taken 12/3/08 and 12/4/08

[Whitlock]

Wow-neighbor you have a nice view!
Your place is looking good

Don't know if I meet you at Glenn's house after the fire but If not I'm sure we will meet soon.

Later,W

[harry51]

Thanks, Whitlock! Yes, we did talk briefly at the post-fire party, but I think about that time the call to eat came along!  Come on up and check out the view sometime! We share our driveway with the Roses. Just keep going uphill to the white gate with the sun design in it. If the gate's open, we're there. Go through it and follow the address signs until you come to the buildings.  It's about a mile from the road to the buildings. I'll be there tomorrow most of the day.

[Whitlock]

O.K. sounds good I'll stop by around noonish,W

[harry51]

See you then!

[Bishopknight]

Wow this is coming along amazing. Pump trucks are expensive, I'm glad I didn't need one!