Thank you for the IM reply, and good to see you back!

We were within two weeks of purchasing land to build on, when an offer we had placed on an existing forclosure a few months prior was accepted.

The property adjoining our new place is for sale, and I'm still dreaming of owning a monolithic dome some day.

Thanks for the reply 1BB.
Glad to see you back.
This is still my favorite thread on Arfcom.
Hopefully you will start another so we can see what you're doing now.

glad to see you're still around.

hey, 1BB good to see you back

Welcome back.

How do these do on resale value and for getting comps of appraisals.   We have a log cabin and to find an equivalent home for comps is impossible.  


Are they tough to sell?  While they are totally awesome for the SF Arfcomer, most people do not want to be that different.    Even when you show them the advantages, most will end up in a cookie cutter home in a row with the next one.

Hey thanks. It's nice to be back for a while and read some old threads.

As far as resale value, most people who build a dome have lived in the cookie cutter type homes, or other conventional homes, and now know what they DON'T want. So they really start doing their home work and when the person who builds a dome actually pulls the trigger and builds it, it's their last home.

To date, every dome I've built, every one still has the original owner living in it.

One man said it pretty good, he said I can't afford to leave my dome. He went on to say that I am so used to paying $30 to $40 a month to heat my 3,500sf dome in northern Wisconsin, that I can't afford to move into a conventional built home and start paying $200 to $400 a month or more to heat it. He said plus my insurance is so cheap because I have no roof or siding, and the inside is built with steel studs and very fire proof, and the windows have a life time warranty non prorated so if they break, it's a free replacement. He said I don't know where I would go and keep my current standard of living.

In short, domes are not built by first time buyers or young people still living in their fantasy world of how life is going to be for them with their little white picket fence out front. They're people who know the real cost of home ownership, and have grown up and put their fantasy life style aside and stepped into reality and are thinking of their future and their children's future. They're pretty much settled in in life and traded in the two seat sports car for the mini van, and now they're doing the same for a home.

Really, I've seen basically three types of people who build dome homes. First are the very wealthy who want something very different from the norm. Next are people in construction and see how the domes are built and understand what they are and have me build them the shell, and they finish off the interior and save a lot of money. Finally, I build for people who think like we do here. They want to be ready for what's coming down the road. All of these types are not the kind who build with the plan of living in it for five years and selling it for a huge profit.

I know that doesn't answer your question the way you want it to, but it's like asking Jay Leno what's the resale value of his car collection. He doesn't care because that's not why he bought them, and he planned accordingly, and people who build domes are thinking along those same lines. Most don't even have a mortgage. They did their buying and flipping and now they're done with that, and paying cash for what they really want.

I remember talking with one man I built for back in 2002 or 03, and he said he bought a place on a corner lot for "X" amount of dollars, I can't remember, but I do remember what he said next, he owned it for 4 years and sold it for almost $75k more than he paid for it and he almost doubled his money he said. We laugh and said this rate is impossible to keep up and it will come down. He said, yes, and I plan on having my forever home paid in full before that happens. He had it paid in full before I even started building it, and I doubt he cares about resale value or anything like that.

People who build these, don't really think like the rest of the population. It's like my father said to me way back in the 70's, he said in order to understand what's going on in this world and how people are trying to control and enslave everyone, he said you have to think like them. He said normal people think in terms of a few years at most, like in 2 years I want a new car, in 5 years I want a new home and so on.

These people think in terms of generations. They think like this, if we can create a problem and pass laws like the crash of the stock market in 1929, then we can work on getting off the gold standard, and even get everyone to buy into the social security program for their "PROTECTION" and we can get everyone a "NUMBER". If we can get everyone a SSN, then my grandchildren will be able to accomplish the next phase of slowly controlling people. These people do not think about a new car or a new home, they think about NEW WAYS TO CONTROL PEOPLE AND MONEY and how they can set up their future generations to further that goal of control. It's nothing short of good and evil fighting before our very eyes........if we would just OPEN THEM.

