Monolithic Domes as homes
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your thoughts if any?
the main company promoting monolithic dome building (http://www.monolithic.com) claim that:
“The Monolithic Dome is a permanent structure which is energy efficient, cost effective, disaster resistant and attractive. They can withstand the force of a tornado, hurricane or earthquake. They cannot burn, rot or be eaten by bugs. It is energy efficient. It will usually save fifty percent on heating and cooling costs compared to a comparable conventional building.”I hadn’t heard of these domes until recently. I found out about them whilst wandering around the interweb, I was actually looking into timber frame housing, which I was set on. But I have always had a yen to live in a round house…. so now I am leaning towards approaching someone to design something which incorporates both. I’ve had a bit of an investigate, but find no mention of anything like this in Ireland.
I expect I would be laughed out of the planning offices of Galway County Buildings for proposing it, not to mention approaching a builder 🙁
many thanks for any replies,
popt_art
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Are you sure that is not a joke site ? i can see no reason why a dome would be any more efficient to a south facing house. Any church i have been in has always been cold , even with the heat on. A dome would have far more air to heat. And large air spaces are less efficient to heat due to one of the laws of entropy. As a result of being round less of the surface can face the sun at any one time. I could be wrong , but this look like an idea pulled out of an architect’s ….
I am reminded of beverly hills cop where axel folly goes crazy with a builder over a house shaped like a doughnut.
words like monolithic, synergy , and sustaining , generally make me assume it is nonsense.
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well dome building is not exactly a new thing, Bucky Fuller and his geodesic stuff (http://www.bfi.org/domes/) etc
no it’s not a joke site, there seems to be lots and lots of dome housing elsewhere in the world (though mainly in the US), just not a lot of it in the UK or Ireland.from the bucky fuller site:
the dome is energy efficient for many reasons:1. its decreased surface area requires less building materials.
2. exposure to cold in the winter and heat in the summer is decreased because, being spherical, there is the least surface area per unity of volume per structure.
3. the concave interior creates a natural airflow that allows the hot or cool air to flow evenly throughout the dome with the help of return air ducts.
4. extreme wind turbulence is lessened because the winds that contribute to heat loss flow smoothly around the dome.
5. it acts like a type of giant down-pointing headlight reflector and reflects and concentrates interior heat. This helps prevent radiant heat loss.Perhaps you didn’t actuallly look at the site, but I think the monolithic dome site says similar stuff, I’m not a builder, nor an architect, nor very techinical, but the idea seems sound to me.
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@a boyle wrote:
……………. i can see no reason why a dome would be any more efficient to a south facing house. ……………….. As a result of being round less of the surface can face the sun at any one time.
It is true that a house that concentrates the glazing on its south facade is going to benefit from solar gains, but it has its limits. A round house would have less solar gains, BUT it would have higher heat retention properties due to the improved ratio of building volume to surface area. Think of the overall heat loss method for calculating proformance of a house. The better the volume/surface ratio the less insulation is required to comply. This improvement would outweight the loss in solar gains i’d imagine, like the way that single glazed windows give better solar gains, but that doesnt come near making up for the fact that they are poor insulators.
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@popt_art wrote:
1. its decreased surface area requires less building materials.
2. exposure to cold in the winter and heat in the summer is decreased because, being spherical, there is the least surface area per unity of volume per structure.
3. the concave interior creates a natural airflow that allows the hot or cool air to flow evenly throughout the dome with the help of return air ducts.
4. extreme wind turbulence is lessened because the winds that contribute to heat loss flow smoothly around the dome.
5. it acts like a type of giant down-pointing headlight reflector and reflects and concentrates interior heat. This helps prevent radiant heat loss.Some of those reasons are true, but others are slightly twisted to suit the domes.
- A domed roof would have a more materials than a flat or even a pitched of the same height, depends on the design
- Surface/volume agrument is fine, I used it in my last post
- Not sure about that one on a domestic scale, wouldn’t work once the house is fitted. So no difference there
- I can’t really comment on this one, anybody care to share thoughts on the affects of wind
- Would probaby depend on the internal finish, The shape would control where the reflected heat is passed to, but not how much it is reflected
I’d say somr of the points you took from that site relate to “Bucky Fuller and his geodesic stuff” more than domestic scale designs
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I have given this a little more thought :
requiring less materials does seem to be dubious to me , as the dome would require lots of temporary support to build it. if it is a concrete pour then any “green” value to goes straight out the window. (concrete production creates more co2 than anything else ).
brenn88 you are right about the surface/volume argument. For the volume a dome is the most efficient . But a dome would have such a larger volume with respect to a bungalow. So notwithstanding that it would be more efficient, there would be so much more air to heat that overall i remain very very sceptical.
indeed the natural air flow stuff only works if you put nothing in your big dome!
re the shape and storms and so on . storms that can rip off roofes are very very rare. It might be a better design , i don’t know .
the heat being reflected back would sort of work. you would get the same effect by removing your attic ( the difference between a triangle shape and a dome would be slight.) of course then you lose the nice trapped air in your attic (trapped air in you duvet is what keeps you cosy ) so i am very very dubious of this claim.
