Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

Modular Igloos
Styrofoam Dome Houses

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/mo...am-dome-houses

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

AWESOME!!

I only wish I had some land!

Been looking at geodesic domes recently. Any other linkies??

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

QWAK,I supose a person COULD just order LOTS and LOTS of "OMAHA STEAKS" -- save all the boxes and GLUE them together!:thinkey: :yes:

Personaly I turn them in to HYDROPONIC growing boxes:yes: but they could be used as GIANT "LEGO" blocks too. :wink:

the DUCK :15_1_70v:

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

"starting from under $30,000 for just the shell" :bawling:

Why so much for styrofoam??

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I bet those would be great in certain cliamtes, cheap and fast...

I cant imagine using them in our area where we have to be concerned about wind borne debris

I am planning my next home it will use ICF block system...essentially concrete walls

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

Tman,
Actually, there are dome homes that are CONCRETE based. These work extremely well in high wind areas. They are extremely effective in hurricane areas or tornado areas.

The 'dome' design allows wind to slip around them. There are normally no roofs for the wind to 'grab hold of'.

How these work is a balloon is blown up to the size of your dome home. THEN you spray the inside of the balloon with concrete. That dries in about two or three days (with the help of ventilation - fans) and you have a home that will be able to withstand a Cat 5 tornado or a Cat 5 hurricane. It will also absorb incoming bullet well over thirty caliber.

SO while styrofoam may NOT be the way you want to go, concrete dome homes might be just the ticket for you. A quick google search will net you more than enough links to keep you busy for several hours to several days.

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Monolithic Dome Institute
http://static.monolithic.com/domeliving/coverL.jpg
Dome pr0n

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Must be athick rubbery balloon, and how does it stay inflated for you to crawl in?

PS, thanks for the links SKILSAW!!

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There are major differences in Geodesic and ballon dome homes. There are multiple advantages of a Geo desic home which are assembled on site using foam then an application of lightweight concrete.

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I've been a fan of Timberline geodesic for many years. The wife and I will eventually build one and then sprayfoam the inside. Shouldn't run us much more than $35k

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the main issue we have with the wind is the 150mph 2x4 hitting the house during a storm......i was assuming the styrofoam domes were covered with a EFIS (synthetic stucco product) but if they are using the sprayed concrete (gunnite) to get the additional strenght then im sure it would work actually work better deflecting projectiles during storms due to the dome shape.

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

There was a fad of dome building in the 70s. It was chronicled in Domebook and Domebook II. The reports were full of the enthusiasm that characterized the time. A third book in the series, Shelter, had a chapter named Domebook III which revisited all the projects covered in the first books. After just ten years the results were rather sad. Most of the domes were still standing but abandoned by their builders. Interviews revealed that the dome had not been the emblem of freedom they were expected to be. Most of the space inside a dome is wasted. And the only way to stop a geodesic dome from leaking is to shingle it.

Amazon

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Daft question maybe. Doesn't polystyrene melt and burn at quite low temperatures?

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Balloon skin on the outside, insulation sprayed on the inside. Rebar tethered to the insulation, then several trucks of concrete sprayed over the rebar.

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Not sure exactly WHAT the foam consists of, but it does have a very high ignition point, and will cease to burn if the flame is removed. Besides, it's between the concerte interior and the outer balloon shell.

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I have seen two studies on that. Both reached the same conclusion stated in almost exactly the same words. The foam "warms" for about three minutes, then "explodes" into flames, and the test is concluded within six minutes. "Concluded" means burned out.

As far as building codes are concerned, the fire rating of styrofoam is the same as whatever covers it. You have to cover it with something.

In practice, the bigger problem is that a dome is not practical. It is appealing, maybe even fascinating, but it's not at right angles to the Earth. People are at right angles. Furniture is at right angles. The dome does not have a right angle anywhere, and that means most of the space is wasted. Building a geodesic dome is somewhat harder than it looks. People who have built one tend to refer to it as "the temple of accumulated error." Everything looks ok until the accumulated error is large enough that a piece won't go in where it belongs. You might design to allow for that, but then you have a structure that moves constantly. That is why geodesic domes always leak. You can avoid that trap by using foam or ferrocement. If you choose ferrocement you are not restricted to a dome shape, it can be absolutely anything. You will need about fifty friends to help you apply the cement because it has to be done all in one jump. Fifty pairs of rubber gloves, fifty pairs of rubber boots, fifty cases of beer (assuming friends don't get wages), and fifty wives to cook the barbecue for when the job is done. This costs almost as much as a normal house, and you will eventually wish you had just built a normal house.

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I think I'll settle for a simple block home built into a hill side. Grass roofs baby!

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Thanks for the anaylisis Saul!!!

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I've briefly lived in a monolithic dome (concrete). Used to hate the 2am "gunshots" (loud cracks in extremely cold weather). Always warm in winter, cool in summer. Supposedly tornado safe too. The weakest spot was dead center on top, concrete was thinner.

