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alrighty I have always been interested in this and have been looking to build my own home for a while, as well I work for the state so I have lots of time off and little pay
On your projects do you use a removable airform, or consider that part of the cost and coat it later? Is it reasonable to use something like a 15' or 20' eccoshell2 which is seems cheap and handlay the concrete to make a complex over time? I assume when using an uninsulated airform repeatedly you would foam the outside and then apply the bedliner product you mentioned? I see some discussion of less strength for handlayed vs sprayed and lots of arguments over cold joints? |
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Who is John Galt?
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So at 10K sf, a roughly $35/sf dome costs me 350K.... put in 50K for windows/doors/vents, etc... and you're up to 400K
Not sure what interior build would cost, but 400K is pretty cheap for 10K sf of living space. |
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Originally Posted By booger-hooker:
1_BB it's great to see you checking in again as I always enjoy reading your stories and the answers you give to everyones questions. Someday I'd love to attend one of your dome construction sites and assist as it would be quite the learning experience for possible construction of a small dome in the future (distant) on a remote piece of property. I only wished I had saved the pictures of that dome you were building that had all the large tiles in the floor...I'll have to do a search and check the archives now. i believe feral linked to that thread on the first page. |
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Originally Posted By RoadWarrior:
So at 10K sf, a roughly $35/sf dome costs me 350K.... put in 50K for windows/doors/vents, etc... and you're up to 400K Not sure what interior build would cost, but 400K is pretty cheap for 10K sf of living space. I am not really sure what you want here. I mean 10,000 sf all on one floor is a HUGE dome. That's 115 foot diameter dome if you want 10,000 sf all on one floor. This isn't the best way to go, because you will have enough room above you to have two maybe three more floors. You could have another 15,000 sf of living area above you. Kind of a waste of space if you ask me. Now if you don't mind stairs, or even a small elevator, then you can build an 80' dome which is 5024 sf on the first floor, and the same on the second floor. Now you have your 10K in living area. Even 5024 sf is equal to a building that is over 70' x 70' in size. If you yourself were to build the dome shell ONLY and made it 80' wide and 35' tall with the wall going up flat for 10', it would cost about: Airform ===== $28,000 Shotcrete ==== $21,000 Foam ====== $15,000 Rebar ====== $13,000 Floor ======= $12,000 Misc. ======= $20,000 Total ============ $109,000 These figures have been rounded up each time, and the shotcrete on the walls was increased to 6'' thick bottom to top, and not 4''. This will give you a dome with a 5024 sf floor and room for another full 2nd floor and even a 1000 sf loft above the 2nd floor if you want. Here is a surplus 110 foot dome. It is $29,033. Look how many floors you could have in it. Just some real quick number crunching, this could be built for less than $220,000 if you did it yourself. Can anyone say 1 BIG BUNKER? http://www.monolithic.com/stories/surplus-airform-110-x-45 The above dome has 15,865 square feet over the DOME SHELL. The 80' x 35' dome has 8870 square feet over the DOME SHELL. Now look at how many more square feet of living area per floor you end up with for just double the dome shell square footage. Originally Posted By Orion_Shall_Rise:
alrighty I have always been interested in this and have been looking to build my own home for a while, as well I work for the state so I have lots of time off and little pay On your projects do you use a removable airform, or consider that part of the cost and coat it later? Is it reasonable to use something like a 15' or 20' eccoshell2 which is seems cheap and handlay the concrete to make a complex over time? I assume when using an uninsulated airform repeatedly you would foam the outside and then apply the bedliner product you mentioned? I see some discussion of less strength for handlayed vs sprayed and lots of arguments over cold joints? We never remove the aroform from a dome. Once foam is sprayed on the aorform, it take a dozer to pull it off and I am not joking. You end up ripping them all to hell. Just leave it on and it is the same as a rubber rook. Coat it in 20 years will a polyurea (truck bed lining) or whatever they have by then, and call it good for the next 100-200 years. Never again will you or your kids put a roof or siding or paint on that dome. I am not sure what you are asking as far as the ecoshell, but you can build it all by hand over tim. Just don't think that you can spray foam over the dome in a few years and turn it into a monolithic dome. People have tried that, and it never really works. Foam does not go on like paint. A good foamer can get foam to lay fairly even, but it will always be very uneven. Now you have to coat the foam, and keep it coated because foam degrades at a rate of 1/16'' per year when exposed to UV rays. Now you have to paint it, or spray polyurea on it. Then there is something that no one thinks about and that is your doors and windows. They are now set IN and when water runs off the dome, it will funnel right into the window and at some point, you will have a leak and a mess. When we build a Monolithic dome, we PUSH the window and door frames OUT just a little until they tip away from the dome slightly and they are sticking out of the airform just a little. Now we wrap the airform around the frame and it never leaks. It is hard to explain, but it works. You won't have cold joints in the dome unless it is smooth. The dome is very rough and each coat we do it never completely set up before we are throwing on another coat, but if it was, it wouldn't matter. A cold joint forms because 99% of all concrete is poured OUTSIDE and they do not keep the surface moist while it is setting up. Now what happens is the surface dries way to fast and this causes cracking and flaking down the road. Since we are inside, the air if filled with moisture and the walls are very moist. The shotcrete sets up slowly like it should. Concrete does not dry, it bonds with water like an epoxy. If that water evaporates like what happens outside, the cement has nothing to bond with to make concrete and then it cracks and flakes away. How can anything stick to that? It can't and you end up with cold joints. You need good concrete and it can not be smooth if you want to layer it. If it is smooth, then you have to coat it with a bonding agent that you can buy at a supply store or call your concrete company and ask them where to buy it. Then you can put another coat on without worrying about a cold joint. Again, this is hard to explain, but easy to show. Only the last coat do I mix up my "SPECIAL" shotcrete batch and put on the final coat. I actually had a few families tell me that they wanted MORE texture to their dome because the walls were TOO smooth. They asked me why we ran hand troweled the walls and we didn't. We have it down to where we can spray shotcrete and put just about as smooth a surface on a wall as you would want for a textured finish. Originally Posted By booger-hooker:
1_BB it's great to see you checking in again as I always enjoy reading your stories and the answers you give to everyones questions. Someday I'd love to attend one of your dome construction sites and assist as it would be quite the learning experience for possible construction of a small dome in the future (distant) on a remote piece of property. I only wished I had saved the pictures of that dome you were building that had all the large tiles in the floor...I'll have to do a search and check the archives now. Come on over. Next week I am heading south to get a few things lined up. I will be there for about three years. I am not sure what happened to that post I started. Are you talking aboyt the actual construction of the dome or the other one with the interior? I think I even started a couple others. I can't remember. |
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Originally Posted By Subconscious:
Big Bunker, when I win the lottery I'm giving you a call. |
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Originally Posted By Subconscious: Big Bunker, when I win the lottery I'm giving you a call. Same here. |
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TANSTAAFL!
Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did. |
from what 1BB has pointed out in this thread, you don't need to win the lottery to have a good sized super efficient, not to mention impervious to just about everything, house.
i read 1BB's post about pricing to my wife and she said, "let's get our place spruced up, sell it, start looking for more property and let's build a dome". |
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A couple of foreclosures in my neighborhood just dropped my house's appraisal value from 170k to 40k, so selling it to buy a dome isn't exactly within reach right now.
I'm in pretty good shape financially, but a large part of that is because I know what is in reach and what isn't |
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TANSTAAFL!
Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did. |
I've got about one more year to look and then I should be able to buy my property that I want to build my dome on. The only sure thing is now I know the next house I build will be a dome. Now comes the hard part finding the land and paying for it and the dome.
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I thought you might like to read an email I received last night.
