Growing Spaces Growing Dome

Does anyone here own a Growing Spaces Growing Dome? Your experience, comments and feedback about this greenhouse system would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

https://geodesic-greenhouse-kits.com/

I have been looking into this over the last couple of years and have been dismayed by costs and complexity of hubs.  This is the best one I have seen and  even my carpentry skills (none whatsoever) would be up to this.  I will be having a go once my solar dehydrator (plans per permies) is constructed.

http://geo-dome.co.uk/

He describes different versions and sells plans at a very reasonable rate.  There are videos on construction and even cleaning and refurbishment.
This video explains some principles involved

https://youtu.be/TqxarO-5igc

So how is the dehydrator coming along I hear you cry.

Eeeerrrrm...

Domes are a great design if you are prepared for the high air mass volume to sqft print.
Pagoda springs where the growing spaces co is located has hydro-thermal springs in the area so they have easy to tap winter heat.

I do not know of any other domes that are running year round.
Of the domes I have read about in Alaska, Alberta, WI, etc they all seem to be season extension greenhouses, not year round operations.
AFAIK, no university working on cold climate growing spaces has advocated for a geodesic dome design... (Yukon, Alaska, Minnesota et. al.)

James Rubino wrote:Domes are a great design if you are prepared for the high air mass volume to sqft print.
Pagoda springs where the growing spaces co is located has hydro-thermal springs in the area so they have easy to tap winter heat.

I do not know of any other domes that are running year round.
Of the domes I have read about in Alaska, Alberta, WI, etc they all seem to be season extension greenhouses, not year round operations.
AFAIK, no university working on cold climate growing spaces has advocated for a geodesic dome design... (Yukon, Alaska, Minnesota et. al.)

Well, that’s discouraging! I had been perusing domes recently and pondering whether that might be a good choice. For several years, off and on, I have pondered building a small greenhouse using the Starplates they sell via Stromberg’s hatchery. https://www.strombergschickens.com/starplate_building_system It looks like something I could build solo. DH is having too much arthritis to likely help much with the next building project, which means I need to keep it simpler than our last one.

But I would like to achieve something closer to growing all winter.

😕

Myrth Montana wrote:
Well, that’s discouraging!

Checkout Northern Homestead Blog.
They genuinely seem to enjoy their dome and wish they had two.

Domes have issues. This is not to say that they never make sense, though.

I think the reason most cold-climate four-season projects don't usually focus on domes is for the reason of insulation. Even the very best glazing, unless there's one I haven't met yet, won't compare to a well-insulated wall in terms of keeping your heat in. You don't gain any solar energy through the poleward side of the dome, so those might as well not be glazed.

Worse yet, conventional building materials are usually rectangular or square. Most building materials used to cover surface area are large rectangles, like the 4' x 8' sheets of drywall or plywood or whatever you see in a big box hardware store. They don't easily or economically lend themselves to being cut into the shapes needed without a lot of waste.

That said, I saw recently an article I will attempt to find about a company essentially erecting greenhouses around existing houses, and designing cold-climate villages in northern Europe around this concept, and the idea of growing the community's food in this manner. I know at least one example used a dome.

If they weren't so aesthetically appealing for me, the decision would be easier.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:

That said, I saw recently an article I will attempt to find about a company essentially erecting greenhouses around existing houses, and designing cold-climate villages in northern Europe around this concept, and the idea of growing the community's food in this manner. I know at least one example used a dome.

-CK

That does seem to be the most interesting usecase for domes at this time.
A life size living snow globe with the snow outside the globe.
Very picturesque.

My wife and I are building a geodome here in Minnesota and would be happy to share our experiences.

We opted for the geodome plan over Growing Spaces to save money but the amount of labor is significant.

Phil

Hi Philip. Welcome to Permies.

Could you tell us a bit about what your part of Minnesota is like? You could also fill out you profile to let us know such things as what the nearest town is, what your plant hardiness zone is, all the way up to a bio, if you so choose (I haven't made it that far yet, nor do I have a picture up yet; baby steps).

Are you doing glazing all around, or are you opting for opaque insulated panels on the north side?

-CK

Hi Chris:

Happy to share.  My wife and I live in Woodbury, MN which is a suburb of St. Paul.  This is USDA Hardiness Zone 4b (2012).  After being inspired by a presentation at the State Fair back in 2013 we got into straw bale gardening for a number of years and were intruiged at the possibility of purchasing or building a greenhouse to extend our growing season.  It was around then that we learned of the Deep Winter Greenhouse project through the Univ. of Minn. extension, and the various types of passive heating greenhouses that are available.  You may have read about the DWG project, but if not there are several of these greenhouses in MN (mostly outside the twin cities) that allow you to grow through the entire winter season.  That is a tall order here because of lack of extreme cold and short daylight hours.

Our project started in the summer of last year, was on hiatus through the MN winter, and re-started just a couple of weeks ago.  We ended up going with a "home grown" customized geodesic dome design that integrated three different concepts: the Growing Spaces Dome (which we frankly couldn't afford), the Ceres GAHT (geothermal) system, and Paul Robinson's $40 geodome plan, which was scaled to a 16' diameter dome.  Ceres gave me a discount on their plan and customized it for a dome.  Like the Univ. of Minn. DWG concept, we opted for opaque walls on the N side and insulated everywhere we could.  I've attached some photos and captions below to show how we got to where we are now.

Phil

Did not have any luck uploading images to this site, so I put them on my blog instead.  Hopefully these are accessible!

http://soosnews.blogspot.com/2019/05/geodome-story.html

Phil

Yup, they are accessible.  Beautiful work!  Did you try attaching the photos directly from your computer via the Attachments tab?  That's usually the best way.  Linking to hosted images online is often a cluster..

Yes, I did but for some reason it never uploaded!  It only allowed me to preview and submit, and neither uploaded the file.

Phil

Hmm, that's too bad.  The pics won't show up in the preview, only after you hit submit.  Feel free to post about it in the "Tinkering with this site" forum if you'd like more help on it.  In any case, that's a great build you have going on!

I have been helping my parents build a Growing Dome. I have to say the writen instructions leave alot to figure out. The videos help fill in a few holes, but not many. So far we spend one hour reading, one hour watching videos and half an hour of building.