Greenbuilding Archive for May 2001

Sustainable building should incorporate locally-available materials, so if
you are set on the idea of a dome, you should look to use better
materials.  Compressive stresses in such a dome are low, so at the 
very least, you could replace the sprayed concrete with earth, brick,
tiles, etc, which could be bound together with a cement paste. This would
reduce the amount of concrete used.

If you insist on building a new structure, rather than renovating an
existing one, see if you can "recycle" some material that is on its way to
the landfill!

Good luck,
John 


On Thu, 17 May 2001, Mark Thurston wrote:

> 
> I am considering building a monolithic dome house.  So far, my predominant
> source of information is the monolithic dome website,
> www.monolithicdome.com, which I would expect to be somewhat biased, given
> that they are the sole (proprietary?) suppliers of the Airform, a key
> component in the monolithic dome.  The claims made by the monolithic dome
> company are lofty......1/4 to 1/2 the heating/cooling cost of a
> "conventional" house, virtually indestructible by natural forces
> (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes), virtually no maintenance, very
> durable(will last for hundreds of years), virtually fireproof, insect proof,
> rot proof.....Are these claims all true, or at least a close approximation
> of the truth?  Are there any existing or foreseeable problems with this
> construction method?  Any information that will help me in my decision will
> be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Mark Thurston
> mthurston@tenforward.com


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