I keep in touch with everyone I have built for. Last night I received an email from a family I built a double dome for back in 2004. He said he is putting in a new wood stove that I haven't heard of before, but he said it will really drop the cost to heat his home. Here is the email he sent me. If anyone is interested, I will give you his email addy and you can ask him about it yourself. I know he wrote up a referrel for me for my business plans, and he said he heated his home for $400 for THREE winters. That comes to $135 per winter in Minnesota and his dome is just over 2400 sf. Here is the email he sent me EXACTLY word for word, but I did remove the names in the FROM and TO part. ––––- Original Message ––––- From: To: Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:14 PM I am really curious .. Did you build any of the other domes in Minnesota. I guess there are about 4 others. Also how are things going with your plans of building several hundred down there ..??? Otherwise we are doing fine with ours. The big change we will be making this coming winter is a new Garn wood burning stove. They are as different from other stoves as Monolithic is from other houses. I am expecting to heat my house, other garage , hot water and clothes dryer for $20 a year. How is that for low cost of energy?? –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.92/2202 - Release Date: 06/25/09 17:58:00 I do want to say that if you put a wood stove in one of these be VERY careful about the amount of wood you put in the stove. A little story about what happened to my friend who we built a 40' x 21' dome. Total SF in it was about 1800 sf between two floors. I went over to see him one day and I looked up and around the top of the dome where his chimney for his wood stove is, and it was all dark brown. I asked him what happened? He smiled and said well, the temp outside dropped down to about -30 and we thought it would be a good time to try out our new pot belly wood stove. It is nothing high speed, low drag, just a cheap stove. He said they only ran the floor heat for the bath room floor because his wife likes a warm floor. The rest of the dome heat zones were shut off. He said it wasn't cold in the dome, but we were going to shut off everything and just burn wood and see how much it took. He said we filled up the stove with just a few sticks of wood, nothing major at all, and ran to town for something and came back an hour later and he said the dome must have been 140 degrees inside. He said the heat hit him like when you open an oven door. He said I could not believe how hot it was and how quickly it got that hot. They opened all the doors and windows even though it was -30 outside. He said all the concrete was so heat soaked that they had a very warm home for the next week with no heat needed at all. After things calmed and cooled down in the dome, they notice that it burned the top of the domes paint and it turned brown. Good thing concrete doesn't burn. Now he said all he needs to heat it is ONE stick of wood about the size of your forearm, and he throws it in the stove in the morning and it keeps the dome warm all day. He said he can heat his whole home on less than a half a pickup load of wood a year in northern Wisconsin. He said plus I do not need to pick up BIG chunks of wood and split it, small stuff is all I need and that is easy to handle. And he was grinning like a rat eating cheese when he said that. |
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Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
I thought you might like to read an email I received last night. I keep in touch with everyone I have built for. Last night I received an email from a family I built a double dome for back in 2004. He said he is putting in a new wood stove that I haven't heard of before, but he said it will really drop the cost to heat his home. Here is the email he sent me. If anyone is interested, I will give you his email addy and you can ask him about it yourself. I know he wrote up a referrel for me for my business plans, and he said he heated his home for $400 for THREE winters. That comes to $135 per winter in Minnesota and his dome is just over 2400 sf. Here is the email he sent me EXACTLY word for word, but I did remove the names in the FROM and TO part. ––––- Original Message ––––- From: To: Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 9:14 PM I am really curious .. Did you build any of the other domes in Minnesota. I guess there are about 4 others. Also how are things going with your plans of building several hundred down there ..??? Otherwise we are doing fine with ours. The big change we will be making this coming winter is a new Garn wood burning stove. They are as different from other stoves as Monolithic is from other houses. I am expecting to heat my house, other garage , hot water and clothes dryer for $20 a year. How is that for low cost of energy?? –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.92/2202 - Release Date: 06/25/09 17:58:00 I do want to say that if you put a wood stove in one of these be VERY careful about the amount of wood you put in the stove. A little story about what happened to my friend who we built a 40' x 21' dome. Total SF in it was about 1800 sf between two floors. I went over to see him one day and I looked up and around the top of the dome where his chimney for his wood stove is, and it was all dark brown. I asked him what happened? He smiled and said well, the temp outside dropped down to about -30 and we thought it would be a good time to try out our new pot belly wood stove. It is nothing high speed, low drag, just a cheap stove. He said they only ran the floor heat for the bath room floor because his wife likes a warm floor. The rest of the dome heat zones were shut off. He said it wasn't cold in the dome, but we were going to shut off everything and just burn wood and see how much it took. He said we filled up the stove with just a few sticks of wood, nothing major at all, and ran to town for something and came back an hour later and he said the dome must have been 140 degrees inside. He said the heat hit him like when you open an oven door. He said I could not believe how hot it was and how quickly it got that hot. They opened all the doors and windows even though it was -30 outside. He said all the concrete was so heat soaked that they had a very warm home for the next week with no heat needed at all. After things calmed and cooled down in the dome, they notice that it burned the top of the domes paint and it turned brown. Good thing concrete doesn't burn. Now he said all he needs to heat it is ONE stick of wood about the size of your forearm, and he throws it in the stove in the morning and it keeps the dome warm all day. He said he can heat his whole home on less than a half a pickup load of wood a year in northern Wisconsin. He said plus I do not need to pick up BIG chunks of wood and split it, small stuff is all I need and that is easy to handle. And he was grinning like a rat eating cheese when he said that. You have me convinced lol now I just gotta get things paid off. |
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OK, yes 1BB, you answered my question...that's even cheaper than I expected then. 10K sf of living space around me would be about a $3M house even in today's market.
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Originally Posted By RoadWarrior:
OK, yes 1BB, you answered my question...that's even cheaper than I expected then. 10K sf of living space around me would be about a $3M house even in today's market. NO HOME is worth $100 a square let a lone $300 a square foot in ANY market. People have become so greedy it is ashame. I had one guy say to me that he would NEVER build for anyone for anything less than a 75% profit. You can make a lot of money and at the sametime be very fair about it. People come to me all the time and want a HUGE home. I always give them the same answer. I tell them to never get money from the bank unless it can make you money. I tell them let's work together towards a common goal for us both. I want to build something and make a little money off of it for the rest of my life, and you want a beautiful home with no mortage payments. So let's work together. I said you have $300K to build a home. Let's build smaller homes at MY cost which is about $30-$35 psf and rent them out. I said for $300K we could build almost 8 rentals that are 1200 sf each and be worth close to $1M. Rent them out at at $650 a month when everything else is over $800 a month and smaller, and we can cash flow $5200 a month. The mortage is less then $2000 a month. Take out an EASY equity loan for another $500K and build a crap load more and NOW we build YOUR dome home at MY COST as well. Now the rentals which are always filled because they are about 20% cheaper than anything else around, will pay us both a monthly paycheck plus you mortage payment on your new home. I said in less than two years we would be worth $2.4M and cash flowing over $13,000 a month with a total motage payment of under $7500. Your whole pay check is now free and clear to do with whatever you want. I always get the same answer, I do not want to worry about rentals or the hassle or whatever. I said fine, then get up everyday and go to work because at work there is NO worry in having and keeping a J-O-B. I have learned people are pretty lazy and always want the easy way out. I try to tell them that people do not make millions by working two jobs and over time or in the stockmarket. The really wealthy people in this world are developers or own porn web sites. No body gets wealthy, AND has a life to do as they please by working their ass off. But what the hell do I know. I said even if the market drops out of everything, we are into these for $35 psf so we will NEVER lose money unlike the market. They rent so cheap, that SOMEONE will always be renting them. If you lose your J-O-B you still will not lose your home. I never could get that through the heads of young couples. They ALWAYS wanted everything right NOW and not wait or work for something. Older couples understood and said I wish I met you 40 years ago. We would have retired when we were young and actually enjoyed life instead of working ourselves to death. |
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so is 35/sqft finished estimate or bare shell?
