reply interspersed
calle vallede wrote:
| Hi Spaceman,
Wow had a great time going through your pages. Is the dome house done, as in livable?
|
I lived in the big dome from 2001 until 2008. I had to spend a year doing parental care, then moved into the small dome in February of this year. I'm still adding papercrete but have about R12 at the thinnest part, and R48 over about half of it so far.
| We have so much to do yet before we get started. Do not have the cash to do the steel dome thing. Will just have to do the PC walls and inner walls. Trying to get water to the site in the early spring. |
I have experimented with making domes without a frame, casting pc triangles and then putting them together as a panel dome. However, you can often get scrap pipe from construction sites since electricians commonly throw away any conduit shorter than 5' at the end of the day. Even if you have to buy the tubing, you can make a frame for a 16' dome from a couple of hundred dollars worth of pipe.
| You said that you were doing the heated floor system, yes? Are you putting in a terra tile floor? |
Right now my floor is 2" of concrete floating on 10" (+/-) of papercrete. I'll possibly cover it with ceramic tile from Mexico, but have not finalized my plans. I may just do a textured and stained concrete cap.
| Owen Grieger or what ever his name is the Mr. Hart from Colo have a page that tells about using road base for it. As we will be off the grid we need to use all the methods that we can to stay warm and use as little power as possible. Have you ever found a way to make a steam system work to create power as in a generator? Thought that in the winter with a wood burner and a wood cook stove may be able to capture some of that heat for a power source. I am not a person with the background to build that kind of thing, but am willing to learn from others and use the web.
|
Steam is dangerous at the pressures needed to generate power, not something for a novice to play with. You can generate electricity directly from heat by using
Peltier devices, though they aren't exactly dirt cheap. Another alternative might be using
woodgas to run a generator.
| Right now need a good book on passive solar. We will use passive solar and wind power for our off the grid living. |
I have pv panels and a small wind generator. I bought them used at about half the retail cost. I am still connected to the grid for large loads like welders and power tools that would deplete my small storage bank rapidly. Can't recommend a book, though.
spaceman