THERE ARE SUCH SIMPLE ALTERNATIVES !!!! , ahem excuse the ‘shouting’. Thatch is fantastic, natural and doesn’t wreck the planet! ( our ancestors were poor , so eneficient roofing was not popular as you can imagine! ) painting your house white inside and out !
finnally while rounded aspects to a building can be attractive , i don’t think anybody would take you seriously as a human being if you lived in a dome outside the arctic. it would be like owning a bmw! (only joking ,don’t take offence ! )
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@popt_art wrote:
I still want a mainly round house dammit.
How about a yurt? or an igloo? I’d hate the furnishing problems, it would be hard to use anything linear.
Horace Plunkett had a domed bedroom in his Foxrock home, it used to open to allow him sleep under the stars!
KB2 -
Ok, I was giving this a bit of thought on the way home and have a few loose ends to tie up.
Is it true that a sphere is the more effient shape for heat retention. But this gain could easily be cancelled by the fact that there is alot of wasted space that requires extra energy to heat in the first place.
As for a low energy, not a tag I would give to a building which uses excess concrete. Add to that the unique design and finding a builder is going to be hard, even if you do it is going to cost a bit. And when all that is done going to have to get an Agrement Cert, or get it approved.If the reason you like it is the “round home” aspect, it might be better for you to explore the idea for a cylindric design. With similar floor area a cylinder would take up alot less space and so be a more effective design for heating, adding to that the fact that a cylinder is probably the second most effective shape for heat retention, it just might be a more energy effective design. With a flat roof, cheaper/easier/more enviromental solutions could be used. And you would have less trouble with getting a builder. And obviously you still have the round home you wanted. Let me know what you think.
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it’s all pie in the sky at the moment Bren, but thanks so much for your thoughts.
have you actually looked at the floor plans for the dome houses? They don’t seem to have much wasted space as far as I can see. but like I said, i’m not an architect, more an idealistic graphic designer I’m afraid 🙂KB2, the furnishing problems argument doesn’t quite hack it for me as all the interior walls are linear, so there’s still plenty of scope for more traditional living, however, my feeling on this is, if you have a unusual building, why furnish it in a banal way, again probably being idealistic here 😉
In my minds eye there would be a lot of borrowing ideas/homage paid to the likes of Gaudi.
however, I resign myself to the fact that none of it is goign to happen, then if any of it does it will be a pleasant surprise.
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@popt_art wrote:
how droll!
surely it would’ve been more efficient to post an image, rather than make people download a word.doc?
atb!
It would have been more efficient but I am technically illiterate and couldn’t figure out how to do that.
I just tried opening it there and I see what you mean. Also having Broadband made me lazy. Sorry 🙁
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there is one more thing to keep in mind the higher a building is the more it is subjected to wind , cooling it down
In general an efficient design would be low lying , and have a big surface area so that the roof could capture as much sunlight. This also means there is less air to heat above each section of pipe in an underfloor heating system. Really low ceilings come in handy now .
The very best you could acheive would be a pancake house flat and circular . there you go happy !!!! 😉 😉
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The idea of a geodesic home is appealing if you listen to Buckminster Fuller. (He patented the design I believe.) Read this account for a more practical perspective on dome shaped homes. It’s an interesting read; the author has actually built a couple and concludes, after the experience, that the disadvantages far outweigh any advantages.
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It’s been done before in Kerry
In fact it has. I remember some time ago in the property section of the Irish Examiner there was a feature on a 20 year old round house out in Dingle/An Daingean that was for sale. It wasn’t a monolithic dome as it had a slated roof to the best of my recollection. There was a few pictures of the inside and the house seemed to have a bespoked layout. To be honest i wasn’t very impressed with the design. A house like that must be very aqward in it’s layout.Nothing is really going to line up flush with outer wall like kitchen units or couches so it restricts where things can be put. Also if the house has a bespoked layout the rooms are going to be funnel shaped. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in one. To be honest the houses in that monolithic dome website look hideous.
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