Anyway, like I said, people who build domes don't think about comps or things like that, and 99.9% are not first time owners and think very differently about home ownership and what it means these days.

so how are prices doing, seems like the airforms and foam have increased a lot.

Yes OSR, you're right. Blame it on the cost of oil.

Last time I really ran the numbers, I figured the cost to build has gone up close to $7psf for domes 2,000sf and under and over 2,000sf the cost starts going down, but it's still $3 to $5psf more than it was before.

Oh well, look at the bright side, you can afford the higher cost to build because you healthcare insurance is going to be so much cheaper because of the ACA.........right? I mean that prick with ears wouldn't lie to us.......right?

Hi 1BB, great to see you back!

Are you still working on Independant and partnered projects, or have you been taking on any "normal" contracted home dome builds?

I'm still in a holding pattern trying to get my backpay out of uncle sam, but our case should exit the "discovery" phase soon.  They've stalled us for years, but they are going to have to cough up what they owe us sooner than later.  Or lawyers have them by the balls, so it's just a matter of time.

I still want to get a dome built too!

so what could I build with 40k these days?
(have 50k on hand but need at least 10k for well septic power hookup etc)
inside materials could go on CC for a while...

you could build a 24' shell  

i was in email communications with monolithic and she told me between $125-135/sqft for a finished dome.

I think he said their estimates are very high

 

How is wireless (cell phone) reception in these?  Have you heard of anyone installing a faraday cage in their dome?

That's a feature that would be fantastic if you were able to plug in to the world when you want to be connected, and then unplug and be protected, but I'm not sure how possible that actually is.

Can they be buried or covered with dirt?

I understand they are strong enough as a stand a long, but just considering a little out of sight out of mind thinking.

Thank you,

nct

Yes they can be buried.

 

So, I've been looking at the Monolithic site and I really like this "courtyard" concept:  





I would use the domes a bit differently than these folks are, but the idea of having a courtyard surrounded by smaller, interconnected domes intrigues me.

With as tightly sealed as the domes are reported to be, I would think having a reflecting pool indoors would be a formula for mold problems.



 

I always liked the Torus ones, they make a courtyard but with a more regular outside.  I think a controlled, protected space could be very useful in a lot of situations.  The old Roman compounds were like that, and Jeff Cooper liked it too.

I think it would make one hell of a daycare building

 

I think the 'Home Theatre' would be a tremendous draw for the majority of the public!

the torus are a hell of a lot of surface area (cost) for not all that much interior space I think

Thanks Emag for the link and picture.

nct

This dome was really built. I'm not sure if you seen the pictures of the inside and read the story, but here's the link. As always, click on the pictures to make them all larger to see. I'm not a fan of the hippie colors, but whatever blows their hair back, works for me. It's their dime, and they're free to live in what they want. The inside is VERY nice though.

http://www.monolithic.com/stories/feature-home-arizona-xanadu


As far as the mold issue inside, that's not an issue. In order for mold to grow, you need moisture to condensate on the concrete walls, and it won't. The reason why is because the concrete walls are the same temperature as the air inside the dome. Since they're the same temp, there's no vapor drive like you have in a basement.

Ever go into a basement and notice how musty they smell? That's because of mold. The reason you have mold in a basement is because the concrete walls are almost never insulated from the ground. Now the walls are colder than the air temp and makes the whole basement cooler and a moisture magnet.

Vapor drive is when water goes from hot to cold, like when you take a hot shower, and your mirror fogs up or you set a cold drink on a table in the summer time and the can or whatever instantly has water beading up on it. That's because the mirror and the can are cooler than the air temp, so they suck the moisture out of the air and onto the cooler surface.

Since the dome shell and my floors when we pour them, are all insulate with foam, every inch of concrete inside the dome is insulated, it's the same temp as the air, so you have no vapor drive. No vapor drive, no moisture on walls, no moisture on walls, no mold, no mold no musty smell.