How much does shell cost increase per size? what would a general estimate for a 800 sqft vs 1200? It looks like the basic skilled parts are making the circular footing, concrete, slab and foam? the rest of it is rather standard base labor someone reasonably hand could do thereself, put up the shell, dry it in and put in a bathroom and you basically have a habitable structure that you can play with interior finishing later? say 10k lot, 10k for well/septic/power hookup and 20k to throw up a shell of 800 or so sqft remotely feasible? |
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Who is John Galt?
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That's it. I'm going back to the sandbox and build one of these when I come home!!!!!!! I've wanted to do this since I helped do one in 1981 and just forgot all about it. If the wife doesn't like it she can find someplace else
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Originally Posted By Orion_Shall_Rise:
so is 35/sqft finished estimate or bare shell? How much does shell cost increase per size? what would a general estimate for a 800 sqft vs 1200? It looks like the basic skilled parts are making the circular footing, concrete, slab and foam? the rest of it is rather standard base labor someone reasonably hand could do thereself, put up the shell, dry it in and put in a bathroom and you basically have a habitable structure that you can play with interior finishing later? say 10k lot, 10k for well/septic/power hookup and 20k to throw up a shell of 800 or so sqft remotely feasible? Shotcreting is the hardest part. You really only get good at it by doing it a lot. Spraying shotcrete just takes time to get the hang of it. There is no other way around it. making a round floor is easy, but making a round floor that has flat spots and maybe multiple domes it a little trickier. That airform has to fit that floor exactly. There is not much room for error. I am not qite sure what you are saying about put up the shell and dry it in and put in a bathroom. Is that all you want for now? I will just layout the dome shell for now and you can tell me what I didn't answer. The $35 psf is a turn key dome if you don't get carried away and crazy. Here is the break down. For a 32' wide x 18' high to include a 9' stem wall going straight up, comes to area feet or surface feet OVER the whole dome shell at 1821 AF and for the floor square footage, it is 804 SF. This will give you a second full floor if you want it or a half floor with a 32 foot balcony or whatever you want. Two floors will give you 1608 SF of living area. Cost to build the shell: Airform ===== $5200 Foam ====== $3000 2.3 sets @ $1300 a set, Double this if contracted out. This is also COMPLETELY insulating under floor and footings. Rebar ====== $2550 7284 lbs. @ $0.35 per pound Shotcrete ==== $2900 23 yards @ $125 per yard Floor ======= $1800 18 yards @ $100 yard, Again double this if contracted out Misc ======= $10,000 Rough in electric, plumbing, forms, wood for windows and door frames, prep ground. Most of the time it's half this. Total cost to get the shell up for a home that is 1608 SF is $25,450. This is about $15.83 per square foot for a 1608 SF home. So add another $20 psf to finish off the inside or about $32,160 and you are at the $35 psf cost to build. You can bring this figure down, or you can run it up FAST, depends on you, and what you want. It also depends on how much you want to do yourself. Now the cost for a 36' wide x 18' high to include a 9' stem wall. The area feet is 2035 and the floor area is 1017 SF per floor. A full 2nd floor makes this a 2034 SF home. Cost to build the shell: Airform ===== $5800 Foam ====== $3400 Rebar ====== $2900 Shotcrete ==== $3200 Floor ======= $2400 Misc ======= $12,000 Total cost to build just the shell is $29,700. This comes to $14.60 psf to build the shell for a 2034 SF home. Again, add another $20 psf to finish off and you are at $35 or so. Even contracting out certain things, you are still under $40 psf. Plus my misc is kind of high, but I like wiggle room. In both examples, the numbers are rounded up. Like the shotcrete was $3125 for 25 yards at $125 a yard, and I rounded up to $3200. So there is wiggle room in every figure that is around $100 or so. In either case, you will have a dome home where the walls go up flat like a silo for 9' before they start to curve at all. The 2nd floor in either one, a 6'6'' tall man will be able to get to with in about 3' of the edge of the dome before his head will be hitting the dome. No one gets that close to a wall anyway. All furniture will be able to go dang near to the edge before hitting the dome wall as well. The other thing to remember is that doors and windows are openings and foam, rebar and shotcrete are not in there. If we have say 10 windows and each are 3'x5' that comes to 150 sf plus two doors of 21 sf each or 41 sf, we can subtract almost 200 sf in the cost of the dome shell construction or about $2500 to $3000. Again, this is just more wiggle room I figure in. Another thing, if you mix your own shotcrete, you can do it for about $55 a yard and save yourself $70 a yard. That's what I did when building homes, but on a larger production scale, you need to buy off the truck as you are going through 20 to 30 yards an hour all day long. No way can you mix that much. Now we mix ONE yard and get it on the dome wall every 15 minutes. This way is good for a home owner because we save $1610 on the first dome that's 32' and $1750 on the 36' dome just by mixing our own shotcrete. |
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1_BIG_BUNKER, do you have any thoughts on ICF houses? I'd love to build a concrete house one day but I want something very traditional looking. I am thinking an ICF house, with a basement and concrete floor/ceilings. Maybe even a secret tunnel going from the basement to a storm/bomb shelter a little way in to the back yard.
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1BB...agree...the best deals are win-win deals. It's the way most successful business people operate if they really want to create something of value that stands the test of time.
The quote I gave is literally for a 10k sf house very near to me, on the market for $3.2M....absolutely no takers right now though. Your points are well-taken on creating rentals, pricing to keep occupancy up and building equity to leverage....it can still be done in this day and age. Luckily, I've made my money - and can afford the "big house" |
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"Another thing, if you mix your own shotcrete, you can do it for about $55 a yard and save yourself $70 a yard. That's what I did when building homes, but on a larger production scale, you need to buy off the truck as you are going through 20 to 30 yards an hour all day long. No way can you mix that much. Now we mix ONE yard and get it on the dome wall every 15 minutes. This way is good for a home owner because we save $1610 on the first dome that's 32' and $1750 on the 36' dome just by mixing our own shotcrete."
What concrete pump do you use? |
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Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
Another thing, look at the very poor shotcrete job that was done on this dome where the dome starts to curve at the top. You can clearly see the rebar lines. This is what happens when people build their own dome and have not had much experience spraying shotcrete. They are rolling the shotcrete because their angle is all wrong, and either to far away or to low of air pressure. The building is sound and no weaker than any other dome, it just does not have the clean look to it in my opinion, but what do I know, they're happy and that's all that matters. http://www.monolithic.com/stories/feature-home-annarbor/photos Yep. Before I went to the workshop, I purchased Monolithic's tapes and watched them. The tapes told you about the correct angles for spraying. When I went to the workshop and we were spraying shotcrete, none of the other students were spraying at the correct angles. They kind of skipped over this in the instruction there. I am not knocking Monolithic, I got a lot from the class, and they covered a lot in a week with thirty some students. And I don't find that this gets much discussion on the Monolithic bulletin board construction threads. You are right, this is very important and does not get emphasized enough. Some poor jobs and lots of wasted shotcrete as a result. You are the first one I've seen emphasize this since I watched the tapes many years ago. From what little I know, I can see that a good nozzle man is very valuable. |
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I notice that we mentioned windows in a previous post. What kind of windows do you recommend and install??
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I would like more information.
