Mountain View Dome

[Mountain View]

Its our first week of construction! WOW! How excitting! We have two of the seven domes inflated and foamed. Now they are self supporting. They survived a heavy hail storm with minimal damage. That foam is tough!

The first night after inflation we put two flood lights at their intersection after it got dark and lit them up! You could see it for miles!

[Cloud Hidden]

This picture reminds me of something typically encountered with domes: there's no way for most passer's-by to anticipate the final look. We understand the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar, but the inflated airform is so unfamiliar to most of the people out there in the rest of the world, that they have no basis for seeing past it to the final shapes and colors.

I love seeing the transition from first inflation to finished product, and Ray and Beth's dome will change appearance markedly over the next months. I like coming back to the initial pictures sometimes to wonder...how'd they get there from here?

[Minnesota]

I'd like to hear more details about how the airform was actually assembled. Where materials were obtained. How they were fastened. What you would change, etc.

[DJ]

I love the picture.

[Mountain View]

Minnesota,
The airforms where built by my wife and I.
We have a very strong pioneering spirit so we are doing just about everything we think we can handle. Making our own airforms is just one of them.
You can see our efforts with the airforms at: http://www.mountainviewdome.com/Airforms.htm
We are working with an old time dome builder Mert Hull. He built the noted Eye of the Storm among many. Mert even helped Jim (Cloud Hidden) with his home.
Without people like Mert and Jim (just to mention a few) we probably would not have the courage to do these things.
There is a great deal of information on our web site. Feel free to check it out: http://www.mountainviewdome.com

[Cloud Hidden]

Minnesota, let me give you a (humorous) insight into Ray. There are three kinds of people who end up owning domes: people who pay someone to build it for them with no hands-on involvement; people who oversee the job in a managerial sense by, for example, hiring the excavator to run the backhoe; and people (like me and I sense, you) who just HAVE to jump into the backhoe and operate it themselves. And then there's Ray and Beth. They don't just operate the backhoe, they're inclined to rebuild the hydraulic arm so that it digs the footers in a radius instead of straight line, if you know what I mean. If there's a part of the process that they can touch, modify, improvise, MacGyver, or just play with, they will. Why? Because it's their nature.

I so look forward to seeing what their house ends up looking like, because "well, that's the way we've always done it" just becomes one more reason for them to look for another way. And collectively, that's how we improve our skills, materials, and methods. Ray and Beth are building in the tradition of a guy I know who's making a post-and-beam house by sawing every beam himself and cutting every mortise and tenon by hand. Not for everyone, but I admire that pioneer spirit!

[Mountain View]

A long time ago I learned a good lesson. I had a boss that indicated that I would never advance beyond my current position and that I was just adequate in its performance. Needless to say I could have just folded over and accepted that and perform accordingly. After repressing my first impulse to punch him out, I use his words as a challenge to my life. I found a saying that I posted over my desk after reaching his level of management.


“If you think you can
or
if you think you can’t
You are right!”

It has helped me believe that I can do a lot of things I never thought possible. One just has to try. Failing is just a step to success and if you never take a step you go anyplace.

[Mountain View]

At Mountain View things are moving now! Check out my updates!
http://www.mountainviewdome.com/Construction/Shell.htm
Don't over look page 2.

[robin850]

[quote="Mountain View"]


“If you think you can
or
if you think you can’t
You are right!”

quote]

i wholeheartedly agree. attitude is everything!

just for trivia's sake: i believe the quote is attributed to Henry Ford.

[Mountain View]

Wow the third dome is up! Our patio is larger than the garages!

[Charles Thompson]

Mountain View, I dont see much rebar in the concrete spraying process. Did you skrimp on rebar or on photos? What method did you use to dilineate sections along airform that receive urethane and concrete from future voids? Details of rebar hangers? Any problems?

[Mountain View]

Charles,
You re very observant! We haven't installed the rebar yet! The first layer of concrete is a pre-shell and is from 1/2" to 3/4" thick. We will tie the rebar flat against this pre-shell. The pre-shell helps stabilize the shell and insures that there is concrete behind the rebar. Just blasting shotcrete onto the wall with the rebar spaced out can cause voids thus weakness in the structure. Some people may not agree but that’s our reasoning. Part of this logic supports our doing each dome separately. If you look close you will see that we still need to add the center dome in the garage before it becomes one structure. We can safely cut away the two outside shells to accommodate the inside shell without the fear of either shell sagging. Once the inside dome is foamed it will be trimmed to match up to the two outside shells and foamed together as one. We will then apply its pre-shell and attach the rebar through out the 3-dome structure and shotcrete the entire structure as one.

The pre-shell also anchors the stickers in place. Doing it this way allows us to spray the foam once.

[Anonymous]

[quote="Mountain View"]Wow the third dome is up! Our patio is larger than the garages!


I'm curious about why you are inflating your domes one or two at a time. Is this standard procedure when building multiple domes? We are in the design stage, and our plans currently include 7 domes.

Idahogirl

[Mountain View]

We inflated the two ends of ther garage basically at the same time but our patio dome by itself. It all depends on how and who you choose to build your domes. I am sure that Monolithic can make each building into one airform thus you would be inflating the entire building (three domes in my case for the house and also the garage) as one.

[jtownse2]

We just got back from a well deserved vacation after completing our dome house. It is nice to hear about some one who wants to jump in and do the work themselves The wife and I did the biggest part of the work on our domes and we are 68 and 69 years old. the job was tough, but we made it. If I had not had a bunch of construction exsperiance We would not have been able to do it. We just hired people to help us when we needed extra man power. Good luck to all of you who are just starting to build, and have a ball doing it. I do not have much to say on the BB, but do jump in once in awhile. PS. Although the inside is done we still have a lot of work to do on the out side. Rock work ect.