How to build your own Mongolia Ger

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In Summer, when we were kids our parents would take us for road trips.

During our trips, we have learned many things. And one thing we really liked was building a Ger...

Years later, friends of mine brought several Gers to US. The following pictures were taken while we were building one of their Ger.

I created this article as a reference, in case you ever wonder how Mongolian Ger was made and built.

The step-by-step guide for your very own Ger building project

There are eight steps to build Ger.

1. Putting the skylight up

2. Then the Walls

3. The door

4. The roof

5. The interior roof cover (cloth)

6. The Interior wall cover (cloth)

7. The Exterior Felt cover

8. The Exterior cloth cover.

Ger consist of wood, felt, horse tail, fabric cover and dried leathers. The walls, roof, window, door, and floor is made of wood. The horse tail used at the end where the roof and walls connected. Also used to tighten around the walls. The dried leathers areused to connect the walls together. The felt used to cover the whole Ger around so it keepsthe temperature balanced. As of the fabric cover its used for decoration purpose.

Mongolian Ger aka Yurt Build and Finished

how to build Mongolia ger
The First Step is to put the skylight up... The skylight in Ger is called Toono. It is round and has two long wood stick called Tulguur to hold it up. In this stage you can also assemble and put your floor down.

1.Putting together the Toono and Tulguur

building mongolia ger step 1
Then the walls come along. Because the Ger is round so the Walls should go around and get tied to the each side of the door. The black rope that you see here where the two walls are connected, is made of horse's tail. The horse tail has been used to build Ger for centuries. It is natural and easy to find.

2.Getting ready to make the wall...
building mongolia ger step 2 Most Ger has 5 pieces of expandable walls. This way it is easy to build and rebuild. The long rope like one above used to connect all the pieces together. Then attach the door to the two ends of the walls with similar way. The door comes with specially made design where the walls can easily be attached.

3.The walls connected to the both side of the door.

building mongolia ger step 3 walls
You are almost half way through now. This process usually takes about a hour. Now the walls and door ready, so hold your Toono and Tulguur up. This two are the frame for your roof.

4.Walls and Toon and Tulguur all in place...

how to build mongolia ger 4a frame
As you hold your Toono and Tulguur someone starts to put the roof. The roof of Ger called Uni. There are 81 individual Uni in one Ger. Each has a rope made of horses tale attached to the end where it usually get tied into the head of Walls.

Here we are continue to build the Uni around the walls
building ger yurt step 4b uni

Finally we finished the frame work. The Ger is now ready for its next step.

how-to-build-mongolia-ger-yurt-step-by- step


After all the Unis get tied into walls and Toono, we put the covers. The interior roof cover comes first. The Interior cover is usually for decorative purpose. This will give Ger a warmer feeling since its made of lighter color fabrics. You can have a Ger without interior cover as well.

5.Putting the roof cover over...
building-mongolia-ger-step-by-step-5a A typical Ger has 3 layers: Interior, exterior and middle.

Interior cover made with fabric and it is used mostly for decorational purpose. The exterior cover is to protect the Ger from sun or rain anything may cause damage to the Ger. Finally the middle cover made of felt which has an ability to keep the interior and exterior temperature balanced. Felt is a perfect natural insulator and very light to carryaround.

Putting the interior cover
build-mongolia-ger-step-by-step-cover Now that we finished putting our interior cover, it looked like almost done. You can leave the Ger just like this if you planning to stay there about an hour or so. However, if you planning to be there for long time then you need the felt to keep the heat out. how-to-build-mongolia-ger-step-5c

Putting the wall cover was relatively easy. All we needed to do was unfold our felt for wall and wrap it around the wall. To keep the wall in tact we used the horse tail rope ( whatever the rope the Ger comes with ). We used one rope over the wall itself. The purpose of this rope was to hold the walls in place. And we used two ropes over the felt wall cover. These ropes were to hold the wall together.

6.Now let's put the cover around the walls
Mongolia-ger-building-step-6b

More wall coves coming...

Mongolia-ger-yurt-More-wall-coves-coming


wall is almost done...

building-mongolia-ger-step-6c-wall


building ger step 6d
This is a view inside of the Ger we have just built. It is nice and bright spacious and clean.We loved the beautiful colorful decorations on the Unis. Most families have Ger like this. But sometimes you can have your custom made designs on the Unis. building-mongolia-ger-step-6e

building-ger-step-6f
We needed to make some adjustment, since the part of the felt wall cover was sagging little bit.

It is usually normal since felt can get uneven over time.

building-mongolia-ger-step-6g
This was the view after we built our Ger. It took us about four hours to build this. It was also a good day. No rain, no wind and no shortage of help.

building-mongolia-ger-step-7
The Detailed drawing you see on the door is done by hand. Actually all the drawing one on Get including Uni, Toono, and Tulguur are handmade.

building-mongolia-ger-7b
Now we are putting the felt cover over the roof top. This felt has its special round cut to go around the roof.

7.Putting the exterior felt cover

building-ger-yurt-exterior-cover
Our Ger is almost ready. It just need its outside cover, which made of a special weather proof fabric. The fabric almost has a jean like feel. Once we put that up the Ger will be able to stand any sort of natural test ( excluding tornadoes ).

mongolia-ger-building-step-7d
Finally it is done. We have built our very own Authentic Mongolian Ger.

8.Finished Building Mongolia Ger

finish-building-mongolia-ger-yurt