Dome home?

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Anybody live in a geo-dome house or have any experience with one? Wife and I are thinking about changing our plans from an underground to a dome. Would like to pick someone's brain about ease/speed of construction, liveability, etc. Thanks.

-- Les (lvaughn@suntransformer.com), September 25, 2000

Answers

Les: Been there, done that. Domes have a lot of wasted space. This is a right-angle world and much of what is in it won't fit into a dome. Domes have a lot of seams in the roof. Seams will eventually leak. Domes are universally wood. Wood burns. we currently live in a solid concrete earth-sheltered home which will probably last 2-3,000 years. Will we care? It cost more to build than 2 or 3 conventional homes. My advice? Assuming that you will do it yourself, build one of the steel prefab homes now on the market. Won't burn, won't leak, will last almost forever and you will be able to resell it if you want to. Good luck, John and Pat

-- john and pat james (jjames@n-jcenter.com), September 26, 2000.

Hi Les, You should check out monolithic domes. We had one built a year ago and just love it. They are made of concrete, rebar, and foam. They are very fuel efficient and very safe. Countryside did a story about them a few months ago. There are no roof seams to leak and they are not made out of wood, so they won't burn.

-- Deb (andersland@webound.com), September 26, 2000.

We are building--going on 3 years, now--a dome. We got hooked on the idea when we were in California. So far, we really love it. It's taking a long time, since we've done everything ourselves, and my husband works full-time and then some. The framework and roofing was the worst because I'm afraid of heights. We were aware of problems with the roof leaking before we started, so we just made sure it didn't (much). We really like the feeling inside, you just have to be more creative in the use of space. Most of our interior walls intersect the outer walls at a right angle, so that aspect isn't a problem for us.

Looking back, though, if the concrete dome were a do-it-yourself project, we might have gone that way. Pour the shell and you're done. Add windows and doors, move in and finish the inside warm and dry.

-- Teresa (otgonz@bellsouth.net), September 27, 2000.


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