Brilliant! And smooth abd clean. Saw it on Boing.
I helped build a dome in the late 60's. I think it ended up like your total utter failure - but I was gone by then.
I like the idea of using such a thing as a (flat) roof-top shelter on a garage or something (me downtowner).
And I'm highly amused that all the commentary I had the stamina to scan was about housing prices and nothing about structure.
cheers, Good Luck, Tedsy
The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
311–317 of 317 posts
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Wasting capital on rent" may be the worst nonsense in our financial folklore. Always run the numbers. Rent vs. mortgage calculators and spreadsheets are readily available. Understand the factors they use, and perhaps tweak for your own needs and priorities. I'm glad that I did, as I completely dodged the disaster that was the housing bubble as a result -- my rent always looked like a killer deal compared to nutso ho…
The best online rent-versus-buy calculator I have found is the one created by the New York Times [1]. As others in this thread have already noted, in suburban-to-urban population densities, the cost of shelter is in the dirt, not the improvements. The wisdom of embedding wealth into dirt in a highly technologically-developed economy where the value chain is much, much more abstracted away from the dirt is lost upon m…
Interesting the calculator includes utilities and tax bills as costs for the buyer but not the renter. Is this common in the US, for all bills to be included? In Europe here, once you factor in the additional costs of council tax and all utilities, the cross-over period reduces to about 4 years, as many people have commented previously.
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
You obviously do not have the requirement of living close to Vancouver BC in order to maintain an income. As said elsewhere if one is willing to move out into a remote area you can definitely pick up land for less money ($2k cash for your own land with mountain views is blowing my mind and making me cry on the inside). Unfortunately, so much IT work is centred around metro areas and property is very expensive.
Unfortunately, so much IT work is centred around metro areas and property is very expensive. So you need a satellite uplink and a second dome covered in video, wired to a telepresence drone made out of a cheap tablet on a broom handle stuck to a roomba.
Yes, I think you are right. I do work from home quite a bit but I don't think I could convince my current employer that telepresence is a viable option. Maybe I need to find a new employer...
All that said, to afford land without a mortgage in BC I'd have to move so far north that I it wouldn't be much fun at all.
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#314When I saw this, my 1st thought was how useful these would be in refugee camps: much more humane housing than tents!
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#315Having lived in a 16' dome based on Fuller's bamboo dome for two years, my main interest in your Frameless Dome was how the bolt holes and seams were waterproofed. Also, how did you reach the outer panels for replacement? And how did that affect the waterproofing. You said it was easy. But how exactly.
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#316I really like this. I live in the country and I'm currently in a 2400 square foot house but I want to downsize. I could see having one of these as well as something else like a shipping container or Quonset hut (I live in a hurricane area so I'd need to have something I could ride one out in if necessary -- though I wonder if your design would have similar functionality to the geodesic radar domes in the far north). Do you have more pictures from when you constructed it? I'd like to see the individual shapes comprised of the corrugated polystyrene and foam insulation and a close up of how the bolts work. Where did you buy the large pieces of polystyrene? I have similar motivations as you, I want to live cheaply and learn new programming.
Re: The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best online rent-versus-buy calculator I have found is the one created by the New York Times [1]. As others in this thread have already noted, in suburban-to-urban population densities, the cost of shelter is in the dirt, not the improvements. The wisdom of embedding wealth into dirt in a highly technologically-developed economy where the value chain is much, much more abstracted away from the dirt is lost upon m…
Interesting the calculator includes utilities and tax bills as costs for the buyer but not the renter. Is this common in the US, for all bills to be included? In Europe here, once you factor in the additional costs of council tax and all utilities, the cross-over period reduces to about 4 years, as many people have commented previously.
It looks to me that the calculator is expressing the following rental situation: you rent from a landlord that includes for example, water and sewage utilities as part of the monthly rental fee. The fair way to account for this rental situation for the equivalent buying scenario is to add the true cost of those utilities to the buying scenario because when you look at buying the equivalent, you will have to pay for those utilities, and thus lengthening the break-even point when compared to renting.