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I like the 45 degree angle idea... would seem like it might be more resistant to erosion. (?)
This is a sweet design! Have you seen this somewhere (since you included specific dimensions), or did you just think of it now? If it hasn't been built before, one concern I would have is how expensive it might be to have that functionality, and making sure it is still water-proof when dropped back down inside the min structure for the hurricane.
Please include links to the builder or pictures if this is a real house that's been tried!
Just a design I thought up years ago and refined over time, never seen it done.
As for waterproofing, it would probably be best to taper the top of the concrete wall sloping out, and make the dome cap match. Then add interior drain at the top of the wall and the floor for any incidental water incursion. Good rubber seals and proper pitch should keep out 99% of the water so long as it's not submerged.
Edit: For the jack mechanism replace the handle with short stroke hydralic cylinders run by an electronic controller and solenoid valves. An Arduino could do that easily. This makes the lift lower Push-of-a-Button.
Last edited by Neosec; 01-24-2015 at 12:27 PM..
Reason: typo and clarification
Just wondering if you could actually get a use and occupancy certificate for a new house in Monroe county without being hooked up to the grid for at least public water. I suppose if you were way out in the boonies like on card sound road too far from public utilities they would make an exception. like they did for the sewer hook ups. not many places in the keys short of your own island that are that desolate or far from public utilities. when I bought my keys house in 2010 I was looking at other houses and one had a cistern. my Realtor said they were illegal now to build for a potable water source. Existing ones were grandfathered in but could only be used as non potable water like for watering the lawn or washing the car. I know of a bed and breakfast in big pine that uses all compost toilets for their guests but they have city water and electric.
Also I am not sure if it applies to all of Monroe county but I know key west has a 35 foot building height limit that may restrict what can be built.
One thing is for sure i would buy an already permitted and approved ROGO lot to build on. it may cost 5 times more than the a non approved one but it can take years if you are actually allowed to get a permit to build. they only give out a very limited amount every year and unless you know Bubba chances are you will never get a permit to build. I have neighbors been waiting 7 years to "win" the ROGO lottery to build on their lot next to their lot where they live in their existing home.
This is a supposedly hurricane-proof house on Myrtle Beach, SC. It looks like it is elevated for flooding. But it also does not look at all fire- or termite-proof.
As for waterproofing, it would probably be best to taper the top of the concrete wall sloping out, and make the dome cap match. Then add interior drain at the top of the wall and the floor for any incidental water incursion. Good rubber seals and proper pitch should keep out 99% of the water so long as it's not submerged.
I wonder if a low pyramid shape would also work with this principle of raised foundation walls sloping out, or if the dome is an immeasurably better design for disasters....?
Just wondering if you could actually get a use and occupancy certificate for a new house in Monroe county without being hooked up to the grid for at least public water. I suppose if you were way out in the boonies like on card sound road too far from public utilities they would make an exception. like they did for the sewer hook ups. not many places in the keys short of your own island that are that desolate or far from public utilities. when I bought my keys house in 2010 I was looking at other houses and one had a cistern. my Realtor said they were illegal now to build for a potable water source. Existing ones were grandfathered in but could only be used as non potable water like for watering the lawn or washing the car. I know of a bed and breakfast in big pine that uses all compost toilets for their guests but they have city water and electric.
Also I am not sure if it applies to all of Monroe county but I know key west has a 35 foot building height limit that may restrict what can be built.
One thing is for sure i would buy an already permitted and approved ROGO lot to build on. it may cost 5 times more than the a non approved one but it can take years if you are actually allowed to get a permit to build. they only give out a very limited amount every year and unless you know Bubba chances are you will never get a permit to build. I have neighbors been waiting 7 years to "win" the ROGO lottery to build on their lot next to their lot where they live in their existing home.
These are good points. I know that some properties still contain cisterns, but had not heard that they are illegal now. I wonder if that only applies to those that are not secured for hurricane-force winds, or if it simply applies to any form of water catching not hooked up to FKAA. To my knowledge rain barrels are not only legal, but encouraged here, so I don't know if they're totally against one getting non-municipal water, or only making sure it is done safely.
Good to know there are people using composting toilets here, even if they have to have other utilities. It would seem though that if that is not illegal, and if being all solar like the Big Pine house I posted above is not illegal (these are assumptions of course, we don't know for sure if these houses are in violation of something), then perhaps one can at least exist legally without sewer and without electric, if not without water. And I still wonder if there are exceptions to the water, outside of the remote areas clause as you mention.
