When you have the tools, it’s very cheap and easy to build a very strong dome, it can also be covered with a few layers of waterproof tarp and covered with soil, and grass and herbs sown on top, providing excellent natural living insulation.
It’s amazing how cheap and strong these things are.
I think I found the basic layout for my future house.
Edit: Since it’s so cheap, to further improve insulation one could build a small one inside a big one.
I also imagine they won’t be blown away or damaged that easily when a hurricane passes by (can be anchored into the ground), and I can’t imagine them collapsing during an earthquake…
The wood can be replaced with steel or aluminum too.
It’s a matter of integrating it in the plans, and most of that is already sitting in the ground anyway in modern houses, it can all rise up into utility islands and such, like a kitchen island.
Or partial walls that only go waist high or whatever, there’s many possiblities.
Can still put a straight wall up from the center to the sides of the dome.
Seperate rooms inside the dome can be designed!
Edit: @Slick1 The domes can also be used as a roof that sits on top of a circular(ish) wall of any height.
That’s awesome!! In my mind, it’s the hubless connections that set this apart from others I have seen and/or been in. I also really wonder exactly what tools are required.
Thanks for posting this! At 47N it’s tough to grow due to the weather but with one of these and some careful planning and a person could grow year round. I’ve seen a few different geodesic dome companies now. Some of them offer hubs and some just offer plans.
Just curious, what are the costs of materials for this build? It looks to me like once you’ve purchased the blueprints it’s still going to cost the same as those other guys.
That depends entirely on what you want to build, how big, what purpose, what budget you have, where you live, whether you need to hire someone, or if you can do it yourself, so many factors…
Gotta really think about what you want and explore the possibilities.
I was merely curious because I’ve seen other geodesic dome companies and it seems like for a decent outfit you’re looking between 3k all the way up to 20k.
This guy is charging ~$400 just for the plans. I would guess even on the cheap end the build is going to cost $2500+.
I will say the best one I’ve seen so far is a geodesic dome with a huge water tank and reflective paneling to heat it up during the day. During the day the water absorbs all the IR (heat) from the sun’s rays and then during the night when the ambient air is colder the water tank will radiate some warmth for the plants.
For those of us up north the cold is the most difficult obstacle to growing year-round. These geodesic domes are similar to a cold frame in the environment inside.
I will say this is the first guy I’ve seen to include plans on a raised dome. As someone who does manual labor with his back, bending over to tend my garden is something I don’t want to do. Not even a little bit
After a little bookmark searching I recalled where I seen it!
It’s probably the same function as a sun boiler the way the reflective paneling is on the ‘back’ of the unit (facing towards the sun 90% of the day). The reflectors point more of the light into the water thereby heating it up.
Definitely! When weather is permissible I would think one would want to remove the water tank and reflective paneling and remove a couple panels to allow air exchange so things don’t get too hot. Personally I would only use it during the winter and plant outside during the summer. My two cents.
. I think that would be cool…like tiers on different levels with partial grass covering.