Anyone live in a dome year-round?

[neccessity]

My husband and I are talking about buying a house, and keep coming back to the idea of a dome home. I figure y'all are the most likely slice of the population to have researched this and maybe gone ahead and done it! Anyone? Even good bits of research from those who've considered it would be muchly appreciated!

[capjbadger]

I love my dome, but as a temp structure. Dome are cool and all, but if you ask around, specially builders, they will tell you that dome have many issues as a perm structure. most of them are trying to get the damn things to match the loacl building codes. The other is the shape lends itself to alot of waste material and odd angles.

The human body is pretty much rounded squares. You fit best in like shaped objects.

Read through the info here. Alot of good info to seriously ponder on before making a choice. CHeck up on your local/state building codes too.

With all that said, I love my dome for burning man. I just added a second story to it even.

[LeChatNoir]

An insulated dome or yurt (on a raised, insulated platform) would probably work well in the right environment.

For a little more permanent structure, have you checked into Concrete Dome Homes?

You start with a round concrete footer, then the company that you hire to build the dome come in and hooks to the footer, a thick rubber balloon in the size/shape of the dome you want. The balloon is inflated with forced air and the inside is first sprayed with 6" of expanded foam insulation. Then concrete ties are embedded into that and followed up with 6" of Gunite (sprayed concrete) which is troweled smooth on the last application.

After it all sets, the fans are turned off and you have a dome ready to build into. The outside can be finished with concrete as well (i.e. stucco) or even buried underground.

[gyre]

I know of people in two states living in domes.

I talked to Buckminster Fuller about handmade domes.
If his advice would be helpful, email me.

[capjbadger]

I'd be very curious to hear what Fuller had to say on the subject.

[neccessity]

I'd be very curious to hear what Fuller had to say on the subject.

Yup, agreed! Spill it (please)!

[Rabbi Dali Rick]

Yes yes do tell.....





the rebbi

[diane o'thirst]

There's a town near me (Lorane) that allows any type of architecture. Someone had built a subterranean house down the hill from where I used to keep my horse. It was standing empty at the time. I looked into the price and was told $36,000. I thought, "Now, there's gotta be a catch there somewhere."

There was. The house was infected with killer mold.

I thought about putting a down payment on it, then gutting it, and building a slow fire to turn it into an earth oven to kill the mold but if mold shows up once, it will again, so I abandoned the idea. Last I checked (about a year and a half ago) it was going to be razed. So if you're thinking of building a hobbit house, MAKE DOUBLY SURE you protect against mold and mold-promoting conditions or you'll lose the whole shebang.

With my carcinogen hyper-awareness, I've given some serious thought to buying yurts and connecting them for my domicile. I know at least three families that have done this and have heard of more. The thought was to do a 30-footer as the kitchen/greatroom, with four doors at the compass points. The east and west doors lead to 24-footers (bedrooms) with 16-footers (bathrooms) connected; the north door leads to a 12-footer (pantry). Build a strawbale or poured earth-and-reclaimed barnwood platform and located utilities in the walkout basement, sink for geothermal, woodstove heating in the greatroom and bedrooms and solar power. We have enough of a water table around here to sink at least one well for the water.

[theCryptofishist]

But build appropriate to the climate. Adobe's great in the southwest. In other places...

[Lassen Forge]

But build appropriate to the climate. Adobe's great in the southwest. In other places...

I'll sell you a nice adobe in Seattle...

>giggling furiously<

I know someone who lived in a traditionally built Yurt out in the Sierra Foothills. It wasn't bad, however it was horribly hot and muggy in the summer. IN the winter, however, it didn't take much wood to keep it toasty warm.

I think (my opinion) if you did a yurt dwelling, you'd want to get a reflective (or white) top for each of the buildings, to try to shade the heat off the roof during the summer months. And make sure you had a good crossvent plan for it - had that couple's yurt been ventillated and shaded, it would have been a lot more comfy...