-where are the water & sewer lines? are they laid ut then th slab poured over them? -where are the home runs laid out at? slab or in the wall? -once the dome is sprayed how are you attaching interior walls? I'll keep adding questions. |
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Couple questions
Is it possible to build a ICF stem wall then add the dome? or is it a solid cement, will the interior foam be a problem? The ICF would make it easier to add plumbing/electric then cover with drywall. Wrong/right? Can you cover the exterior with a cement/epoxy base vs the urethane. I'm thinking better fire protection longer lasting? on the 2nd level floors. im assuming they are poured after the dome is shot, is it standard construction, say support beams/pylons or can you do wood floors floors (excluding the bottom floor) like laminated beams to give more open space. Im starting to get a idea of space/money. I will have to build one of these, I can do all the finish work easily, and i have a background in general contrating/cement/roofing/stick building/wall board etc. Really seems like a DIY but need to know the gotchas before I start my plan. BTW awesome information |
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I use a flamethrower for home defense, it always beats the racking of the 870 and the "superior" wounding effects of the AR
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Originally Posted By TaylorWSO:
Couple questions Is it possible to build a ICF stem wall then add the dome? or is it a solid cement, will the interior foam be a problem? The ICF would make it easier to add plumbing/electric then cover with drywall. Wrong/right? Can you cover the exterior with a cement/epoxy base vs the urethane. I'm thinking better fire protection longer lasting? on the 2nd level floors. im assuming they are poured after the dome is shot, is it standard construction, say support beams/pylons or can you do wood floors floors (excluding the bottom floor) like laminated beams to give more open space. Im starting to get a idea of space/money. I will have to build one of these, I can do all the finish work easily, and i have a background in general contrating/cement/roofing/stick building/wall board etc. Really seems like a DIY but need to know the gotchas before I start my plan. BTW awesome information bump for more info on adding the second floor |
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Originally Posted By kraftwerk:
1_BIG_BUNKER, do you have any thoughts on ICF houses? I'd love to build a concrete house one day but I want something very traditional looking. I am thinking an ICF house, with a basement and concrete floor/ceilings. Maybe even a secret tunnel going from the basement to a storm/bomb shelter a little way in to the back yard. I have seen a few of these and they seem to be okay. They are better than what a lot of people are building, as far as insulating your walls go. One thing I don't care for is the foam is not one continuous layer. I do not know what the density of the foam is either, but I know it is not as dense as sprayed on polyurthane foam. If I was going to build a home like this, what I would do is form up and pour a concrete wall with rebar 18'' OC at least and better yet, 12'' OC. Then I would spray 1-2 inches of 2.7 pound density foam on the wall. That foam has a very very strong tensile strength. The rebar will really help with keeping your concrete from cracking, and the 2.7 lbs. foam has more than enough tensile strength to maintain its integrity to keep the wall water proof. This 2.7 lbs. foam is what they spray on roofs and is code. The reason is, it can take the huge amounts of expanding and contracting that happens on a roof. Foam that is 2 lbs. will crack and now you have lost your water proofing. Now in a basement, you don't really have to worry about that because the ground is the same temp, but the concrete can and will crack. If your foam can not take the cracking, it to will crack. The other thing I do not like is that you have foam on the inside of your home. You should NOT have foam on an inside wall. What you want is the concrete wall to be the same temp as the room. Now all those tons of concrete are a huge thermal battery. Once you insulated under the floor and outside the walls, they are at the same temp room, and they stay at that temp for a long long time. In my opinion you have your insulation backwards, BUT it is needed to make the form, so you are paying for foam that isn't doing anything and is actually hurting you. The only reason people put up foam in a basement now is because they do NOT want to dig up their yard to do it right. Does this make sense? If not, I can try to explain it better. Also, spray foam under your floor before you pour it. Your basement will be like any other room in your house if you do this. It will never smell like a wet basement or of mold. Originally Posted By RoadWarrior:
1BB...agree...the best deals are win-win deals. It's the way most successful business people operate if they really want to create something of value that stands the test of time. The quote I gave is literally for a 10k sf house very near to me, on the market for $3.2M....absolutely no takers right now though. Your points are well-taken on creating rentals, pricing to keep occupancy up and building equity to leverage....it can still be done in this day and age. Luckily, I've made my money - and can afford the "big house" Yes, it can still be done. When I met with the cities and went over my entire plan, they said why hasn't anyone thought of this before. I said because most put money and greedy before the needs of the people. Right now, I can rent out a 1500 sf, three bedroom, two bath rental for $800 a month and include all electric, TV, phone, internet, garbage, sewer and water and make a healthy profit. I went to the local TV, phone, and high speed internet provider and said I want a price for unlimited use of all three for 3000 units. Long story short, I get fiber optics high speed internet, TV with a couple hundred channels, and phone, local and local toll only, no long distance, all for $10.33 per month per unit. Since I am building my domes, I will make them very very energy efficient. Solar will heat water or the bulk of it, and LED lighting will be used IF the company can prove to me it works well enough. Heating not so much, but AC will be the thing that costs money down south. I still believe I can keep my electric bill low per unit even with some wasteful people. If not, I raise everyone rent $10 a month and make an extra $30,000 a month. That should cover the wastefulness. My goal is to clear $400 a month per unit after taxes and everything is paid. The accountants tell me it is very very do-able. The next rental that even comes close to this is 1300 sf and includes NOTHING and rents for $1100 a month, and they are rented at 100% all the time. I am not going to get into everything else I am doing, because this post would be as long as my business plan, but I will say that I have been told by many who have owner 1000's of rentals that I will need to build twice as many as I think in each city. Originally Posted By Campingout:
Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
Another thing, look at the very poor shotcrete job that was done on this dome where the dome starts to curve at the top. You can clearly see the rebar lines. This is what happens when people build their own dome and have not had much experience spraying shotcrete. They are rolling the shotcrete because their angle is all wrong, and either to far away or to low of air pressure. The building is sound and no weaker than any other dome, it just does not have the clean look to it in my opinion, but what do I know, they're happy and that's all that matters. http://www.monolithic.com/stories/feature-home-annarbor/photos Yep. Before I went to the workshop, I purchased Monolithic's tapes and watched them. The tapes told you about the correct angles for spraying. When I went to the workshop and we were spraying shotcrete, none of the other students were spraying at the correct angles. They kind of skipped over this in the instruction there. I am not knocking Monolithic, I got a lot from the class, and they covered a lot in a week with thirty some students. And I don't find that this gets much discussion on the Monolithic bulletin board construction threads. You are right, this is very important and does not get emphasized enough. Some poor jobs and lots of wasted shotcrete as a result. You are the first one I've seen emphasize this since I watched the tapes many years ago. From what little I know, I can see that a good nozzle man is very valuable. Yes, I was asked by one of the men why so and so gets away with so much BS and he doesn't. I said learn to spray shotcrete like him and make me the money he does, and you to can make up your own rules as you go along. Now go along and get back to work or grab an arm load of garbage on your way out to your car. The standing joke around here is grab an arm load of garbage on your way out. I few years back, a lazy ass guy finally pushed me one day and I said you're fired, but before you go at least do SOMETHING productive and grab an arm load of garbage on your way out. He didn't. The pumps I use for home building are from Monolithic. They are cheap, easy to maintain and always works. I have both the EHP1500 and an older model EHP2000 that they no longer make. I would rather have electric motors than gas or diesel engines running the pump because of all the dust and dirt and NO maintance. The problem is the power thing. The electric motors are 10hp and the engines are 20-25hp. For the larger projects I am going with Schwing concrete pumps. The one I am looking at is the HBV 260 and does around 20-70 yards an hour and can pump 1100 feet inline and 330 feet straight up. Originally Posted By ColtRifle:
