A little background...
My name is Em! My partner Alex and I are building a 33' balecob round home this spring-summer-fall on our homestead in the green mountains of Vermont! We are hoping to have all external work done by snowfall so that we can work on the internal work by heat of rocket mass through the winter months. We bought this 22-acre property in 2017 and currently live on this
land with our three little humans in a tiny, poorly-constructed, mostly uninsulated 1br cabin that was here when we bought the land and are very ready to move into something better suited to our naturally-minded growing family.
Our plan is to begin construction on a 33' round balecob structure this spring. We love the idea and reciprocal roof and would be sad but we're trying to decide how realistic it is to use that design with the weight of our immense snow load in addition to the weight of a living roof. Our current plan is to use 12 beams and 6 support posts, but the smallest diameter we feel like will be comfortable for our family of 5 would be 30' and i'm very connected to the magic number 33' so ideally that is what i'd like to use as the internal diameter.
I'd like to hear from someone with
experience building a reciprocal roof at this scale/inner diameter. Or, even, whether this is a feasible/realistic plan!
Thanks in advance.