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IowaDome Posted: May 05, 2017 07:04 PM	Close Cell Foam & the crazy Bubble shaped house So, I live in a dome home. If anyone reading can offer any insight or resources, we would be grateful. Not geodesic, and not exactly monolithic. It is 3 or so 3/4 domes that all kind of intersect at the center. The house is like one big room, separated by some drywall to make rooms. It has a doorway, a sliding door entryway in the kitchen, and two window bays for each bedroom. Hypothetically, because no one seems to be able to know with certainty, the home is from the inside out, shotcrete followed by 8 inches of close cell foam, then the outside skin which is a thick 1/2 inch layer of elastometric paint,. The outside layer may also have something slightly different on it, we've debated about it off and on. We are trying to remove the two skylights in the house, as they leak, the wood is nasty, etc. We also want to redo all of the windows and doorways due to similar issues, decay over the years. We are not the original owners/builders. The foam, despite being closed cell, exudes water if pushed. NOT ALL. Just the outside 2-3 inches. 98% of it is covered all the time, of course, but a bit of wear here, a decayed entryway wood siding here, we can arch our eyebrows at it for a bit before we cover it up when we find it so its not in the sun, etc. We happened to get a look at the layers while redoing the hvac, and the inside facing 4-5 inches of the foam is dry, so if anyone has any insight into whether this discrepancy and nonuniformity in moisture in the foam means it could be dealt with by managing the internal humidity, or if it is vapor moisture that isn't necessarily trapped there but migrating as the outside/inside environment changes (we're in Iowa, and the winters get humid internally, we also have had little to no hvac and/or ventilation in our bathroom/kitchen for awhile as we try to fix this house, hvac and our dryer vent just got redone last week). I'm pondering removing the skylights, placing a metal roof panel in the hole, and foam/shotcreting the underside, covering the top. Try to get it to connect with the pre-existing foam layer.

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IowaDome

Posted: May 05, 2017 07:04 PM

Close Cell Foam & the crazy Bubble shaped house

So, I live in a dome home. If anyone reading can offer any insight or resources, we would be grateful. Not geodesic, and not exactly monolithic. It is 3 or so 3/4 domes that all kind of intersect at the center. The house is like one big room, separated by some drywall to make rooms. It has a doorway, a sliding door entryway in the kitchen, and two window bays for each bedroom. Hypothetically, because no one seems to be able to know with certainty, the home is from the inside out, shotcrete followed by 8 inches of close cell foam, then the outside skin which is a thick 1/2 inch layer of elastometric paint,. The outside layer may also have something slightly different on it, we've debated about it off and on.

We are trying to remove the two skylights in the house, as they leak, the wood is nasty, etc. We also want to redo all of the windows and doorways due to similar issues, decay over the years. We are not the original owners/builders.

The foam, despite being closed cell, exudes water if pushed. NOT ALL. Just the outside 2-3 inches. 98% of it is covered all the time, of course, but a bit of wear here, a decayed entryway wood siding here, we can arch our eyebrows at it for a bit before we cover it up when we find it so its not in the sun, etc. We happened to get a look at the layers while redoing the hvac, and the inside facing 4-5 inches of the foam is dry, so if anyone has any insight into whether this discrepancy and nonuniformity in moisture in the foam means it could be dealt with by managing the internal humidity, or if it is vapor moisture that isn't necessarily trapped there but migrating as the outside/inside environment changes (we're in Iowa, and the winters get humid internally, we also have had little to no hvac and/or ventilation in our bathroom/kitchen for awhile as we try to fix this house, hvac and our dryer vent just got redone last week).

I'm pondering removing the skylights, placing a metal roof panel in the hole, and foam/shotcreting the underside, covering the top. Try to get it to connect with the pre-existing foam layer.

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