“You don’t have to spit far these days to hit an urban garden. The trend, says the New York Times in an article about an Urban Farm in Milwaukee, has everything to do with the recession and the growing awareness of the impact that shipping food long-distance has on our climate and our pocketbooks. Of course, not all of us will be able to feed ourselves with what we grow in our back yards during the lean, mean growing season here in Southern Colorado. But there are ways around it, and John Sondericker has built an inexpensive Geo-Dome greenhouse in hopes of growing enough vegetables to supply his family of 5 for the better part of the year, if not year-round. We visited John and his dome for a brief tutorial on how he did it and how it’s going thus far.”
Well done! I designed and built two 18′ diameter domes. Made of 2x3s in 1973 in Durango, CO, not for greenhouse but as bedroom domes. Cut off a bunch of 12″ diam and less trees at the 4′ level as a ready-grown pylon base, then built a large hexagonal floor using those pylons with 2×12 spokes and 2×8 braces, then covered it all with plywood.
Prefabbed the struts just as you did using the formula from Domebook II. Used PVC 5″ diam pipe for the hubs, lag bolted into each strut (precut, predrilled using home made jigs) from the inside, color coded each strut, was a snap to erect, both bare frames on the platforms in one day flat with 8 people helping us.
Then skinned with plywood, covered that with shingles, and slept in it at night.
The door was through a hatch in the floor, up a short staircase. Close the hatch inside. Worked a treat, very lovely space to live in.
Still leaked, though we’d calked it. Domes do have leak problems, though new tech seems to have solved a lot of that.
I want to build another one for a greenhouse as you’ve done. I live in upstate New York and need to insulate it with the textured plastic panels the folks use for the Greenhouse Domes, you can find them online, they do a nice job.
Congrats, you did a super job.
Thanks for writing. Always love to hear from natural builders.
We’re still experiencing ongoing webhosting problems at Blue Host. I watch the hourly stats on our blog and can see the numbers plummet whenever the site goes offline. Picture a hair comb with teeth broken off. That’s what our stats look like due to all the service interruptions. I await the new webhost anxiously. So please be patient.
Awsome…. congratulations on your Greenhouse!
That’s a video I found on YouTube in case you’re wondering.