Monroe County is at least pretty interested in environmentally-friendly practices, so perhaps if one has a well-thought out design of a house that is both safe and environmentally sound, one could present it to their boards, and even in public meetings, and get the go-ahead to do it on an individual basis. I don't want to break the law, become a nuisance, harm the environment, or create an eyesore. I just think it would be a good alternative to be able to have a small, somewhat cheap house with a simple design that is at least somewhat self-sustaining. That cuts down on environmental impact, and on maintenance time and cost, and provides a safe shelter in hurricanes without needing to evacuate (safer for local roads), and also allows for post-hurricane survival given that one already can manage off-grid so it's not so dangerous when the grid is down as it may be from time to time here. It just seems like good planning for the community to know how to do these kinds of things on normal residential properties, and to make it affordable so more and more local residents can be protected when we have storms, or god forbid a water pipe burst or contamination as is it brought in all the way from Miami. So they might be open to it, or at the very least serious discussions of it, if one does enough homework to prove it is a viable and low-impact design.
From the article:
"According to Gary Clark, a Monolithic Dome currently costs between $125 and $135 a square foot. Not accounting for architectural enhancements, that figure, $125,000-$135,000, is on par with the average cost of a 1,000-square-foot home in Texas. Dome homes are probably about the cost of a standard home, maybe slightly more. But we're really green—that's where we shine. Your energy costs will basically be 50-75 percent less than in a conventional house."
This article is from only a year ago - if that price is true, that is astounding! It is 1/3 of the average cost per sqft of houses in the Keys, more like 1/4 of the cost of a brand new construction! Plus, energy costs are a major bill down here, so lowering them so much definitely helps, if one is on-grid.
I had a discussion with some neighbors about this. All of them have been involved in recent construction here in the Keys, one is building his own house mostly himself except for a few items that need experts with other skills, and one works for a local utility company. All were under the impression that one can legally build off-grid here if one's systems pass inspection/code requirements. The same went for cisterns - they think it probably has to do with making it wind proof. I will probably call the permitting office directly and ask them about these things.
What has been posted here, and the discussion I had, is making me question the idea of raising the elevation so high. All agreed it could be done, although they said you wouldn't be allowed to mix the concrete with various fillers because they would all settle at different rates and make the foundation unstable. They said you could either create pilings and a retaining wall to your foundation, and fill it with dirt, or fill it straight up with concrete, but either choice is really expensive down here (I don't have any actual numbers though). They said you could extend the rebar up from the foundation though and thread it right through the dome so it is really secure. But the opinion was that concrete pilings is probably cheaper. Apparently the requirement in the Keys is that pilings be drilled down as far as hits first resistance. You can feel it when the drill hits solid coral - but different houses had different depths, since the Earth underneath us is not totally uniform. The Upper Keys have a different rock formation than the Lower Keys do also - we don't have the porous limestone they have down there, so their rules might be different. One neighbor went down 8 ft, one 12 ft - so it just depends on where the house is located how sturdy in theory those pilings will be. But the feeling was, one could just as easily build concrete pilings and then thread the rebar up and make a dome on stilts solidly connected to them, but yes, there is the chance of needing to maintain the stilts which can be really expensive if they sustain damage.
I asked about wind, and the feeling was it could be built so solidly that probably it would be too sturdy and also too heavy to be much concern in wind lift under the house - if it's one piece of concrete, it's probably not going to fracture much, etc. However, I still have concern that stilts leave far more surface area of the house vulnerable to flying debris, waves, and random damage - and any damage to something up in the air might be far more serious than on the ground where its weight is fully supported. You have to worry about each side of each stilt, plus the underside of the house, being hit by something. If built directly on a raised foundation, the only part that is exposed to the elements is the sides and top - which are also less likely to get hit by something big given that they are well above the water line (and hopefully wave line), and too high up for many things like trees to fall down onto (hopefully). But the dome is the strong part, so even if a car is thrown into the house, this is the part that's supposed to be able to take it and stay intact.
So I can't tell from this which is in the long run cheaper and lower maintenance, without actual figures. I am wavering on the stilt issue. But I still think a house on a high raised concrete foundation that flows right into the structure of the house itself, if one can afford it, is likely to be more damage-resistant in a Cat 5 hurricane than a house on stilts.
Neighbors also pointed out that I was wrong about the polyurethane foam layer, that probably it is needed to further prevent moisture, if you get a kind that is very resistant to sucking up water itself. And in fact, it might keep the inside from warming up too much if the concrete is exposed to sun. That supposedly would help prevent mold more than without spray foam insulation. But you still need to run the off-grid A/C or dehumidifer or heater once in a while to keep it dry in there.
Checkout the hurricane-proof homes built on Bolivar Peninsula in Texas. When Ike came through (2008?), it literally swept Bolivar Peninsula clean...except for three new homes. They were built on concrete piers, etc. no damage.
You have to get the home well above flood level as the water pressure will destroy a home. Checkout the video of what happened to the hotel on the pier in Galveston when Ike came in. Supposedly hurricane proof. Not hardly. Waves virtually demolished it.
If you look at newer homes, they are essentially stilt homes. There are walls of a type on the first floor but they are for storage. Living is on the 2nd and 3rd floors. Waves can rip through and demolish that first floor area, but it is primarily cosmetic.
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