Feedback about covering a geodesic dome and plastering over it.

[lemondealc .]

I have a question about covering and plastering a dome. If you're not familiar with geodomes there is a company that sells them w/ lots of photos on their website:

http://www.ziptiedomes.com/

example:

I'd like to cover or wrap one of these domes and then plaster over it. What would be a suitable fabric to cover the dome? Could the fabric be organic (i.e. cotton, canvas, etc) or does it have to be a metal lathe?

The biggest problem, as you can probably see, is the wide gaps between struts where the weighed down fabric could sag under the weight of the plaster. 

To avoid the sagging problem I was also thinking of wrapping the dome using a silt sock (filled or unfilled) instead of covering it. There is an example of a filled sock:

The sock would most likely be filled with a lightweight material like straw so I'm thinking this would be similar to covering a straw bale house with plaster. What do you think of such a substrate for plastering? Imagine just covering the coils that are wrapped on the pallet in the picture above. Do you see any potential problems that I should be aware of?

I plan on using a mortar sprayer and surface bonding cement. Does that sound about right, or would one suggest hand troweling a different kind of plaster?

Thanks for your time and consideration. 

Andrew Cegielski

Milwaukee, WI

[Pete Gasper]

I would suggest looking at existing known good techniques and then seeing how to adapt them to your goals. Examples would be ferrocement domes, superadobe, monolithic domes, and straw bale building. I'm not sure the geodome is necessary or optimal for what you're trying to do.

If you've going to plaster, I'd suggest a temporary support work on the inside to make the dome itself integral to the plaster (as in ferrocement). However, it may be cheaper to build a rebar & chickenwire dome from scratch.

If you do the silt sock you might not need the ziptiedome at all, unless you wish to use it as temporary formwork (but thats probably overdoing it). This is more like superadobe techniques, however they don't use straw filling so I don't know how that affects things. Plaster or shotcrete should stick well to either one.

I kind of like your straw sock idea. I wonder if it would work to build a temporary form, lay the straw filled silk sock on the outside, spray the outside and let cure long enough to be stable, remove formwork and then spray on the inside.

Use a sprayer, much much quicker. There are DIY plans online for cheap to make ones.

Also look into adding perelite/vermiculite to the spray for extra insulation.

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[Bill]

As this subject may be of interest to many.  

What is the intended us of your dome once covered? This will help others give you some additional options. How tall and wide is your dome? You may need to watch how much extra weight you place on this structure even if it is a dome

Bill

Greenman Farm

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 10, 2017, at 11:06 AM, lemondealc . <lemon...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a question about covering and plastering a dome. If you're not familiar with geodomes there is a company that sells them w/ lots of photos on their website:

http://www.ziptiedomes.com/

example:

<image.png>

I'd like to cover or wrap one of these domes and then plaster over it. What would be a suitable fabric to cover the dome? Could the fabric be organic (i.e. cotton, canvas, etc) or does it have to be a metal lathe?

The biggest problem, as you can probably see, is the wide gaps between struts where the weighed down fabric could sag under the weight of the plaster. 

To avoid the sagging problem I was also thinking of wrapping the dome using a silt sock (filled or unfilled) instead of covering it. There is an example of a filled sock:

<image.png>

The sock would most likely be filled with a lightweight material like straw so I'm thinking this would be similar to covering a straw bale house with plaster. What do you think of such a substrate for plastering? Imagine just covering the coils that are wrapped on the pallet in the picture above. Do you see any potential problems that I should be aware of?

I plan on using a mortar sprayer and surface bonding cement. Does that sound about right, or would one suggest hand troweling a different kind of plaster?

Thanks for your time and consideration. 

Andrew Cegielski

Milwaukee, WI

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[lemonde.alc]

Hi Bill. Thanks for the response. I currently have a 18 ft. diameter dome in my yard, but I would probably end up building an 8 ft. diameter dome for my first plaster attempt. 

Honestly my goal is to build up a shell that doesn't rely on the geodesic space frame for support; as another poster alluded to.