Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks for compliment....

To me a geodome looks easier to construct with less effort than conventional building. But that is soon to be found out here....
Are they worth it? Hard to tell for me at this moment. Looking at the enthusiastic stories of dome owners it seems to be worth it. I like the concept, form and alleged advantages of geodesic domes. Excerpt for some minor disadvantages (like round floor plans and walls, could be difficult to fit in traditional furniture etc.) I think it is a very viable and affordable way of building. Later I will go deeper into my considerations for choosing a geodesic dome as house and show some more of the design.

Bonsai or banzai tree? I would say it's a banzai tree, since it does very well in the clay right now. Kampai!

Thanks, but please some more patience for the next update....

The only drawback I see to geodesic domes is that they burn down real fast should they catch on fire. I would rather have an air formed concrete dome...

Where does that idea come from? I think it greatly depends on the materials used. For example; Polyurea roof covering doesn't burn, steel generally doesn't burn, neither do a lot of composite materials.

It comes from wood being the most common building material, and the shape being conducive to fire. The "minimum surface area" that domes use to make them so awesome also means that a fire can burn through the structure faster, and wen you weaken part of the dome, the whole dome can become compromised. Now don't get me wrong, I love geodesic domes! However, using fire resistant materials, like you mentioned, is rarely done but should be.

Any construction made out of combustible materials will burn, some faster others slower. And is it not true that if you weaken a part of any construction that whole construction can become compromised? Take away a couple of cables of the Golden Gate bridge and surely that construction can easily be compromised....

I'm sorry, Ron..... but fail to see the point of this conversation.

Although I'm not a "professional" designer or builder, that does not mean that I'm going to blindly build something in the hope it all works out. The fun of this whole project is actually to be forced to work out all the details of construction, which materials to use, strength calculations and lots of considerations one has to make before banging in a nail. Thank ....no not that guy, we have the web these days and lots of people willing to share knowledge and information. 30 years ago this would have been a 15 year library lock-up before building could be started.

Anyway, 40 odd years in yachting (hobby and professional) come in very handy now to work out things, sometimes in an unconventional way, but light and strong.....

"Some faster others slower." Domes would be in the faster category. Just something to be cognizant of.

So your point seems to be; don't smoke in bed if you live in a dome?

Actually, domes do have some similarity with pizza ovens, don't they? And those get hot!!

Don't smoke. Especially in bed. Especially not in bed in a geodesic dome house made of wood. I live in wildfire central, so we think a lot about that sort of thing. I only bring it up because I care.

And that is a rare thing to find these days, Ron. Thank you for that.

Back to construction....

I once build a diesel fuel tank into my boat, made of wood/epoxy. It worked great, and according to the Gougeon Brothers (pioneers in wood/epoxy composite constructions) it would even be more fire safe than a steel tank. But, wood here in Thailand is not a popular construction material. First, the quality of plywood etc. and massive wood is very bad to even unusable. Second, the issue of termites and third, the stupid high prices for reasonable quality wood (imported!).

So following the availability of materials of reasonable quality the choice cuts down to concrete, steel, plastics and various composite materials.

For example, the workshop is build on a concrete slab and consists of a steel frame with on the outer and inner sides OSB3, to be filled with PU foam and so creating a very stiff and strong structure. The outside will be treated with an elastomeric roof paint that happens to be fireproof too. Windows are made of polycarbonate, triple layers for insulation purposes. Outside surfaces of the inner shell will be of a fiber/concrete composite plate material which is also fireproof. Straight walls are double out of lightweight concrete blocks (Ytong) with the space in between filled with PU foam. No cabling inside walls or cavities. All electrics will be run through easy accessible cable gutters, properly dimensioned cables, fully grounded and with right size of automatic breakers.

There is more to say about it, for now that's it, though.

Gougeon Brothers, that made me glance over at my bookshelf to see their book on boat construction! Thailand used to produce some of the best wood on the planet. I would imagine teak to be pretty termite resistant. If not a little West Systems epoxy would make it so. Though I usually use Smiths Restore-It on my termite holes. It surprises me how much is constructed out of wood here in San Diego. Between the fires and termites I am surprised any structures are still standing! Unlike wood, concrete is locally sourced, termite resistant, and mostly fire resistant.

Well, if you look today what crap is sold here, it is hard to imagine they ever were one of the main exporters of teak. I think today, the good stuff goes for export since it brings the most. The crap they keep for themselves. No wonder if you see the level of skills here. Who would waste some good teak on that?

I believe though, that it was Burmese teak that was the best there was? Correct?

He'll of a job to get teak properly in the epoxy! You have to degrease and degrease up to very last moment before applying the epoxy. I had the book to and read don't know how many times. Was in the time when we were dreaming about a huge cat to dwell the seven seas. Looking at the estimated hours then, I thought "you can do it, but better you don't". And look at me now, on my old age building a project even bigger than that. How stupid can one be?

Concrete can be a good material, but it has quite some carbon footprint that starts to bother me a bit. It will not stop me from using it when there is no alternative, but I try to find other solutions that are durable, strong and suitable for the climate here.

There are some beautiful teak Thai buildings around, but not as many as one would think. Even teak needs some maintenance, which is definitely not a strong point of Thai culture.

They make up for it with great food and beautiful people.

In the last weeks we developed a daily working routine of:

1st
remove plastic PE sheeting from building so work can start,

2nd
keep one eye on the surrounding skies for upcoming rain showers, the other on the work,

3rd
at the first sign of likely rain, start running with the tools inside, run outside with PE sheets and start covering the whole darn thing,

4th
wait for the shower to pass, inspect the surrounding skies and return to step 1.

Depending on the weather the sequence sometimes repeated a couple of times a day. But....at least me managed to have the main part of the outside roof layer of OSB on it. What follows is getting the ends on, get them cut at the right angle so it starts to look like what was designed.

We also had to do night shifts at times, since the PE sheet didn't always stay in place, resulting in us climbing up and down the roof (in the dark) to have the sheets arranged. All of this in horrible cloudbursts and lightning. There were moments I got the feeling to be back on the oceans, hanging in the rigging to get the sails down. Oh well, nostalgia.......

Attached some pictures of the "progress"