I notice that we mentioned windows in a previous post. What kind of windows do you recommend and install?? I have always used these windows. I have never had one person complain about them or their warranty. They are a no questions asked when it comes to replacing a broken window. I was even told by the sales rep that if we ever had a seal fail down the road, like in 20 years, just break the window and they will give you a whole new sealed unit. He said don't tell them that a seal failed. Just read the warranty and it will explain it. Basically, a broken window means you get a whole new sealed unit, so if the seal was leaking, it doesn't matter because it has a life time non pro-rated and transferable warranty on the window. Sell your home and the warranty is still good for the new owner. They are a little spendy for the average homer own, but damn they are great windows. Buying in bulk like I do, really drops the price a lot. Usually when I order windows, I buy for friends of mine at the same time so they get a big break on the price. http://www.uniframewindow.com/ Originally Posted By ophelan:
Unfortunately, I'm not in the market for a house right now, but domes are on my possibilities list for when I'm in a position to build one. I've enjoyed your previous postings on the subject, though. It seems like a hybrid of a dome and a torus might make an interesting structure incorporating a main building with some auxiliary space surrounding a courtyard/garden. Any caveats to a design like this? http://www.ophelan.com/dometorus.jpg I have just onething to say, I never get tired of seeing what people dream up. Yes, that is very do-able, but a few things have to be done. Mainly ring beams underground. There will be three of them when in a normal dome there is only one. The way the dome is built will be changed as well. The main whole dome will start to be built first. This is because of negative air pressure will deform both domes if they are built together. What will happen is the two domes will be one dome, BUT seperated on the inside by airform material. So when the main dome is inflated, the Torus dome will remain deflated for now. Once the main dome is up, then another inflator fan will inflate the Torus dome. You will not be able to walk between the two domes until foam, rebar and a couple layers of shotcrete is applied. Then the space between the two domes, the aorform material will be cut away and foam, rebar and shotcrete will physically conect the tow together to form a Monolithic dome. It is hard to explain here. I have built a dome similar to this. It was two sperate domes, but the owner wanted a HUGE tunnel connecting the two domes, and I mean HUGE. It was big enough to drive an over sized tractor trailer through it. Well, if I inflated all three at once, the air pressures would be the same, but the lift would be different in each of them because the surface areas are not the same size in square footage, and would cause all kinds of distortions. Originally Posted By cruizer:
I would like more information. -where are the water & sewer lines? are they laid ut then th slab poured over them? -where are the home runs laid out at? slab or in the wall? -once the dome is sprayed how are you attaching interior walls? I'll keep adding questions. Yes, the sewer lines are laid in like any other slab would have. Water lines, I like to run inside PVC pipe for easy replacemnt if needed. I have never seen a sewer line break under a slab, but water pipes under pressure I have seen many of them fail. I like to use WISBO for the water lines in a dome. They are one long run and very easy to install and replace if ever needed. Plus they are zoned, so if a water line breaks, you can shut it off and fix it later without having to shut off all the water in your home. I try to never run a water line under the slab, but if I have to, it is run inside os a PVC pipe. Everything else is run in the walls. The runs are so easy a caveman can do it. Seriously, it is that easy. The water lines come in 300 foot lengths, and you have an expander that expands the end of the plastic pipe and you slide it and a retaining band onto the mainfold shut off valve and wait a few seconds for it to collapse back down onto the nipple and it is there forever. Oh, make the run from end to end BEFORE attaching it to a nipple. It is that easy. Electric is run in smurf tube and all the wires are pulled through it before anything is shotcreted. We also run an extra string inside the tube incase we forgot something or it is needed in the future. The tubing is wire tired to the rebar or we use the staple gun for floor heat tubing and staple it to the foam itself for overhead lights and fans. It is VERY fast an easy to wire up a dome. EVERY electrician has said that they are the easiest thing in the world to wire. You just need a staple gun and a laser. I always install a couple 6'' PVC pipes with 45 long turns and caps inside the dome in the utiliy room. They go outside the dome and just underground and out of sight. These are for easy access inside the dome for future use. Like fiber optics at some point. It is easier to plan ahead for these things, than it is to try and drill through the dome and get inside. Come to the job site and watch how to connect the walls. It is way to hard to explain here, but it is easy to do. Originally Posted By TaylorWSO:
Couple questions Is it possible to build a ICF stem wall then add the dome? or is it a solid cement, will the interior foam be a problem? The ICF would make it easier to add plumbing/electric then cover with drywall. Wrong/right? Can you cover the exterior with a cement/epoxy base vs the urethane. I'm thinking better fire protection longer lasting? on the 2nd level floors. im assuming they are poured after the dome is shot, is it standard construction, say support beams/pylons or can you do wood floors floors (excluding the bottom floor) like laminated beams to give more open space. Im starting to get a idea of space/money. I will have to build one of these, I can do all the finish work easily, and i have a background in general contrating/cement/roofing/stick building/wall board etc. Really seems like a DIY but need to know the gotchas before I start my plan. BTW awesome information No, the ICF wall is not near strong enough to with stand the load of the dome. Plus it doesn't have the ring beam which is what is holding the dome up. The ICF wall could be used in place of a stem wall that is made from airform material. You would attach the airform to the top of the ICF wall and inflate the dome. Then spray foam inside the wall and the dome. Add rebar, and shotcrete. Kind of a Rube Goldberg way of doing it if you ask me, but some people want it like that. Their dime, not mine. The only time I could see doing this, is if you wanted a square home with a dome roof. What happens is you have a normal square or rectangle home with a dome that is attached to the top. The airform will go round with in two feet of the ICF type wall, but will give you a lot of the same strength as a dome, but it will never be as strong of course. You can cover it with anything you want. I have done a few with colored concrete. They now have a roof that is about 3'' thick of shotcrete. I want to warn you about doing this though. We learned, the hard way, that all concrete cracks, and we know this, so we laid chain link fence over the dome before shotcrete was applied. The concrete did what we knew it would do, crack, but no biggie we had our fence under it to hold it together and it did. What we didn't think of was a HARD, LONG rain. Water got inside those little cracks and filled up between the airform and the outer layer of shotcrete and the dome couldn't drain it at the bottom, as fast as it was coming down. The water actually came up to the edge of the windows and started coming inside the home through the windows. It was a mess, but didn't hurt anything because the domes are concrete and foam on the outside wall. They cleaned up the water, but still, it is something to keep in mind when doing the outer layer in concrete. You can pour a 2nd floor if you want. You can do anything you want. Some people spend the money to do it, some just have 2x12's and sub flooring. Some actually hang the 2nd and 3rd floor from the dome shell and have the first floor wide open with no supports at all. One family hung over 250 TONS from the dome shell inside their home for the 2nd and 3rd floor. Go down to the bottom of the page where it says "VISITORS MARVEL" and read what it says. Here is part of it: ''Visitors to the Eye of the Storm marvel at its uniqueness. “The levels hang from the shell. That’s 250 tons hanging from the shell, and it’s mind-boggling to most people,” Paul said. “I tell them that you couldn’t do that in a conventional building, but this one doesn’t even care!” Article. http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-eye-of-the-storm Pictures. http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-eye-of-the-storm/photos |
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1BB if I had any money, the first thing I would do is invest in your company.
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Thanks for the tip on the window company. Do you have preffered door companies?
What is your experience and opinion of skylights? Do you use 8 sacks per yard in your concrete mix? What slump? Have you ever used Silica Fume or Fly Ash in the concrete mix? If so, what proportion? What is your experience and opinion? Do you use the Monolithic superplastisizer in your concrete mix or something else? Have you ever built small domes, like about 20 - 24 ft? What is your experience and opinion? Thanks again. You are very gracious to get back to us on our questions and comments. |
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1BB
I like everything about the domes except the way they look. Could you conceal one in the side of a hill and have a smallish traditional facade? Are there any techniques that have worked well for customers who want a more traditional look? If you partially bury it, will it withstand the weight? |
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Thank you very much for this information, by next year I will hopefully have a acre or so and about 30k to build my self and girlfriend something small to live in
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Who is John Galt?
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Hey 1BB, niece to see you around again..
