Shotcrete
Page 6
Once all the rebar is in place, the shotcrete is blasted onto the interior of each dome. Its a messy job and without a hard hat it can hurt too!
A 4" hose full of concrete is very heavy and with a pump pressure of 2,000 to 2,500 lb of pressure sending the concrete to the nozzle plus air pressure of 100+ lbs it can knock you over!
Lower 1/3 of bedroom dome coated.

A word about PLANNING!
No matter how well you plan there are things that do get overlooked!
Here Beth is banging away at the preshell concrete (very hard) to install the outlet box that was missed. fortunately we remembered it before the full layer of shotcrete was applied. One half inch is still easier to break into over 4" to 5"! Right Beth?
Some planning works out great!
Once we cut open the patio dome's main opening, our view was there!!! Boy that we great planning and it worked.
Thanks Jim!
Vertical walls
Mountain View design calls for vertical walls in the front of the house and garage/shop domes.
This earth is tough to dig so we employed a jack hammer with a shovel end on it to loosen the compacted clay.
As illustrated in these pictures we installed the footing rebar and suspended it in the trench. Since the earth is so hard it works well as a form for the concrete to be poured into.
3" foam is cut to size and foamed into place.
The garage door bucks are put into place.
Rebar is added for support.
A look down the front of the garage domes.
Garage entrance door off the patio.
Having expansive clay the walls most be floating so we slipped a piece of conduit over the rebar comings out of the dome (so it will slip up and down if needed) and tired the vertical wall rebar to it.
After installing the window and door bucks we added a bunch of supports so that everything is straight and square. Once its in concrete it won't move!
After the electrical boxes are installed we
attached 4x4 screening to the rebar.
Shotcrete - yep more shotcrete!
Interior of house vertical walls.
Is that straight or what? Probably straighter than drywall.
Look at this 90deg corner. Have you eve seen anything so perfect? Mert is a real perfectionist and it shows!
The dinning room wall curves to match the dome curve. Initially we discovered that the opening goes up so high that there would be no overhang so we just moved the wall further into the dome! That's the flexibility one has with a dome. If this where a straight stick construction it may have been impossible but then again it wouldn't have a curved wall would it?
Vertical rebar holding the 3" foam in place with curved strips of plywood we cut to the shape we wanted.
After installing the window buck (frame) we added
supports to keep everything where it should be.
What it looked like after the shotcrete
and sand coat has been applied.
Outside views of the dinning room window.
This window is so big and heavy that we loaded it onto the trailer to bring it around to the back of the house so we didn't break anything or injure ourselves.
Even this close it was a struggle!
Wow its in place! Here are a couple of views.