DOME MAGAZINE: Spring 2000, Vol. 12| No. 3
The following remarks are made with tongue in cheek, but they represent only a few of the hoops that some dome buyers have to jump through before they can realize the greatest living system since the sod house and the tepee.
1. Have you lost your mind? You’ll be the laughingstock of the community? There is no room in a dome.
Usually made by close friends and well-intentioned relatives. The answer: the dome does look different, but that objection usually disappears early on in the building phase. These negatives can come from your architect, the building departments or your financial advisers. We recently had a structural engineer and a building inspector tell the customers that the permanent wood foundations was good but they wouldn’t build one for themselves, they would build poured concrete. Fortunately, the customer had different advice and proceeded with the original plan for a permanent wood foundation, saving both money and time. The old saying applies, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
2. You can’t get financing.
You might be right, but even if you are a qualified borrower, financing is sometimes a little more hectic than square house mortgages. The reason being that prejudice against dome homes occasionally comes from financial folks who are just plain dumb or carry built-in-prejudices against anything but the “standard” box. Most domes manufactured today have approval by FHA, VA, UBC and Fannie May. You just have to be really forceful sometimes when your friendly bander tries to change your mind. If you qualify for any of the above reinsures and you are getting the runaround by their representatives, call the reinsures direct (FHA, VA, or whatever mortgage that you want to use). This usually gets results, as the bank or whatever, may lose their charter to sell these mortgages by denying you access to that service.
3. All domes leak.
This complaint was partially true back in the early ‘70s when dome mechanics was in its infancy. Some domes are mostly roof, and since relatively little was known about domes at that time, the above statement had a ring of truth. Frank Lloyd Wright quipped that “all roofs leak, that’s how you can tell they are roofs.” Not a very encouraging statement, to say the least. However, the last twenty years have seen incredible advances in the roofing systems for domes, and today all dome companies have developed roofing systems that are relatively easy to install and are water tight.
4. Domes are difficult to build.
This statement might be true if you have decided to build your own geodesic dome from scratch. The required angular cutting and dimensioning look daunting from the road, but the fact is that the dome industry has developed dome kits that go together rather easily. Pre-cut and color coding take most of the difficulty
out of the building system. Either hub and strut or panelized systems are designed for easy assembly, and most dome companies have the owner/builder in mind. The math is already done, and it is possible to build your own dome home from a standard plan or you may opt for a custom plan that will be developed from the basic shell system.
5. Domes have no resale value.
This might be true about domes that were built in the 1970s or older. Little information was available at that time and some domes were not well built. Some of these building were not too appealing and subsequently were a bit more difficult to resell.
Since the early ‘1980’s, well-build domes have been sold very quickly, well in excess of their construction costs because of their energy efficiency and safety. Also, because of their favorable relation to comparative building costs, they are usually sold in a very short time.
6. Domes are heard to heat and cool.
This is the worst criticism to be advanced. The opposite is true. The double-wall construction used by some dome manufacturers mean insulation values in the R45 areas; 14 ½” walls with 12” of fiberglass insulation gives incredibly low cost energy numbers.
7. Dome cavities collect moisture.
This might have been true in the late 1970’s, but with the advent of the ventilation of the dome wall, these problems have been cured. This problem also surfaced with the conventional house using cathedral ceilings. That problem no longer exists with modern day dome builders. It was cured by the addition of power or wind actuated roof fans. These ventilation systems guarantee that no moisture can collect and stay in the dome wall cavity.
8. A second floor on domes becomes uncomfortable during the heating season.
That also is true. But the industry discovered a long time ago that there was a solution to that problem. It meant that domes functioned best when heated with forced air systems. By installing the return air duct near the dome tope this problem is solved. The forced air system provides heating and cooling as well as air filtering, humidifying, and dehumidifying. The return air duct near the dome tope, assures that the second floor, which carries warmer air to the dome top by convection currents, will be near the same temperature as the lower floors.
9. Domes seem to be leaking even though no rain has fallen for a long time.
This was sometimes true during certain weather conditions Condensation would occur on the inside of the interior panels. This was caused by the warm humidified air rising to the dome top (by convection currents) and condensing on the interior cooler poly that covers the insulation and dripping down to the dome interior. That type of condensation was corrected by the addition of the dome top heat recovery system, or at least a Casablanca fan that “will keep the air from dropping the moisture on the interior wall, somewhat the same as the windshield defroster keeps moisture from collecting on the windshield.
10. Possible loss of friends and maybe even some relatives.
You might become so proud of your dome home that you can’t stop bragging to your friends about being able to heat your home with body heat or somewhat lesser supply, as well as feeling safe. This could also cause family problems for the same reason. Also a problem might exist when a natural catastrophe threatens, your friends and relative flock to your dome knowing it is the one safe place in the neighborhood—domes stand up to hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes. We have been looking for information for the past fifteen years that would indicate failure of the dome in the face of these disasters. So far, non has been reported. This is one of the hardest problems to deal with—losing family and friends, but it might go away as soon as the dome becomes the housing of choice and everyone has access to their own beautiful and safe dome home.