I've been thinking about mono's alot since last we spoke, and have a question.... I know they do well with geothermal heating, but has anyone addressed condensation problems with geothermal cooling? We have year round ground water temp's ranging from 68 - 72 in TX, with summer air temp's in 105+ range... I know I could passivly cool a dome with geothermal, but it would be a swamp.. Any ideas? snafu |
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Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
Some actually hang the 2nd and 3rd floor from the dome shell and have the first floor wide open with no supports at all. One family hung over 250 TONS from the dome shell inside their home for the 2nd and 3rd floor. Go down to the bottom of the page where it says "VISITORS MARVEL" and read what it says. Hooollly ssshiiiitteee. That is amazing. I can't thank you enough. This has really solved a lot of problems for me in what I wanted from a house. BTW the ICF thing was for a round house with dome, and I see why you need the ring. concrete cracks-duh should have thought of that. Thanks for your time on this board. I vote one of the best post ever. I hope I get to meet you someday. |
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I use a flamethrower for home defense, it always beats the racking of the 870 and the "superior" wounding effects of the AR
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All:
Hello. I used to post a bit on this forum and have refrained from doing so since about 2007. Suffice it to say I have had quite a ride but have been logging in and checking things out here from time to time. TJ, Waldo, Die, Protus, etc.etc. I enjoy the conversations and posts, I just needed to put my head down for a bit. I am using a new username now that will make no sense to most of you but makes my lady and I laugh. All the best. 1BB: Your posts have inspired me to relog on. We spoke a bit ago and I really enjoyed our conversations. Anyway I am in school right now getting my second degree not in business like before but in construction management specifically because I want to build in concrete. I agree with much of what you have posted. I am partnering with a company that uses the Thermal Mass system (here is a link talking about the system and the company I am working with in SD http://brooksconstructionservices.com/concretehomes.html. The owner of the company has been around quite a while (company since 1940s) but is having some tough times right now with cashflow and keeping folks working. I am chewing on how to build with concrette and do it right. The domes are crazy like a fox. Afforable, efficient, and strong but a little out of people's comfort zone right now from a looks perspective. There is an old saying "a confused mind says no." Since people do not have lot of experience with domes .... they say no. However from and economics and construction standpoint the information you provide in this thread is excellent and shows that quite frankly, you get it. Things are slow in construction here and selling a concrete home is tough but you are on the right track with the rentals and such. Right on. I put in radiant floor loops and a radon system last week and we get a SIP materials package in on Wednesday. I am a baby builder and am just cutting my teeth but I think the high efficiency, affordable, rental market has a definate play going forward. I saw your offer to have folks come on down to Texas. My lady is heading to China soon, the kids are with the exs ... so I may be able to pull away and come down to meet you, say hello, take out the garbage, and work for a bit. Logistics may be tough if not right now maybe we could meet on some of the other projects you are chewing on. We would have to talk and then I have to coordinate things here. I would love to hear more and think a drive might be in order. I am shaking the trees right now and some other projects may gel but your posts are refreshing, candid, and cool... We have talked before maybe it is time for a drive. Eitherway, I appreciate the posts. All the best to you and yours, Blair - now - Jangaman |
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Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
Yes, it can still be done. When I met with the cities and went over my entire plan, they said why hasn't anyone thought of this before. I said because most put money and greedy before the needs of the people. Right now, I can rent out a 1500 sf, three bedroom, two bath rental for $800 a month and include all electric, TV, phone, internet, garbage, sewer and water and make a healthy profit. I went to the local TV, phone, and high speed internet provider and said I want a price for unlimited use of all three for 3000 units. Long story short, I get fiber optics high speed internet, TV with a couple hundred channels, and phone, local and local toll only, no long distance, all for $10.33 per month per unit. Since I am building my domes, I will make them very very energy efficient. Solar will heat water or the bulk of it, and LED lighting will be used IF the company can prove to me it works well enough. Heating not so much, but AC will be the thing that costs money down south. I still believe I can keep my electric bill low per unit even with some wasteful people. If not, I raise everyone rent $10 a month and make an extra $30,000 a month. That should cover the wastefulness. My goal is to clear $400 a month per unit after taxes and everything is paid. The accountants tell me it is very very do-able. The next rental that even comes close to this is 1300 sf and includes NOTHING and rents for $1100 a month, and they are rented at 100% all the time. I am not going to get into everything else I am doing, because this post would be as long as my business plan, but I will say that I have been told by many who have owner 1000's of rentals that I will need to build twice as many as I think in each city. If you want to do something in the Dallas/Fort Worth area we should talk. I would be interested in some investment opportunities. |
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great info, again, 1BB.
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Originally Posted By Campingout:
Thanks for the tip on the window company. Do you have preffered door companies? What is your experience and opinion of skylights? Do you use 8 sacks per yard in your concrete mix? What slump? Have you ever used Silica Fume or Fly Ash in the concrete mix? If so, what proportion? What is your experience and opinion? Do you use the Monolithic superplastisizer in your concrete mix or something else? Have you ever built small domes, like about 20 - 24 ft? What is your experience and opinion? Thanks again. You are very gracious to get back to us on our questions and comments. There are a few good door companies out there that we have used. It really depends on what the owner wants and wants to spend. The ones we like to use have a 100 year warranty on the door and 50 years on the hardware. I would have to go back and double check exactly which company it is before I say for certain. Skylights are something that I hate, but have done a lot of. Basically what I do is get with the company the owner wants to use, and have them come out and tell us EXACTLY what they want us to do and show them what we are doing. I make sure we are all on the same sheet of music so there is no misunderstandings. Over all, I would have to say we have had no real trouble with them when installed right. A couple times the owner miss took condensation for a leak. I can not recall or ever hearing about any of them leaking, but I am still not a fan of them. I use a 9 bag mix almost all of the time. You see, in order to pump shotcrete, each grain of aggregate or sand has to be completely encased in cement to be pumped long distances through a hose or pipe. If there is not enough cement a grain will fall back and hit another grain and those two will hit two more and so on. Before you know it, 50 feet down the hose you are plugged up with a rock hard sand ball. Cement encases each grain and lubes the hose so it can be pumped. Since aggragate varied so much from location to location, I just stick with a 9 bag mix and call it good. I mean if you can get unwashed sand from a river, that is the best because it is round and smooth and very easy to pump. You can get away with less cement in this case, but if that sand came from a quarry, chances are it has sharp rough edges and is MUCH harder to pump. So more cement is needed. Plus with a 9 bag mix and 3/8'' minus we run about 13,000 psi concrete which is stronger than you will ever need. We do not waste our time measuring slump anymore. Here is how we do it. We mix up a batch, about 1100 pounds or a 1/3 of a yard in our mixer and we do a quick test to see if it sticks to a 6'' barn scraper that we use to scrape the sides of the mixer to make sure everything is fully mixed. We scoop up about an inch or so thick of the shotcrete mix and turn the scraper upside down and see if it sticks to the scraper without falling off. If it doesn't fall off, they add a little more water until it starts to fall off. Then we know we can pump it 100 feet through a hose and the 2'' WC air pressure inside the dome will have no trouble holding one inch of shotcrete to the ceiling all day long. When mixing 1100 pounds every 6 minutes, you do not have time to play with a slump gauge. You just have to learn to eyeball, and the guys have it down to a science. I have not used any fly ash myself or anything from Monolithic. We mix our own and I have not seen any difference or real benefit from using it. Fly ash really just replaces a bag of cement. I would rather have the extra bag of cement than another item to be added to the mix. It is just one more item added to the mix to keep on hand and the proportions correct. Plus the added cost per yard. For a home, 32' is as small as I have ever built. For shelters, I have built many different sizes. Originally Posted By fluwoebers:
