Disadvantages of Dome House

Many dome building companies would have you believe that there dome home kits are perfect for everyone, and life living in a dome home is idyllic. If you’re thinking of buying a dome home kit or building a dome from scratch read on, it’s not all sunshine and roses!

We know that a geodesic dome has at least 30% less surface area than a conventional structure, but cutting triangles from sheet material is very wasteful, there’s not much point in having 30% less surface area if you’re left with 30% more wastage. You can avoid this if you choose carefully the material from which you build your dome; for example fibreglass doesn’t come in a specific sheet size so fibre glassing a dome roof has no more wastage than any other shape roof. If you use metal to build your dome you may have more wastage but you can recycle the off cuts and recoup some of your money. I would try to avoid plywood unless you have another project that can make use of the waste.

If you want your house to be an investment as well as a home then you are probably better off staying away from geodesic domes. British house buyers are notoriously conservative when it comes to investing in property. If on the other hand you want to chance your arm on building a dome home because it’s more efficient, exciting, modern, and you don’t care about making money, knock yourself out you’ll love the experience. If you don’t want to build a dome home you can still build greenhouses, sheds, summerhouses and pool enclosures all of which will add value to any conventional home.

People who build domes are by nature chance takers, a lot of what can go wrong when building a dome has nothing to do with dome construction and everything to do with good building practice. Any building whatever shape if it doesn’t have good weatherproofing, insulation and ventilation will be a pain to live in. The more efficient a building becomes the more critical good building practice becomes, for example: a draughty old barn needs little in the way of design thought but an ultra efficient geodesic dome has warm moist air that rises to the top of the dome causing uncomfortable temperatures upstairs, condensation problems, even wet rot and potential mould problems, all of which have to have practical cost effective solutions.

A badly designed or constructed dome will not perform any better than any other poorly constructed building, so do your homework and get professional help if you need it, a well designed and constructed dome will be cheap to run, environmentally sound, beautiful, super strong and a joy to live in. 

Dome Facts

A sphere is defined as the geometric shape that encloses the most volume with the least surface area. A dome is the safest, strongest and most energy-efficient building. It takes less building materials to enclose usable living or working area in a dome than any other shaped structure. Forty feet of wall will enclose a 10 x 10 area, measuring 100 sq. ft., while 40 feet of wall built in a circle will enclose 127 sq. ft.—a 27% increase.

Geodesic domes offer the safest shelter in the most violent weather extremes around the world. In tornadoes and hurricanes, high winds and negative air pressure combine and get under the eaves and soffits of conventional housing, then rip the roof off, leaving the occupants exposed. A geodesic dome’s aerodynamic shape offers the best above-ground protection against winds from any direction, allowing gale-force winds to slip past. During an earthquake, a conventional house rocks off its foundation and topples as the earth makes lateral shifts. A dome has an even distribution of weight and a low center of gravity, so it moves with the earth. Engineering for incredible snow loads is intrinsic in its design. Insulating efficiently against extreme heat or cold is a direct factor of the exposed surface area, or outside wall area of any building. The vaulted ceiling in its free span interior allows excellent air circulation and heat recovery. You may design geodesic dome walls where you want them, if you want them, as you are unrestricted by bearing walls necessary to hold up a standard roof. There are no limits to interior design creativity.

Typically, a dome building is flat on the bottom so it will sit flat on the ground, and the profile is a percentage of sphere, expressed as a fraction. An example: The Imagination Room geodesic dome displayed at the Science Museum of Minnesota is a three-frequency, 36' diameter, 4/9ths sphere.

History of Dome House

Since the beginning, mankind's ambition has been to feed, protect and improve itself. The oldest civilizations evolved living in round yurts, igloos and teepees because of a need for strong shelter, the scarcity of building materials, and light weight that took the least effort to transport during migration. Many of the world's oldest and architecturally beautiful buildings in Europe and Asia are arched domes, or buildings with clear span arch entries and halls built strong enough to survive the centuries. Dr. Walter Bauersfeld, using spherical geometry, was first to combine the strongest geometric shape, the triangle, with the sturdy arch in Jena, East Germany in 1922.

The first dome that could be called "geodesic" in every respect was designed after World War 1 by Walther Bauersfeld, chief engineer of the Carl Zeiss optical company, for a planetarium to house his planetarium projector. The dome was patented, constructed by the firm of Dykerhoff and Wydmann on the roof of the Zeiss plant in Jena, Germany, and opened to the public in July 1926.

The dome was successfully adopted for specialized uses, such as the 21 Distant Early Warning Line domes built in Canada in 1956, the 1958 Union Tank Car Company dome near Baton Rouge, Louisiana designed by Thomas C. Howard of Synergetics, Inc. and specialty buildings like the Kaiser Aluminum domes (constructed in numerous locations across the US, e.g., Virginia Beach, VA), auditoriums, weather observatories, and storage facilities. The dome was soon breaking records for covered surface, enclosed volume, and construction speed. According to a WAFB-TV of Baton Rouge news report on November 27, 2007, the Union Tank Car Company Dome has been demolished.

 ^{In conclusion,there are a lot of different kinds of dome house and theres alot of different people associated with it.people can build their own dome house but it can also be a real challenge. It will be difficult to know where to begin even for those with considerable building experience.}