Terra-Dome Earth Shelter Build
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SamWalton
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I flew out to Omaha Nebraska in 2004 to interview for an Electrical and instrumentation supervisor position at the Cargill plant in Blair. While I was there I found two earth bermed homes just out of town. Attached are the pictures. I am always attracted to these homes and continually seem to find them.
I never considered using Earth Sheltered Technology, Inc. because of their location. When I first began planning to build we lived in West Virginia then moved to Tennessee and then to Pennsylvania. We have since moved to Oklahoma and began building. The cost to get the builder to your location can be expensive. We paid $1580 for Terra-Domes travel and if we had went with R.C. Smoot Construction another Terra-Dome builder out of Texas, we would have had to pay for the first visit, their travel and lodging along with a larger portion of the cement cost. We competed Terra-Dome with R.C. Smoot Construction and Terra-Dome was the best for our requirements. I was sold on David Caves for a long time but the strength and simplicity of the dome is clearly the better. Who want to have all those support post to hold up the roof or the high cost of the inverted beams. No matter what you think will be the best design, you ultimately must conform to the site specific requirements and your budget. You will weight your wants and needs and then compromise. I have had numerous designs mainly considering our life style and cost, but here we are and I like what I have came up with. Jay Scafe did visit at no cost and answered all our questions as well as visit our home site. He did get a contract out of the trip and that is what he wanted. We purchase the land after a long period of waiting for easements. We actually dropped $33K on our nicely equipped Kubota B26 almost a year in advance of the land purchase. Easements can make or break the deal. I am an Electrical\Electronic Technician\Engineer and have been involved in CAD from back in the eighties. So I am a do it yourselfer from the beginning. If I could buy the special tool required for a job and still come under the quoted price I would do it. If my research says it is too complicated or there is no savings or value added in doing it ourselves we will farm it out. This build is much the same. We built our road and cleared the home site and performed many other tasks using our B26. We paid a construction company to bring in 24 loads of shale for our road base and he graded with his dozer. He also cleared some trees and leveled the home site. We later had an opportunity to get free fill very close by and had 54 loads placed close to our home for next to nothing. Terra-Dome laid out the footings; we provided, cut and installed much of the rebar exceeding the specification. We installed block out pipes in various locations of the footings for utilities as required. We broke down the forms and kept the work sited clean and safe. Terra-Dome built and poured all modules and we provide stove vent pipe, laundry room powered vent pipe, dryer vent, and light tubes pipe. We only installed one 6 foot skylight. They are costly and can interfere with dividing up a module. We did install two light tubes, one in the garage and one in the main bathroom. We installed these light tube because these areas have no other source of natural light. You can build on a steep hill with two levels but be sure the hill will support the home in a very wet or rainy condition. Many homes collapse in a mud slide. We will do all the back fill work and insulated with two inch or four inch on all outside walls.
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Sam, its a very small world...I do not work for Cargill but I do work for ADM about 70 miles to the south west. We grind corn as well and I am a Maintenance and Reliability Engineer. I really do appreciate your experiences they will help us tremendously. I do agree that the domed structure from terra dome is much better. Just really hard to design a house that you think you will raise your family in, grow old in, and eventually retire in. Just hard to know how to make everything right. Not that you could never add on to such a structure, but it would sure be easier to do it right once and make sure its within your budget.
The nice part about NE is that the labor rates are generally a little lower.
Is it possible to just rent the forms from TerraDome? My dad has worked for a concrete company for 30 years and i think i could get some good labor rates from his company and his experiences. I actually put together very similar forms, just never a roof. I actually plan on using my dad for alot of decisions because he has been in concrete construction of basements, gand many other things for many years.
Thanks again.
Preston
The nice part about NE is that the labor rates are generally a little lower.
Is it possible to just rent the forms from TerraDome? My dad has worked for a concrete company for 30 years and i think i could get some good labor rates from his company and his experiences. I actually put together very similar forms, just never a roof. I actually plan on using my dad for alot of decisions because he has been in concrete construction of basements, gand many other things for many years.
Thanks again.
Preston
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SamWalton
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I know where you can purchase two dome systems cheap. Only the fiberglass domes, trailers and jacking systems. Email me at samuel_walton@yahoo.com and I will provide details.
jake98
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I don't want to be a wet blanket, but what's the advantage of having dirt on your roof? I'm thinking yous are all gonna have shingles eventually when you get sick of the leaks. No?
dave1949
Super Star Member
Because I am a worry wort, unlike Jake who is a pessimist
, if I were trying to seal these roofs I would look into EPDM pond liners, or hot seal commercial flat roofing products. For either, a watertight seal around the tubes and other roof penetrations is needed to keep water from creeping under.Once these materials are dirt covered, they are protected from the sunlight and much of the summer heat; the two biggest factors that cause deterioration. I would guess they would last a long time in that situation. In Maine, I doubt you could keep the frost from penetrating to the roof level unless the snow and cold come in the right order, that doesn't happen every year. There may be enough heat loss through the concrete to prevent freezing at the outer surface. But, those materials should hold up well to freezing I think.
Dave.
jake98
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unlike Jake who is a pessimist
Dave.
So, I'm thinking, if you water your roof, you're gonna lower the r-value of the dirt.. no growing of styrofoam. I can't say anything without risking penalty points here.. WWAD what would al do? I'm thinking grow hay bales and don't cut them, is that how you guys do it?
patrick_g
Elite Member
R-value is not everything. Thermal mass is an important factor. If you have sufficient dirt over the top the great thermal mass and its thermal inertia will phase shift temperature changes and delay their effects. Sufficient cover will keep the ceiling from getting hot in summer or really cold in winter and reduce the requirement for heating and cooling.
Pat
Because I am a worry wort, unlike Jake who is a pessimist
Once these materials are dirt covered, they are protected from the sunlight and much of the summer heat; the two biggest factors that cause deterioration. I would guess they would last a long time in that situation. In Maine, I doubt you could keep the frost from penetrating to the roof level unless the snow and cold come in the right order, that doesn't happen every year. There may be enough heat loss through the concrete to prevent freezing at the outer surface. But, those materials should hold up well to freezing I think.
Dave.
3' of dirt doesn't provide much insulation, but 3" of foam insulation does. The roof has 3" of foam under the dirt, the exterior walls 4" of foam (on the outside of the concrete).
Frost penetration to the insulation means that we're heating the house against an exterior temp (at the insulation surface) of 30 degrees--as opposed to 10 degrees or whatever the air temp is. That helps a bunch.
Steve
dave1949
Super Star Member
Pulling your leg Jake. Seriously, if building an earth covered structure, the first thing that comes to mind is how to keep it from leaking, same as you were thinking. I assumed companies like TerraDome had some methods worked out that are useful in various climates.
Dirt has some R value, but not a lot. Estimates like R 0.25 per inch of compacted dirt. Or, 1" of insulation is equivalent to 1-2 feet of earth. Whatever R value dirt has, watering it will reduce it to about zero I would think.
Same would be true for wet hay bales, moisture is the enemy of any insulation. It replaces dead air space (high R value) with water (no R value).
I think the best place to insulate would be on the inner surface of the roof.
I don't know of any earth covered houses around here. I know of one that used to be, but was converted to metal roofing after fighting with the issues for a few years. I think when building something non-conventional, your solutions have to be a bit non-conventional too. I wasn't joking about the pond liner, you are basically building an upside-down pond. It's available in large sheets, it will conform to the dips and bumps on the roof surface. There are pond liner adhesives to make sealed lap joints. It would be something that can be done without hiring a contractor.
Dave.