1BB I like everything about the domes except the way they look. Could you conceal one in the side of a hill and have a smallish traditional facade? Are there any techniques that have worked well for customers who want a more traditional look? If you partially bury it, will it withstand the weight? Sure, I understand what you mean. What you can do is this. You can have a large area up front of the dome made flat instead of round. Then what we do is frame it in with wood. We spray foam in between the studs and basically build it like a conventional home. You can bury the dome part underground to hide it and just have the conventional look sticking out. You will give up a small amount of the domes insulation qualities because of the wooden studs, but they are few, so the loss is small. This is what I am doing myself with my rentals. I like the large flat areas for easy of doors and windows to be installed on the upper levels. I will have the outside covered with different things like siding, stone, and brick. Just to change things up. You can bury them 20 feet underground without changing anything at all. If you want to go deeper, we need to have it engineered to handle the higher loads. That means more and thicker rebar as well as more shotcrete. I would not build deeper than 20 feet for anyone unless an engineer stamped the BP's. I can do the math myself, but I do not have a degree to put a stamp on it. I can tell you what it will take, and cost though before you have the plans drawn up, so you know if it is something you would want. Originally Posted By tx_snafu:
Hey 1BB, niece to see you around again.. I've been thinking about mono's alot since last we spoke, and have a question.... I know they do well with geothermal heating, but has anyone addressed condensation problems with geothermal cooling? We have year round ground water temp's ranging from 68 - 72 in TX, with summer air temp's in 105+ range... I know I could passivly cool a dome with geothermal, but it would be a swamp.. Any ideas? snafu It is nice to be back. What ever you do, do NOT run cold water in the floor heat tubing. It will look like your garage floor on a hot humid day. Ever see a soaking wet garage floor? That happens is the floor is cooler than the temp outside and moisture in the air condensates on the cooler concrete floor. Samething that happens with a cold can of Coke on a table. The moiture in the air condensates on the colded can and water drops form fast. If you run cold water in tubing in a dome or any building for that matter, it will get wet. If you run it through some sort of air exchanger, the water will condensate on the exchangers coils and you have to drain this off but you could blow air across the exchnager and cool the dome easy enough. Here is another email I received from Harvey about his dome and what he is doing now. Iasked him what he was doing to get by with $20 a year and do all that in his dome. If you want, I can put you in touch with him and I am sure he would be MORE than happy to talk to you about domes and what works best. He has been in his for 6 years now. Here is what he said. ––––- Original Message ––––- From: To: Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:00 PM Subject: Re: They had a dispute here in New Ulm about outside woodburning furnaces. It wound up the city bought 5 furnaces and put regulations in that they can not be built in the city limits. the opponents said that the new furnaces can be clean. These howeve were not clean burning. I did some research on the internet and a bit of study. They do make furnaces with ceramic flues and a second conbustion chamber. Because they get up to 2,000 F metal cannot stand the heat. This second burning chamber is kind of like an afterburner. It is totally clean. After the 5 minutes needed to get it that hot you will not see smoke. The advantage of these Garns is that the employ a 1500 gallon reserve. This does 2 things. One it allows for about 40' of flu. The exhaust temp is about 350 exiting the furnace. Second with 1500 gallons it is necessary to burn steady and hot for about 2 hours. This means they stay at clean burn almost the entire time. All the others as far as I know only have 150 gallon reserve or less. They relie on on/off cycling . This causes more time spent in the phase where it is not burning clean. The only downside is that they are kind of expensive. This would be a product I could sell and feel good about just like my monolithic dome. It is quality and innovation. The problem is though that it is expensive and until a few more are out there few will venture to try one. Oh yeh I forgot to mention that they need to only be lit every 2 days and the are about 85% efficient as compared to the better ordinary wood burning furnaces at about 50% when figuring realistic heat losses with on/ off cycles. The $20 is for chain saw gas and hauling wood with my pickup. I will be plumbing this furnace to override my heatpump and also preheat the waterheater water. Next will be a liquid to air exchanger with a fan that will start with the clothes dryer and will blow preheated air into the intake port of the clothes dryer. This is hidden behind our closet which is by the saddle of our dome. So that is the story of our dome. It still gets people to turn their heads when they drive byl (:-)))))) Originally Posted By Jangaman:
All: Hello. I used to post a bit on this forum and have refrained from doing so since about 2007. Suffice it to say I have had quite a ride but have been logging in and checking things out here from time to time. TJ, Waldo, Die, Protus, etc.etc. I enjoy the conversations and posts, I just needed to put my head down for a bit. I am using a new username now that will make no sense to most of you but makes my lady and I laugh. All the best. 1BB: Your posts have inspired me to relog on. We spoke a bit ago and I really enjoyed our conversations. Anyway I am in school right now getting my second degree not in business like before but in construction management specifically because I want to build in concrete. I agree with much of what you have posted. I am partnering with a company that uses the Thermal Mass system (here is a link talking about the system and the company I am working with in SD http://brooksconstructionservices.com/concretehomes.html. The owner of the company has been around quite a while (company since 1940s) but is having some tough times right now with cashflow and keeping folks working. I am chewing on how to build with concrette and do it right. The domes are crazy like a fox. Afforable, efficient, and strong but a little out of people's comfort zone right now from a looks perspective. There is an old saying "a confused mind says no." Since people do not have lot of experience with domes .... they say no. However from and economics and construction standpoint the information you provide in this thread is excellent and shows that quite frankly, you get it. Things are slow in construction here and selling a concrete home is tough but you are on the right track with the rentals and such. Right on. I put in radiant floor loops and a radon system last week and we get a SIP materials package in on Wednesday. I am a baby builder and am just cutting my teeth but I think the high efficiency, affordable, rental market has a definate play going forward. I saw your offer to have folks come on down to Texas. My lady is heading to China soon, the kids are with the exs ... so I may be able to pull away and come down to meet you, say hello, take out the garbage, and work for a bit. Logistics may be tough if not right now maybe we could meet on some of the other projects you are chewing on. We would have to talk and then I have to coordinate things here. I would love to hear more and think a drive might be in order. I am shaking the trees right now and some other projects may gel but your posts are refreshing, candid, and cool... We have talked before maybe it is time for a drive. Eitherway, I appreciate the posts. All the best to you and yours, Blair - now - Jangaman Hey Blair, it's good to hear from you again. I am glad to hear you are in school. I always wanted to go to college, but never did. I know I never will at this point, so now I just hire smart kids. So far I haven't found any. Most still think the way to make money is the stockmarket, even now. I wish I had ANOTHER dime for everytime I told them to get out of the market and their 401k's and get that money into something they can actually TOUCH and not look at on a piece of paper. I said, take that money out and put it to real work building with me. They said no way because the market was so great. I said then take a loan out and pay yourself the interest, and they said NO WAY, I would lose money because the market pays me more than I would be paying myself in interest payments. I said what are you going to do what the market drops and home values drop? I said at least when we build for $35 psf, we will NEVER lose money and always have the same income. They said that won't happen. Now, they don't talk to me, mainly because they are working 2 or 3 NEW piss ant jobs because everything they said wouldn't happen, HAPPENED. Even now my friends who are retired, I told them that they to better watch it. I said do you think you are safe because you are retired? I said what happens when the company you retired from and is paying you, goes south? Once again, I hear it, THAT WON'T HAPPEN. I said if anyone is actually dumb enough to rely on someone else, be it the gooberment or a company, you deserve everything you get, or don't get. I don't want to get off topic here, so I will stop. Originally Posted By soncorn:
Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER:
Yes, it can still be done. When I met with the cities and went over my entire plan, they said why hasn't anyone thought of this before. I said because most put money and greedy before the needs of the people. Right now, I can rent out a 1500 sf, three bedroom, two bath rental for $800 a month and include all electric, TV, phone, internet, garbage, sewer and water and make a healthy profit. I went to the local TV, phone, and high speed internet provider and said I want a price for unlimited use of all three for 3000 units. Long story short, I get fiber optics high speed internet, TV with a couple hundred channels, and phone, local and local toll only, no long distance, all for $10.33 per month per unit. Since I am building my domes, I will make them very very energy efficient. Solar will heat water or the bulk of it, and LED lighting will be used IF the company can prove to me it works well enough. Heating not so much, but AC will be the thing that costs money down south. I still believe I can keep my electric bill low per unit even with some wasteful people. If not, I raise everyone rent $10 a month and make an extra $30,000 a month. That should cover the wastefulness. My goal is to clear $400 a month per unit after taxes and everything is paid. The accountants tell me it is very very do-able. The next rental that even comes close to this is 1300 sf and includes NOTHING and rents for $1100 a month, and they are rented at 100% all the time. I am not going to get into everything else I am doing, because this post would be as long as my business plan, but I will say that I have been told by many who