Dometastic

The good news is we are 99% done back filling the foundation. Check out this video to take a quick walk around the interior of the foundation before we back filled it. The bad news is winter has officially come and our build site is covered in snow. We are on hold for an unknown amount of time. We still need about one load of fill to put inside the foundation to get it perfectly flat within 1 inch. It is roughly filled but with the pending storm we decided not to have the last load delivered. If we get a delivery we aren't going to use right away it becomes a frozen rock. At some point this winter we will get a warm up and we can get that last load delivered and spread out. Better to just wait until we know we have a break in the weather. Since my last post we also decided to finish the curtain drain. We rented another small mini excavator for the job. At some point in the future we will install and connect gutters from the barn and a cistern for outdoor water use. Fo...

Our inexperience once again comes back to cause stress and head aches! I called to set up our building inspection and found out we missed one! A BIG one! After about 2 hours of freaking out and sending a ton of photos and videos to the building department we got word that they were going to accept our digital version of the inspection. They weren't happy about it but it was an honest mistake born from the way the building permit is worded. Our building permit specifically lists what inspections are required in the form of a checklist. Other than the partial sentences below there is no other wording on the permit in regards to the steps. Footings and Piers prior to pouring - CHECK Foundation prior to back fill- ummm check??? etc etc (we will get to the rest later) Apparently we were supposed to have them come look at the stem wall rebar before we poured it. OOPS! I will admit there was a tiny voice in my head that wondered why they wanted to look at the rebar in the foo...

So many little things to get done before scheduling our foundation inspection and ultimately back filling before winter hits. We kept the pedal to the metal and got it done! The stem wall came out great! At least we think so. Hopefully the town inspectors and dome builders will think so too. We have been super busy since pouring day. Removal of the forms was pretty painless. There were close to 3000 screws to remove but at least it all came apart fairly easily. The harder part was cleaning up all the forms and sorting though all the wood to decide what we would keep and what to trash. My pack rat nature comes out sometimes and I just need to let it go....just let it go. There were wood piles everywhere. Mr. Dometastic and I compromised. We saved more than he wanted and not as much as I wanted. Since we have a future green house and garage to build I want to make sure we don't have to buy it all over again. Then there is the problem of storage. Now we have a back barn fu...

Whew! We did it!!! HUGE THANKS to all our friends that continue to volunteer to help us with this crazy project. We got stuck doing this foundation ourselves and without the help from them we couldn't have done it. You guys ROCK and we super appreciate your willingness to slave away! We also attribute our success to using the Spider Tie forming system . It really made all the difference for us. I admit I had my doubts that we could pull it off AND get it done before winter. The rebar delays didn't help my confidence. Now there is a little voice in my head that keeps whispering "its only good if we did it correctly" but I will continue to suppress it since we won't know until they come to build the dome. There isn't time to celebrate yet. We have a bunch of stuff to finish up before winter halts our progress. The days are getting shorter and colder and we are feeling the pressure to get it done. We are pretty safe weather wise until the end of October but...

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...