Dometastic

  We have a solid floor! The days of digging inside the foundation are officially over.  It was a long 11 hour day for our contractor but he opted to do the whole thing in one long day of work instead of breaking it up into 2 days. The complicated nature of calculating the amount of concrete needed made him decide it was just easier to pull in his whole crew and do it in one shot. The floor needed to have 4" of concrete in some areas and 6" in others. The domes not being full circles further complicates the math problem. Our contractor, JC Concrete LLC , was correct in his estimate that 30 yards would get us almost enough. The 30 yards did all but the last bit of the final dome. The total came to just under 37 yards for the floor. They worked super hard all day and did a nice job. There are some imperfections but most of those will be ground away when we polish the floor or be hidden under walls (around all the pipes sticking up). The larger issue was the tie beams. They ende...

  The crunch is on to try to get the floor finished and the house sealed back up with the wooden bucks before the really cold weather arrives. We have found out they all need to come down for the floor to be poured and then right back up again because of the colder weather. We have space heaters ready and plan to keep working though the winter with the ultimate goal of being able to move in this upcoming summer/fall. We have been busy installing all the under slab insulation, reinforcement and the radiant floor system. All seams and cut openings are spray foamed and taped to fully seal them up. We have also installed an expansion joint around the edges of where the slab will contact already poured concrete. Our plans called for 1" rigid insulation on all slab edges but we worked with the building inspector and instead put the insulation (sprayed) on the exterior of the house covering the connection of the airform to the foundation. This works as air and vapor sealing as well as in...

  We did rise out of the dirt but unfortunately we are still digging and moving dirt. The last few weeks we have been moving stone. The interior of the house needed to be raised about 6 to 8 inches with crushed stone fill. The first dump truck and a quarter was with wheelbarrows! Saying it was tiring is a giant understatement. We took the buck off the front door and put ramps down to be able to at least bring the stone from the pile inside the great room. We dumped into wheelbarrows over the tie beam into the kitchen area and were able to directly dump for the great room. The problem we ran into with this method was diesel exhaust. After just a few minutes the air was toxic. Out on a great local store search to find a shop fan we went. We constantly find ourselves shopping for things we never knew we would need. There is no way to budget for these things and they do add up. After spending way too much on the biggest fan ever, we were able to tolerate bringing the skid steer back in...

  Finally we get to buy something other than dirt and conduit! I guess we did get to buy the glass blocks... so that counts as something more fun than dirt. BUT these are way cooler to report than our glass blocks. For the past few months I have been buried in quotes. It has been crazy to keep track of everything and figure out what fits into our budget. First up.... drum roll.... Doors Originally we were planning to do wood fortress doors with speakeasy openings but were worried we wouldn't have enough light. It seemed like a better idea to pick out doors with glass in them so they double as windows and not need an additional storm door. I hate how storm doors work and look. Nice ones are expensive and all options block the view of the door you choose to some extent. By taking the part of the budget we planned for storm doors and lumping it in with the door itself we could get a super cool option. These are thermally broken and insulated iron doors that have glass operable windows...

  The shell is done!  We said goodbye to the builders (a few weeks ago) and now pretty much the rest of the building is on us.  "Bon Voyaagee..don't forget to write" as Bugs would say We decided to leave the wooden bucks up and the front plastic in place until we finish each exterior flat wall. These will function as doors and windows allowing us to work inside as it gets cold. We made hinged openings so we can choose to open or keep them closed easily. Right now it is very dark inside with all the openings closed up. We hope this means it will be warm in the winter with a heater so we can keep working! The house is at about the same finish level as a house that is waterproofed but the siding isn't up yet. The inside dome walls are done except to paint. All the vents have PVC sleeves that are caulked with NP1 Urethane caulk. This caulk is rumored (info from the builders) to not only adhere great to the airform but to last 20 yrs or more when exposed to the elements. T...