have owner 1000's of rentals that I will need to build twice as many as I think in each city. If you want to do something in the Dallas/Fort Worth area we should talk. I would be interested in some investment opportunities. I am very interested in the Dallas area. Email me and we can talk. I will say this, I needed $500K to put down on the land in order to get my loan for $21M to build the dorm project. The dorm project cash flows about $750K a month and after everything is paid, I profit $300 - $350K a month. I could not get ANYONE to work with me, but a VERY VERY wealthy man, and he said he would do it for a pay back of $50K a month from my profits for as long as the buildings stand. So basically, next week sometime I am contracted in to pay him $600K a year for a $500K investment. I received a call ealry this morning for a next Thursday meeting with him. You know, I do not mind paying that out at all, but to someone who doesn't even need it really pisses me off. I wanted my friends to put together a group thing for the amount. I said if the five of you can each do $100K, you will each make $10K a month and we can all have a blast together and be semi retired, but OOOOH NO, the all mighty stockmarket was where it was at because that's what their broker told them. They have all lost over half of what they had, and they were worried about investing in domes. I said to them, well if you would have invested in the domes, they would never have crashed. I agreed, and just told myself I have to do this to move on to bigger and better things. After trying for a couple years and told NO so many times, I figured screw it, I know where I am going and I know what I can do, so $50K is nothing considering the bigger picture. That rich bastard did say something that actually made me feel good. He said you know son, if a man's great grandfather missed out on the TV, and his grandfather missed out on the home computer, and his father missed out on the cell phone, he better not miss out on what you have going on here. Your ideas and your plan is what this country needs. I told him I am going to be the WalMart of not only affordable housing, but QUALITY housing. My plan is to get people BACK into their own home by renting from me. I am going to have a DVD made that shows them that if they are saving on average of $500 a month, take $250 and spend it in the local economy, and then give the other $250 to me. After renting from me for five years or so, and they save up say $15,000, and do not cause any trouble and pay on time, I will build them a 2000 sf dome home for $70 a SF and charge them 3% interest on a 30 year land contract. NO MORE FORKING BANKS EVER!!! I lose them as a renter, but gain them as a customer for 30 years. Their house payment with a $15,000 down payment @ 3% is $760 a month for PITI. Plus my GC where I am building has the entire area for a nice development already set up and ready to go. We have gone over this in great detail the past year. If you run the numbers, the gooberment says that 35% of your gross is all you should be paying in housing and utilities. So, at $760 a month and figure another $200 or so a month in phone, TV, internet, electric, and water, you have $960 going out. That is about $221 a week. Now if mom and dad each make $8 an hour working at WalMart, they are making $640 gross a week, and 35% of that is $224. Now a couple working and making a WalMart wage can actually have a home and a QUALITY home at that. They once again have a light at the end of the tunnel which they don't have now with all this "HOPE AND CHANGE" bullshit. Someone has to actually do something that does NOT involve GREED if we ever HOPE to get our country back from the banksters. That is why I am sharing what I am doing. I would love for everyone to do this and I will help them ANY way I can. I do not care about being rich with fiat money that has no value, and besides, like my father told me once, he said "What good is it to be rich if you have no country to be rich in?" All I can do is show you, and you have to make up your own mind. About the only thing I REALLY want for myself is a mini gun and I will buy one, oh and the bride said something about maybe buying a shoe factory or something. Other than that, everything I make I am reinvesting into other cities and projects. You see, it is not just rentals I am doing. What I have done is several fold. I want to address the three big things being talked about in this country today. Affordable housing both renting and owning their home, being GREEN, and health care insurance. Email me and I will explain it in greater detail how I plan on going into other cities. |
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Some pretty good detailed pics at this link for those interested in the process.
1BB - Is their rebar too close to the foam, or is that standard? Seems to me you would want some depth of concrete behind the steel. |
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hmm yet again find I have gone into the wrong career field
whats an untrained laborer on the line make? Maybe you should target smaller amounts, 50 people in a 10k , Even I would be very interested at that level, putting my money into a 401k that the .gov is already planning to steal aint much of a retirement package. I have to say if you are successful watch out for you traditional competitors trying to get zoning/ building codes changed to block you out. |
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Who is John Galt?
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1 BB.. Reading your thread here is what finally made me get an account to post. I am very interested in building a dome type structure, but I was leaning more towards a home like on this website...http://www.earthshelter.com/. I was wondering if you would think that the prices you gave earlier in this thread would be comparable with a structure of this sort. Also do you believe the construction aspects would be about the same?
Thanks |
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Originally Posted By ophelan:
Unfortunately, I'm not in the market for a house right now, but domes are on my possibilities list for when I'm in a position to build one. I've enjoyed your previous postings on the subject, though. It seems like a hybrid of a dome and a torus might make an interesting structure incorporating a main building with some auxiliary space surrounding a courtyard/garden. Any caveats to a design like this? http://www.ophelan.com/dometorus.jpg I'm just a dome fan, but the 'Shapes' page at Monolithic (1BB linked to it above) explains the problems with the two shapes you are trying to use here. The page says they have discovered that a torus is not as cost effective as a regular dome, by how much, I do not know. Further, the prolate ellipsoid attached there has less floor area, and more height, which increases the cost. If all you want is a courtyard wall, the torus is probably not the way to go. Think of all the covered area if that torus is an interior space, not just a wall. And while you can build the tall ellipsoid if you absolutely must have 2d and 3rd floors, it will cost more to construct. |
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Without hijacking this thread. I was wondering if a small dome could stand against an f5 tornado.
my thoughts would be to build a small one in the back yard like a safe room that could hold my family and several others in an emergancy? Be used for bulk food storage year round? thanks' John |
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Originally Posted By 1_BIG_BUNKER: I wanted my friends to put together a group thing for the amount. I said if the five of you can each do $100K, you will each make $10K a month and we can all have a blast together and be semi retired, but OOOOH NO, the all mighty stockmarket was where it was at because that's what their broker told them. They have all lost over half of what they had, and they were worried about investing in domes. I said to them, well if you would have invested in the domes, they would never have crashed. Holy shit I would have JUMPED on an opportunity like that! |
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Fellow Virginians! Help protect YOUR 2nd Amendment rights!
JOIN the Virginia Citizen's Defense League! www.vcdl.org |
NRA Legacy Life Member, and unrepentant Old Whig
TX, USA
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Good to see you here and posting again, 1BB.
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"Have you run any of this by NASCAR?"
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tag
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"When you die, if you get a choice between going to Regular Heaven or Pie Heaven, choose Pie Heaven. It might be a trick, but if not…mmmmm, boy!" -Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
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Originally Posted By 1179:
Without hijacking this thread. I was wondering if a small dome could stand against an f5 tornado. my thoughts would be to build a small one in the back yard like a safe room that could hold my family and several others in an emergancy? Be used for bulk food storage year round? thanks' John from the info on the monolithic site, yes it would, and more. you could even bury the thing to keep it out of sight and not take up all your back yard. |
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Originally Posted By ZedsDeadBaby:
tag Thank you sir |
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NRA Legacy Life Member, and unrepentant Old Whig
TX, USA
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Originally Posted By Cacinok: So as not to confuse anyone in this thread with a bunch of non-relevant pics, I posted [what would have been] my reply [to you here] in the other thread of this type:Originally Posted By 1179: from the info on the monolithic site, yes it would, and more. you could even bury the thing to keep it out of sight and not take up all your back yard.Without hijacking this thread. I was wondering if a small dome could stand against an f5 tornado. my thoughts would be to build a small one in the back yard like a safe room that could hold my family and several others in an emergancy? Be used for bulk food storage year round? thanks' John How much does a Shotcrete Hobbit Style home Cost? |
"Have you run any of this by NASCAR?"
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These threads always spark up my interest in dome construction... I need to build some ecoshell sheds to have the capital to start something serious...
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