I'm sure everyone has seen a garage floor wet in the summer time. It's the same thing, the concrete floor is cooler than the air temp, so water condensates on the floor. I've heard so many people say moisture comes up through the concrete from the ground, but that's not true at all. It's also why you never store anything directly on a concrete floor.


As far as building underground, the standard engineering for a dome is strong enough to withstand being buried 20 feet, but I would make sure you tell them you plan on burying it before they draw up the blueprints just to make sure.

1_BIG_BUNKER, what about wireless signals?  Are there any issues with signals not getting through the dome, or of cell phone signals being weaker?

Have you heard of anyone intentionally adding a grounded mesh to create a faraday cage to block radio signals?  I would think that this would be easy to add and would be an obvious feature that anyone building an emergency shelter would want to add.

Yes, if you're underground, forget it or if you're in a location where service is "IFFY" to begin with, then you're probably SOL as well. Other than that, I haven't noticed or had anyone complain about cell signal.

We built one dome where the guy wanted rebar touching and right next to each other to make like a steel shell. He did not want ANY signals getting through. The problem was, neither could shotcrete. It's funny when someone gets something in their head, how hard it is to change their mind. We ended up layering rebar and off setting it just a little from the layer before it and everything tied in together and grounded with copper. With what we had in that dome, we could have built 7 or 8 normal domes. His dime.

I can't honestly say that a dome built to standard engineering specs is going to be any great faraday cage. The rebar is 12 inches on center and I would think any radio signal would pass right through that hole. Now if you were to plan ahead when you did your rebar, and you tied onto the rebar some sort of wire that would extend into the dome but not interfere with applying the shotcrete, and used that wire to tie the fine wire mesh faraday cage against the shotcrete and then applied more shotcrete over the wire mess faraday cage, you might have something.

I would still keep sensitive items inside a REAL insulated faraday cage inside the dome. I'm honestly just not comfortable saying that they will work and everything will be fine inside a dome if an EMP were to take place. I would ask some who's A LOT smarter than me that question. I take building these very seriously because I know people who are wanting them for more than just a home, are counting on me to give them the straight skinny and I'm just not sure what the correct answer is here. I've asked a lot of people myself, and I get as many different answers as people I've asked.

Electricity is a funny thing, one man can get hit by lightning and walk away with a great story, the next man can plug in a toaster and be dead before he hits the floor or some where in between where it turns him into a Sunkist Orange, all juice and no seed. In other words makes you sterile on the spot. Remember that old commercial? Who knows what will happen and why.

You also have to be careful when grounding the rebar. All your rebar has to be in concrete. If it's exposed, it can slowly rust and in 150 years or more, it can start compromising the structural integrity of the dome by slowly rusting up inside the concrete. That's how bridges go to hell. The rebar rusts, and expands and breaks the concrete. Granted it will never have a catastrophic failure in the life time of our great grandchildren, but still, we want something that will last long after everyone has forgotten who built it, and by that I mean 500 years or more at least.

I remember David South saying that what they really shoot for is a building that will last well over a 1000 years with minimal maintenance.

Visitors at the Falls Church, Virginia bubble houses also known as “Igloo Village,” 1942. Photo by Wallace Neff. Image from from “No Nails, No Lumber: The Bubble Houses of Wallace Neff” by Jeffrey Head. Princeton Architectural Press.





http://blogs.kcrw.com/ipp/inside-the-last-bubble-house/

I remember these  Wallace Neff airform bubble houses in Falls Church, Virginia. They were torn down in the early 60's and replaced with an apartment building.

Dang those folks look like they haven't had enough to eat.

Yeah, I know just enough about electricity and electronics to get in trouble.  I guess I'll need to do some research if I remain interested in this.

Your answer was exactly what I was looking for.  Thank you!

That's pretty cool. Since they're reusing the airform, they're more like the ECO Shell with no spray foam insulation, but then again, spray foam wasn't around back then either.

The Monolithic dome you don't remove the airform or reuse it.



