Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yep - a lillipop



Cant wait to see the next installment of this Web4Dev.

A little preview of the next video I'm working on....

I enjoy watching you work on these projects. This is a big'un.

For those interested and not already building their dome, there is a site in the US that sells the hubs to suit a myriad of different designs http://www.gardendome.com/Gd6.html. This is in my future plans, so am keeping a close eye on things. Geodesic domes are (believe it or not), much closer to being mainstream in the US than Australia. I have only personally seen one company so far doing dome houses, but not greenhouses.

Not that I want to offend anyone, but those hubs scare the crap out of me. I did some experiments with hubs that bolt into the end grain of the boards....they rip right out or split the board under load. In one of my videos, I show the bolts ripping out of the struts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLIhOglrbmI

I'd love to see the snow-load calculations for anything with a large span. Here's is the patent for the hubs. http://www.google.com/patents?id=KMgXAAAAEBAJ&printsec=drawing&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false so you can see their design.

The guys at at growing spaces have a nice simple hub...but I don't think they sell them without the dome. http://www.growingspaces.com/

Just my 2 cents worth....

If you have actually tried that type of hub, you are way, way ahead of me, as all my plans are still on the drawing board. I did however want to try some small designs to test before going big. I just happened to see that one site that did sell the hubs by themselves, and never saw any others.

I was ultimately thinking of around a 20 metre span, which would be fun.

Geodesic are great for greenhouse and screen rooms but for a dome type of home, I'm gonna stick with the airformed insulated reinforced thinshell concrete for extreme strength of it all. Also with the airformed insulated method you get the thermal mass on the inside and the insulation on the outside which is more efficient for keeping a home at a nice comfortable temperature. Just not nearly so appropriate for a greenhouse type structure until the figure out how to make transparent concrete.

The one Geodesic dome home kit manufacturer I know of currently in the US is based in Flroida but there are several companies that do the Thinshell construction and the designs can be really cool.

Nice to see your progress there Rob.

I agree. If I were going to build a home, I would get a proven engineered building. The hubs are critical to get right....there's a huge amount of force on each of them. Their web site was selling PVC with an option of steel. Can you imaging what would happen to the PVC hubs after cooling out in the sun for a few years?????

probably be about the same as happens to the PVC hoop houses that are left out too long.

LOL. I should proof my posts. I said "cooling in the sun". I meant "cooking in the sun"

I got the idea anyway.

I finally finished up the 5th video in the series. This one covers how the footings were done, and then a little problem with flooding in the foundation hole!

Good to have family and friends, eh. And gotta love a bucket tractor. Thanks for doing these videos. Like to see the construction work literaly from the ground up.

Another teaser video.

Looking great Rob! It's Huge!