Back to adobe, tho... if the bricks are done right, and protected from rain and weather, it can last a loooong time. Lots of examples of those in the North Bay Area, a lot of Vallejo's buildings on his various properties were adobe, some of which are still standing 150 or so years later.

bb

[theCryptofishist]

One problem with domes is there is a whole lot of wasted space. There's the place where the floors and the walls come together (too low to put much of anything there) and the center (high celings, hard to heat.) The 2nd can be somewhat remedied with a loft, but then you have the wall/floor interface thing going on. Standard furniture isn't going to fit easily and if you have one large dome rather than several interconnected, it's going to be hard to divide it into rooms.
I have a friend who's dream is to build his own home and I've followed his experience on and off for 15 years as he works on designs, reworks and discards them. He's looking for a cheap, easy, appealing, easy to care for, environmentally friendly building and compromising between those various constraints makes it very interesting. Last I heard, it was concrete barrell vaults. The info on domes is partially from him.

[Badger]

My husband and I are talking about buying a house, and keep coming back to the idea of a dome home. I figure y'all are the most likely slice of the population to have researched this and maybe gone ahead and done it! Anyone? Even good bits of research from those who've considered it would be muchly appreciated!
_________________

My buddy Rick lives in the Sierra foothills adjacent to an intentional community. He's lived in his yurt for 7+ years and loves it. Granted he bought the biggest model that Pacific Yurts (http://www.yurts.com/) was making at the time and he's tricked it out with propane heat, solar panels and satellite computer access (he subcontracts for Hewlett-Packard). Still swears he wouldn't do anything differently.

The facility where Burning Man has its post-event retreat (Wildwood) has a massive yurt set up on the property where at least 8-10 people sleep. With solid wood floors and a very nice heating set up I've found it pretty damn comfortable the times I've been up there. Again, I thin it is a Pacific Yurt.

[gyre]

As you probably know, he was very interested in efficient manufacturing.
I had the Domebooks with all the math in them.
When I met him I asked him about building a dome from scratch.
He seemed enormously irritated at the idea, because he always wanted to stamp them out on an assembly line in steel. Simple and very low cost.
He said they were justifiable for special purposes- portability or wind drag (handbuilts).
I don't think he would have ever built one except as a prototype for mass production.
His advice to me if I wanted an efficient building vs an art statement, was to go with the most practical commercial building practice in my area. At the time that was steel construction and still is. It varies in some areas.
Steel prefab homes are available that look conventional as well. A used steel building may be relocated with almost 100% efficiency.
Some of you may know about Lustron homes which were manufactured some time ago with a porcelain coating. I tried to get one from the govt. but the rules were too expensive for me.
Containers can be adapted for construction. Some were in use at burning man. I have recently used cargo trailers and at a certain age you cannot build a dog house for the cost per square feet of these. Again, it's the efficiency of mass production. Insulated containers are available as well as truck trailers. My cost is under $5 a sq foot. If I located them as a building I would add an attic for heat shielding.

Talking with Buckminster Fuller was a wonderful experience.
He was fascinating and I think he has been very misrepresented in some of the documentaries about him. He wanted us to do things efficiently, so we would be able to do more things, have more choices.
I think he probably smiles down on the domes on the playa.
They usually withstand the wind quite well, don't you think?

If you really want to build a dome, don't let any of this stop you.
Just know what you're getting into.

[theCryptofishist]

His advice to me if I wanted an efficient building vs an art statement, was to go with the most practical commercial building practice in my area. At the time that was steel construction and still is. It varies in some areas.
Steel prefab homes are available that look conventional as well. A used steel building may be relocated with almost 100% efficiency.

That's a lot of what Steve distilled with his experience as well. And try to think of the building in 5, 20, 100 years and even what will happen to it when it's torn down.

[gyre]

I have heard of people using the caps of grain silos as domes.
Fuller adapted similar buildings for residential use.
An intriguing idea is putting a smaller one inside and pulling a partial vacuum on the air gap in the middle for insulation.
The strength of the curved shape would be a plus for this.
I have seen the idea tested and it seems to work if you have an airtight seal.