I just found an interesting youtube video Monolithic did about how bullet proof a dome is. If you listen at about 5:47 you'll hear the inside camera pick up the 30-06 hitting the dome and ringing inside.

The dome they said is a 40 foot dome, so the wall is 3 inches of foam, and 4 inches of shotcrete with #4 rebar 12" on center.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KauzsxSMdXk

Anybody else going on the tour of homes on October 18-19?
http://www.monolithic.com/topics/dome-tour

I'm interested in the brick wall style. To make sure I understand. The ring beam is still below grade and the interior of the brick is has rebar and shotcrete over it so the interior still looks the same as the standard airform.

Yes, the ring beam is still in the footing.

The brick wall actually has something similar to a rebar sticker that's used in the foam to hold the rebar against the wall inside the dome. The only difference is it is flat with little ears that stick up and down and go in the holes of your bricks and mortared in place. Then there's a piece of wire that's attached to that flat piece that goes inside the dome. You spray foam over it and the bricks, and then when hanging rebar, you tie it off to the rebar inside the dome. So basically, your brick has more holding it in place that just mortar incase of bad weather and flying debris hitting the bricks and "POSSIBLY" knocking them loose.


As far as using field stone, I had person ask me to do that with an old barn on his land.

I was worried because the mortar holding the field stone in one area wasn't the best. Long story short, we fixed it, and then formed up a squared off area on top to attach the airform, added rebar, and ran the rebar inside to be tied off to the dome shell rebar, and then poured the top.

We then sprayed foam against the rock, about 4 inches worth. We did this before attaching the airform because putting air pressure against a square rock wall is not a good idea, for the same reasons water heaters are ROUND and not square. The pressure could possibly push a wall out. Concrete or rock walls are great in compression, but poor in tension. That's why you see steel rods wrapping silo staves. Silage would just blow the slaves apart, but in compression they're fine. Like a water heater that has 40 psi of pressure inside it, that's 40 pounds per square inch and you have 144 square inches per square foot, so that's 5,760 pounds of force per square foot pushing out on that water heater, and that's why they're NOT square.

You want strength, REAL strength, you build it round. Remember, an EF5 with 300mph winds is only 2.7 psi over pressure and look what it does as far as damage, but that's still over 388 pounds of force PER SQUARE FOOT against a wall. It's no wonder why wooden buildings blow apart. In a dome, the wind goes AROUND the dome so the full force can never even be put on the dome, and what does hit it, it is compression and playing to the strength of concrete.

The foam I used was 3.6 pound foam and had 55 psi of tensile strength which greatly increases the rock walls ability to take that outward push we were going to put on it.

Then we put the airform on the edge we built, said a prayer and inflated, and built the square field stone wall dome like we do any other dome built like this. Of course a ring beam has to go on top around where the airform is mounted too, but that's all in the engineering and I'm not getting into that right now.

Remember, once you put shotcrete inside the building, square or round, that outside rock, brick or just airform material really does nothing as far as holding up the dome. The rock or brick wall does nothing that the airform material wouldn't be doing, except it will stop bullets, and looks nicer. You're still building a dome the same way inside after you spray foam against rock or brick or airform material.

Ok Thats what I thought. Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking of doing new construction with the field stone so it could be round with new mortar obviously. I was planning on doing cultured stone on a stick built house but after reading this thread and looking at the piles of stone in the fencerows doing the dome seems like a good idea.

If you want it to look more like a traditional home, but still have all the benefits of a dome, watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOmMAMEI0HI


It's a video of how a small rectangle dome cabin is built, but the same idea is fairly easy to enlarge, and instead of the airform going to the ground and attached to the footing, you could build your stone wall, and attach the airform to the top of the wall. Then build your rectangle dome like a normal dome, but with a traditional look, and have all the strengths and benefits of a dome.

The one we did was up by the UP in Michigan, and we built another just south of Iron Mountain Michigan.

Very cool video.  Any idea on ballpark price for one of those small units?

Well, this, or one with a flush toilet?

