Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's not even done and I wish it was bigger.

I've made some excellent progress in the last month on the dome! The entire concrete block wall was built and I'm now moving on to some of the heating and plumbing that will be buried under the floor. I'm still hoping to have most of it built before the snow flies!

Another teaser video. It's moving along quickly! Most likely the dome part will go up within the next week!

Geez man, are you working non-stop on this thing?

Basically, I am! I'm trying to get it covered before the snow flies!

Great work Rob!

looks awesome. and not being disrespectful, but at 10 blocks an hour, would you have been better off hiring a blocklayer for a day? Surely your time is worth more than that?

LOL. no offense taken. I looked into having a real foundation poured. Because of the odd shapes and angles, they wanted $9000 just to set up the forms...plus around $2000 in concrete. I had a mason look at it and he said it would take one week to do the work with him and a helper and he would do it for $3000, plus I would still have to have the footings poured.

I made my own forms and poured the footings, and laid the blocks in about 60 hours. Total cost was around $2500. Plus, I know it was down accurately!

So much work! The block laying video made me tired just watching it. If you want it done right you have to do it yourself, especially with custom stuff like this.

Fellow "aquaponian" Steve P. and I worked into darkness to get the dome structure up. With a few pulls and pushes, the enter thing fit together perfectly! It was amazing to see it go together. Too bad we couldn't see the finished dome in the dark! My daughter was holding the flashlight so we could put the last few sections in place. Special thanks to Steve for a job well done!

woo hoo!

This is really cool. Back at the beginning, you stated this would be a state-of-the-art building. The foundation, drainage pipe, the heating and cooling piping system... Can't wait to see the rest of it.

Will there be enough sunlight for the dome in the winter due to the large trees?

Mr Bill, remember where he lives most large trees loose their leaves in winter, most of them already look a bit naked actually.

right now the entire area is shaded...it was a bit earlier in the season than I liked. Over time, I'll clear out more of the trees once I get a good feeling to the path.

This is very true.... many of them I will leave alone. But there are several large white pines that cast the shadow of death over the area!