Had a sign that read home sweet dome.

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

I'm intimately familiar with a Geodesic dome home. My brother and his wife live in one. Well, two connected together to make about 1800 sq. ft. They love the place. However, the love comes as much from commitment as from simple practicality.
They are great against wind and they do leak. They're well insulated and they do leak. Acoustically they are like living inside a bell, and yes they do leak.
The thing is they leak and like Saul said, if you don't shingle them, you can expect to patch and paint them frequently. If you do a little here and a little there, it's not too bad, but not a particularly easy job because ladders don't fit very well on a curved wall. It's really easy to slip and fall off the rounded surface too. Basically, when you see a bubble form, you lance it, caulk it and paint it. It doesn't take long but it's an ongoing maintenance concern.
Because of heating and cooling cycles, they expand and contract like lungs. Humidity from inside gets driven outward, causing tiny cracks and bubbles under the caulk and paint at every seam, then rain seeps in, in a never ending cycle. The Japanese models shown here on the thread have minimized the seams somewhat from the original geodesic method of building, but they still have seams that will expand and contract.
As far as wasted space, I don't think it's a big deal. The walls angle, but not much. It's tricky hanging a picture though.

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In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_Houses

After you read the Wiki article, look at this and feel the pain:
http://www.jtlytle.com/jtlytle/xanadu/

I remember going to this when I was a kid on vacation in Florida. Seeing the steep downward slide of these houses saddens me somewhat.

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I have all 3, shelter was an eye opener.The foam dome is pure overpriced junk, you can't even fart near it without gouging into the foam.....yes, right through the thin coat stucco. The foam pieces they add to modern day stucco jobs like belly bands and corner keys are really flimsy , easy to gouge into with ladder , baseball or kids climbing on......no thanks on the foam dome, not unless your able to put a 7/8 to 1" coat of stucco on it , then maybe

Re: Styrofoam Dome Houses
 

I've been researching domes as well and will likely build one.

The expanding and contracting problems are a result of a lack of ventilation.

I was considering one of the concrete prefab domes from http://aidomes.com but concluded that the climate has too much temp change. They're strong as can be and virtually maintenance free, in the right climate.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with Natural Spaces domes because of the design which allows for continuous ventiliation of the space between the "ceiling" and the "roof," known in conventional homes as the "attic." http://naturalspacesdomes.com

Yes, they are not box shaped like "conventional" houses, so you have to give a bit more thought to how you design and decorate them. Walk into any home and see how much space - in corners and between pieces of furniture gets wasted. Why are we so attached to having vertical walls next to our wasted space? And there are lots of vertical walls inside domes. Is there some reason the walls inside would be required to be slanted?

Boxes are inefficient, offering us the maximum external area (i.e. exposure to the elements) per square of internal floor. The dome, second only to the sphere, offers the most internal square footage per external square foot, which makes for extreme energy efficiency.

Accoustics can be addressed with different materials, decorations, etc. Box houses sound pretty bell like if they have wood floors, gypsum walls, and gypsum ceilings. Add carpets, curtains, some soft wall hangings on the walls, even a table cloth on the dining room table, and they don't sound like an echo chamber either.

Just builing a solid dome gives you the same problems you'd have if you simply put up 2 X 4 joists, drywalled the underside, put plywood and shingles on top, and insulated the middle. The heat would get through in the summer, the snow would melt on the roof, causing ice dams and leaking in the winter, there would be condensation problems in cool weather, and the whole thing would be loose as a goose after a couple seasons because of all the unbalanced expanding and contracting.

If you don't build the dome to the same specs (ventilation-wise) as you do the square box, don't be surprised if it leaks. If you accept a few "wasted" square feet here and there in your "box" then why be so critical of it in a dome?

Besides, I'd trade a few square feet of space for the extreme efficiency of a dome.

The kind of logic I see being applied here sounds like my grandmother. I had to push an "armstrong" gas lawnmower around her yard for years when I was a kid because she refused to buy a self-propelled one. Her reasoning?

"We bought one of those in 1947 and the self-propelled mechanism was the first thing that went wrong with it!"

By that reasoning, if the first thing that went wrong with a car was a flat tire, she would have never bought another car with tires!

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Before I would build a dome structure I would build Hexagon with conventional single slope roof or a split level two slope roof with a bank of windows between the upper and lower opposed slopes to create a convection current when needed. I haven't seen a dome roof yet that didn't have leak issues , and I have more than a few real world experiences with them. If a person tries hard enough they can make anything work, so it's a matter of how bad you really want something. I built an all steel house , not a single stick of wood and it's stronger than a ton of garlic, but I'm sure there are those who wouldn't own one. Every structure has it's good points and bad so it boils down to what fits your needs and dreams and I've got to admit domes are perty cool ......I must have read dome books 1 & 2 and shelter 3 times each :emotions16: