Skip to main content

Roadblock removal?

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 determined we do have to have a CT licensed engineer and we can't use engineering from someone who is familiar with the domes.

We are still firmly at our road block and waiting for our revised engineering quotes.

One suggestion from a few CT engineers was to have the whole thing done by the non CT licensed engineer and have the CT one verify the work and oversee the construction. I am waiting to hear back from Monolithic about this possibility. Maybe this will be our way around the roadblock. We have found two CT engineers willing to do this but we don't know if the engineer Monolithic typically works with is open to the situation.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Construction Video and Geodesic vs. Monolithic Domes

While we wait as patiently as possible for spring to dig holes for our new perc tests my posts will be directed towards general dome related things. Most people I talk to know what a dome home is but are clueless about the different types of domes. This post is to help show the differences between geodesic and monolithic domes with a few pictures of each. The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true and a video must be worth 100000 words. (Watch a video of a monolithic dome being constructed at the end of this post to really wrap your mind around the process.) Many people have asked me how a monolithic dome is different than a geodesic dome. The answer can be quite simple. A monolithic dome structure is all one piece and geodesic domes are made up of many pieces (triangles) connected together. Monolithic domes are sprayed concrete like some inground pools. Here are some photos of interior and exterior monolithic domes. Compare the above Mon

Radiant Heat and Drywall DONE!

  We are DONE with dry wall and everything is painted!!! It looks almost like a real house inside. I can top that news by saying WE HAVE HEAT!!! Lets take a moment to celebrate having a functioning heating system in a cold climate in the middle of winter! The marathon of drywall is done for now. We still have the master wing of the house to do after we move in but we would like to just pretend we are done for awhile. It was a long slow dusty process but it looks amazing. The flat walls are a cool white and the dome surface is a warm cream. All our color will come from materials not paint colors. We have plans for wood, metal and stone throughout the house. We are finally getting to install more lighting fixtures and finalize all the outlets and switches. To watch a five minute video walk through CLICK HERE . Greatroom floor outlet in the center of the room. We decided that since the room is 32' across it needed an outlet in the center where furniture would be. Kids bathroom sconces

Spider Tie System Stem Wall Forms Complete

We finished building the stem wall forms last weekend! Personally I think they look super cool and I will be a bit sad to deconstruct them after we pour them. So much work to build them only to take them apart again and then just bury the whole thing underground. The original plan was to pour the stem wall on Friday October 11th but our weather was once again not cooperating. We are got yet another rain storm fueled by a storm/hurricane that thankfully mostly missed us. Because of this storm we are now scheduled to pour it on Monday October 14th. This was quite the ambitious DIY project for us. I can understand why we couldn't even get a company to put in a bid. Part of me is amazed that we pulled it off...so far. The truth will be in how it holds up to the concrete. It took almost 3000 screws to put the plywood skin on the Spider Tie towers and we cut 120 sheets of plywood! We joked that we were the Dometastic saw mill. Watch some videos of the process. It is