Not much happened again this week. Our standard construction documents arrive tomorrow.
We are still planning to have a meeting with the town before we hire an engineer. After more discussion with Monolithic I don't think the town will let us use an out of state engineer as if it was prefab. BUT, it doesn't hurt to meet with them and ask how much detail they need before going to get new engineering quotes.
Monolithic has been helpful in trying to figure out how to make engineering the house go a little smoother. They sent us some generic engineering for a 32 foot dome (our house is several 32 foot domes that overlap). That at least will give our engineer a solid place to start. It will also help us in hiring an engineer because now we can actually show them what needs to be done.
Talking to engineers about the dome wasn't the same as talking to finance people. Read about my ridiculous experience talking to banks about construction loans HERE. Instead, I just felt like they were blowing it up into some kind of engineering miracle. A miracle that we were going to pay a lot for them to figure out. They were looking at the drawing of several overlapping domes and not wrapping their heads around the fact that these have already been built. They have been building these domes since the early 1960's and there is a well established method. One engineer told me that you can't build them in cold climates because they don't do well. Ummm, then why are there people in Alaska and Canada living in them? Why are igloos from cold climates? Because they are warmer than any other structure! They even have hotels in Norway and Finland that have dome suites to stay in.
There is even one dome home in Alaska that lost their heating in the winter with the temperature at minus 30 degrees and the owners didn't notice for over a day until their hot water went cold. In our current house if the heat goes out it drops to the 40's inside in less than 8 hours. I have already accidentally tested this out just a few months ago. The outside winter temperature in CT is cold but no where close to minus 30. I can't even imagine what that temperature feels like.
These people posted a photo of themselves in a hot tub in minus 30 degree weather. As much as I like hot tubs I could never be convinced to do this!
We are still planning to have a meeting with the town before we hire an engineer. After more discussion with Monolithic I don't think the town will let us use an out of state engineer as if it was prefab. BUT, it doesn't hurt to meet with them and ask how much detail they need before going to get new engineering quotes.
Monolithic has been helpful in trying to figure out how to make engineering the house go a little smoother. They sent us some generic engineering for a 32 foot dome (our house is several 32 foot domes that overlap). That at least will give our engineer a solid place to start. It will also help us in hiring an engineer because now we can actually show them what needs to be done.
Talking to engineers about the dome wasn't the same as talking to finance people. Read about my ridiculous experience talking to banks about construction loans HERE. Instead, I just felt like they were blowing it up into some kind of engineering miracle. A miracle that we were going to pay a lot for them to figure out. They were looking at the drawing of several overlapping domes and not wrapping their heads around the fact that these have already been built. They have been building these domes since the early 1960's and there is a well established method. One engineer told me that you can't build them in cold climates because they don't do well. Ummm, then why are there people in Alaska and Canada living in them? Why are igloos from cold climates? Because they are warmer than any other structure! They even have hotels in Norway and Finland that have dome suites to stay in.
There is even one dome home in Alaska that lost their heating in the winter with the temperature at minus 30 degrees and the owners didn't notice for over a day until their hot water went cold. In our current house if the heat goes out it drops to the 40's inside in less than 8 hours. I have already accidentally tested this out just a few months ago. The outside winter temperature in CT is cold but no where close to minus 30. I can't even imagine what that temperature feels like.
These people posted a photo of themselves in a hot tub in minus 30 degree weather. As much as I like hot tubs I could never be convinced to do this!
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