Dometastic

It's been awhile since I have had a chance to post and there is a ton to report. This spring has been super busy and we have a lot of good news to share. In early spring we were waiting for a bit of red tape to be cleared on several projects. Finally , things have started working out for us and we are back to being super excited to make progress. When the builder decided to indefinitely postpone our build we were trying to roll with the punches as all our plans were flipped upside down. We put on a good face but we were bummed and defeated. All that hard work for the past three years and just when we got to the point we were expecting the builder to come and put up the shell.... COVID. The year 2020 is only half over and it is truly a weird one. Most of our spring has been doing what is essentially large scale yard work. Brush hogging, tree removal, rock removal and general property clean up. It all needs to be done but doesn't help us move in. It does keep us busy and still mo...

We are waiting for the surveyor to schedule the work he needs to complete for the health department. We need maps and documents corrected before we can apply for a septic permit. In the mean time we continue to work on small projects when the weather cooperates. This spring has been colder and wetter than normal so mother nature has been very unhelpful. We continue to get snow flurries even though it is May when our daytime temps should be in the 70's not the 40's and 50's! Here is our snow from mid April. In the few nice days we get, we are trying to complete a bunch of back burner projects. One very back burner project we completed was field cleanup on an overgrown old cow pasture. It is about 2 acres and when we bought the property it was about 8ft high full of invasive plants. Mostly full of horrible things with prickers even the deer wouldn't walk through. We have been brush hogging it 2 times a year to rein it in a bit but it was still not mowable by the lawn trac...

If you don't know about the Coronavirus and have not been effected by it in some way you clearly live under a rock and I would like to join you. Of course I will be on the other side of the rock, more than six feet away and with my own private area. I promise to bring toilet paper and share it. Like much of the US we are in Coronavirus induced holding pattern as our state heads into the projected worst weeks of infection and continues its "stay at home" policy. We haven't directly interacted with anyone outside our house in over 3 weeks...maybe it is 4 now....I have lost count. So far we have been able to avoid entering a store for shopping and being within 15 feet of any person outside our household. A combination of curbside pickup, Amazon, Misfits produce subscription and our deep freezer's current "full o' cow" status of have allowed us to become full fledged hermits. On the upside we do not need to wear the latest fashion trend I am n...

We are in mid March and the sudden arrival of Corona Virus has disrupted everyone's lives. Our town has shut down everything but the essentials until the end of this month with the possibility of extending it. I don't have official word yet but I believe our build will now be delayed. My guess is that these two weeks will go by and they will choose to extend the shut down. This will most likely effect the town departments including building inspections. Our builder is coming from 2000k miles away so shut downs are an issue. I would imagine they are not going to risk the extra cost of potential delays related to shut downs. Our set contract price means every extra day will cost them more of their profit margin. So, like many other people, our lives are in a holding pattern. In the mean time progress still continues. We received the airform shop drawings and gave them the thumbs up to continue. The below image is a rendering of the airform off of the shop drawing document. T...

Winter break comes to a close and we gain back one hour of daylight. We are starting to get things ready and check things off our homework list. The first nice weekend day we finished grading the interior of the foundation. This was something we tried to finish last fall but didn't quite finish. It is now all set for the builders. We have a little more dirt moving to do on the exterior but it should be done soon. The first building materials have arrived AND Monolithic is making our airform! We received the airform review image. This was created after the builder came out to meet us and take measurements. It's cool but a bit confusing to look at because it is drawn as if transparent. The first supplies to arrive are the things we have to supply that are not included in our contract but will be installed by the builders. The first to arrive were the optional safety anchors for the top of each dome. They look like they belong bolted to a dock with large commerc...

We are still at the point where nothing visible is happening but behind the scene gears are turning and information is flowing. South Industries made a site visit this week! They have a crew in South Carolina and the person in charge of our build flew up to CT to take site measurements and meet with us. It was great to get a chance to ask all the questions we could think of. This meeting kicks off the first step in Monolithic creating our airform. We got a gold star for our foundation work! This is a huge relief! Last fall we double checked the measurements of our concrete forms before we poured and tried to use bracing to get them as true as possible. The key point is "tried" . We knew they were up to an inch off in one section after truing them up as much as possible. Most of the way around they are within a 1/4" from what they are supposed to be. The curved forms are super strong once fully assembled and only had a little bit of give. The area that is almos...

There is nothing going on at the build site right now. We are just waiting around for spring to come. BUT we do have progress and big news ! Paperwork is signed and the down payment check is in the mail to the builders! This first big payment covers the manufacturing of the airform and officially gets us in the builders schedule. We have only about 3 months left before they come to start the dome shell! So very exciting and really scary all at the same time. They are planning to get to our project sometime towards the end of April after their residential team is done with a house in Florida. It is so much more nerve wracking to mail big checks to a company to create something from nothing than it is to buy something that already exists. The up side is that the contract is a set fee. We are paying a fixed amount for them to do everything laid out in the contract as "their scope". This makes us feel better to know that it is a fixed amount. This is not the case with m...