If you look, there's no plumbing. I'm NOT into all those eco friendly crappers.

I would also put a better floor in it, because since you're building on site, it won't be moved. Also, it will be just materials, and no labor. I'm assuming you're doing it yourself outside of the foam.

So, we'll add in flush toilets, and add 3 feet to the OAL length for a bathroom, so let's say it's 12x28 and make our floors 4 inches thick with foam under it.


Airform.....................$3,500

Floor.........................$700.

Foam........................$3,500  contracted out

Rebar.......................$600

Shotcrete.................$1,000

Misc.........................$3,700   Door, window, electric, rough in plumbing, small electric or LP water heater, site prep, and bathroom complete with stand up shower.

Total........................................$13,000

I'm probably a little high, but it's nice to have wiggle room. Also, this is buying off the truck and no mixing your own concrete, and it's a little larger with a bathroom.

Excellent, thanks.  I was just wondering for a general idea.

Might have to look inot this for a garage/shop space

So I am working on a plan for a 2 car garage with a shop area that I would like to be able to heat/cool. Would you be willing or know a company that would come to the Minot ND area?

bump

We toured a few domes during the tour last fall.

Started out with the Claddagh Dome, in Azle, TX  The hosting family was very nice and had a cool log of their energy savings over time.  The home was really cool and I liked the look of the brick and the tile/shingle things on the exterior.  The inside was incredible.  They had built it out to suit their needs and it was great to see the ways that they made efficient use of the shape.

Then we went down to the Monolithic HQ and saw all the domes there.  You can see a list of the domes here:  http://www.monolithic.org/topics/residential-dome-tour

Very interesting and seeing the domes has only cemented my desire to build a home out of domes.  I highly recommend taking advantage of this tour this fall.

Oh, the only thing I saw that concerned me at all was while touring this dome:  http://www.monolithic.org/stories/shamrock-chateau-italy-texas   In their living room, there was a weird acoustic trick that I stumbled upon.  There was another couple on the other side of the room whispering to each other and I could hear them like they were whispering in my ear.  Kinda weird.  Kinda cool.  Kinda scary if you're hosting a BBQ or something.   (Reminded me of my tour of the US Capitol.  In the original room where Congress met, there were two points marked in the floor where the acoustics did the same thing.  I'm told that a couple of politicians took advantage of this to discuss things without anyone else knowing.)  Anyway, that made it very clear to me why many of the domes had hanging tapestries and acoustic panels.  This wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting a dome home!

So I haven't been down this road nearby my house in some years. What do I find?

At least a dozen monolithic dome homes and outbuildings.
Very neat.

I've been looking at the monolithic cabins as a in-law suite kinda setup on my property.   They seem very pricey, but otherwise neat.  
Would love to build something larger, but my budget is around 35K.  Would rather not have something stick built.  


Pros:  Small, sturdy, insulated, tornado resistant, very low maintenance.    
Cons:  EXPENSIVE per square foot!

Monolithic Link

Kinda like this:

This may have already been asked but about how much for a 1000sq ft dome run to be built? What all does the price include?

 

can't let this archive  

I'm hoping 1BB will find this thread again.  I'm not sure if this has been asked already, but I'd like to explore the stem wall idea.  What is your opinion of a stem wall made out of ICF?

Found the answer to my own question.  Half the insulation is on the exterior and is less effective.

bump ;)

1BB,
any new, fun projects?

Me and the fam went to Italy, TX to tour some of the domes again this year.  After thinking about them for a year, it was cool to be able to go back and ask all the questions that we wish we had asked the first time.  I'm pretty sure we're sold.  If we can afford some land, our next home will be in a dome.

Actually multiple domes, as we want to create a courtyard surrounded by domes.  Something similar to this:

I always liked the torus shape that does the same thing but with one big airform.  I love the idea of the secure courtyard, like an old Roman house.

DaTrue, what would something like that cost?  And does one lose the efficiency of a larger single dome for heating and cooling?