Dometastic

Things on the engineering front are starting to finally move! It is still painfully slow. It is kind of like a giant ice berg that is finally starting to move out of the way to reveal open water. We will take any movement at this point. It has been weeks of sorting things out with no real progress. We have found two engineering firms in CT that are willing to partner with Monolithic's engineer if that is acceptable to him. We are still waiting for a quote from one on our end but we found out from Monolithic that they actually called to talk to an engineer! Imagine that, doing a bit of research before submitting a quote. We are already leaning towards hiring them just for taking that initiative! It seems like a no brainer to me to do a little research on something unfamiliar before submitting a quote, but this is not the norm. If their quote is competitive, we will be hiring them just because they are willing to ask questions and seem genuinely interested in the project. We ...

This week we had our meeting with the town building department and they are super excited about the project. The great thing about our town is its forward "pro green" thinking. It does make a difference when you are working with everyone and not against them. During the meeting we talked about many details but the one big thing we needed was the towns perspective on our engineering dilemma. Once again, our project is in kind of a grey area of the building code. The town doesn't require engineering for residential projects but our house does need engineering done. The generic engineering for the 32' dome doesn't account for the rebar placement in the areas around openings and where the domes connect. The building department needed to decide if the house requires official engineering done (CT licensed engineer) or if it still falls under residential rules (no engineering). After much debate, asking various people and referencing the building code, it was determine...

There is one thing that is becoming clear about building a house. You must be ready to just wait. Wait for everything. When you are house shopping you actively go out and look at the homes that might work for you. Even if you don't find something you like, there is an element of action. With building a house the instant gratification of choosing isn't there. We have many more specific choices to make but it isn't the same. Our choices will eventually become a physical thing but at this point in the process they are all just paper. This waiting is just part of the process but that doesn't mean we like it. There are professionals from many fields that need to come together to build our house and they are busy people ( = waiting). There is also an order things need to go in (= waiting). This is painfully slow at times. For several weeks we have known we needed to meet with the town to clarify a few things (= waiting). The town meeting has officially been set for th...