Has anyone built a concrete house? I'm thinking dome shaped, with just one door and no windows. I'll leave this discussion open other than that. Any suggestions?????
Has anyone built a concrete house? I'm thinking dome shaped, with just one door and no windows. I'll leave this discussion open other than that. Any suggestions?????
"I hate lucky people, unless I happen to be the lucky person."- Cody Rehberg
Check your building codes! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Do you have in mind something like the monolithic dome houses? We used to live near this place and visited to look at them. Personally, I'd like to have one.
GAFARMER, Aboiujt 1/3 of my ground floor and all the basement is concrete. In both cases there are concrete floors, walls and ceilings. I actually bought a small library of concrete home books and spent about 7 years thinking about the varioius methodologies but only used a little of the info in my new home.
Although concrete doesn't burn too easily, furnishings do, so you need a second means of excape in case of fire. You may live where there is no code but that doesn't make bedrooms without windows large enough to meet code a smart idea. By the way, the required window size is not for you to excape but to let a fireman with his full gear on to come in through the window.
For what it is worth most rounded shapes are a real pain to utalize the interior space. Although a spherical space encloses the greatest volume with the least surface materia typically the interior volume is hard to use efficiently so it is no big plus. One of the best compromises I saw was standard vertical walls with eliptical domed ceilings. There are a couple outfits doing that, one (in Texas) bought tooling from the other (in Kansas City area.) I visited the owner of the company in KC where his home, office, and outbuildings are examples. Had I gone 100% or nearly so, earth sheltered, that was the style of choice for me.
If you want super simple DIY and codes are not an issue you can pile up a giant mound of sand in the general shape of the building you want and cover it with burlap bags dipped in mortar. Several laminations will give it good strength. You can then overlay with rebar and wire mesh and pour on the concrete. You can go thinner near the top and thicker toward the bottom.
If the structure is gong to be of decent size yoiu should put down a foundation first.
After the crete cures sufficiently you remove the plugs you used around the periphery to define doors or windows and remove the sand. You can use an engine driven pump to help flush out the sand and reduce the labor. VOILA a steel reinforced concrete dome suitable for a garage band into reverb or for potato storage with the installation of a good A/C unit.
In some third world locations these and other simple processes are being taught to give folks better housing. Imagine a hut made of bent sticks and thatched. Remove the thatch and cover with the burlap bags wetted with concrete and VOILA! a waterproof roofed hut.
There are oodles of books on this stuff.
Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
Check out this web page. After Katrina, a lot of the coast dwellers are looking into concrete.
You ARE a redneck if... you knew someone whose last words were "Hey y'all, watch this!"
Those monolithic dome houses are just what I'm talking about. I'm figuring on something like 1000-1500 sq. ft. Now, on zoning, I don't know all the details. I do know that (as far as I can tell) there is no window size requirement. Does anyone else have any info on the monolithic domes???
"I hate lucky people, unless I happen to be the lucky person."- Cody Rehberg
I don't know about GA, but most places that have any building code use CABO, whose requirements state that all bedrooms must a secondary means of egress. I am not a big supporter of building codes because they give a false impression of how a house is built. Most building codes inforce the ( minimun standard). Some of those miniums are very minimum indeed. Common sense dictates that some need to be more than a minimum, where as some are overtly rediculus in the amount they go overboard. Shingle roofs are and example. CABO says that minimum 15# felt be used under shingles and it has been proven that shingles don't last as long with felt under them because of heat build up. The homeowner should be the one making that choose, either longer shingle life or tha added protection of the felr paper. Sorry, off the soap box, not trying to hijack the thread.
On monolithic dones I checked into going to the class in Italy TX several years ago and was very impressed with their process.
On the Dicsovery channel a few weeks ago they had a segment on concrete dome houses where the designer proposed a collapsed dome , poured in the flat and then inflated. It didn't sound possible to me but he did it. And the labor was all college students in his arch. class. They first poured a circular footing and pad. Then they made a grid of half round, bent in a simi-circle re-bar that could rotate as it was raising, which was layed over a fabric. I don't remember how long after the pour they waited, but not very long, then they started inflating with pressured air under thefabric. The dome rose starting in the middle and when the correct amount of imflation had occured they lowered the pressure to maintain The shape while the concrete curred. I would have thought it would slump or crack in spots because they poured the concrete about 12 or 14 inches deep, but on the finnished dome the concrete was only 8 inches or so. I would give you a link to the program, but I don't know how to find it. I can tell you it was on the " Building the Ultimate" and the main part of the show was on the proposed pyrimid city in Japan on the water. Later, Nat
Nat, Use continuous soffit and ridge vents and sweep the heat out of the nail deck which will cool the felt and shingles and let you have the best of both. I got a 22% across the board home owners insurance discount for selecting shingles from a ins co supplied list. The warranty of the shingles was void if you didn't insulate the nail deck.
gafarmer, the PCA (Portland Cement Association) has lots of good info on concrete houses.
I am still subscribed to "Concrete Homes" a good magazine.
Look at www.concretehomesmagazine.com/
Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
10-4 boys, thanks again.
"I hate lucky people, unless I happen to be the lucky person."- Cody Rehberg
I pass the Monolithic Dome Institute every couple of days on the way down to the ranch. They are very interesting. I was told that a 1500 foot (don't know if you can call a round sphere shaped house square footage....LOL) dome home could be cooled with a 15,000 BTU RV a/c unit.
Another idea they offer is you can either build one large dome or a small or connect any combination with a hallway to expand footage.
We went with ICF construction and concrete.
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