Ai Building Kit Summary |
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Geodesic Dome Home....Concrete Home...Home of the Future
Advanced Housing TechnologyAmerican Ingenuity's new DVD costs $2 plus mailing costs. To order click on Online Store. Housing technology has changed very little since framing replaced the log cabin. Modifications that were made to improve a concrete home or future home also increased its cost. We applied some American Ingenuity to the geodesic dome home, designed an all new component building system utilizing advanced kit home construction technology and developed a home plan without increasing the kit home's prices.American Ingenuity's dome kit includes all the triangular and riser panels needed for the dome shell and one entryway. The first floor of the 30' thru 48' dome homes can have up to five entryways. The second floor of the 36' thru 48' can have up to five single window or door dormers. As a result each floor plan varies as to the number and location of entryways and dormers. Underneath the entryway or dormer "eye brow" you or your contractor builds a conventional 2x4 framed wall and installs your locally purchased windows and doors. Because we do not know which stock floor plan you will select, Ai does not know the type or quantity of entryways or dormers that you will need. Click on Building Options to learn more about entryways, dormers, link, cupola, etc. Once you determine the floor plan, Ai can provide the Building Kit with Option Pricing. Within the Planning Kit is the 60 page Stock Floor Plan Booklet. This Booklet includes copies of some of Ai's stock plans, plans pricing, kit and options needed for each plan and the kit pricing. If you do not see a stock plan that fits your lifestyle, our designers can modify a stock plan or design a custom plan from your sketches. To receive via email, other stock Ai plans please call our office at 321-639-8777. You can view and print out some of Ai's stock plans (same ones that are in the Stock Floor Plan Booklet), by clicking on Stock Plans. To learn about the cost for each stock plan and the pricing of the building kit with options for each stock plan, click on Stock Plans and Stock Kit Prices. You can purchase the Planning Kit which includes the Stock Floor Plan booklet, a DVD, mini-dome and other info by clicking on Online Store. Houses and garages are built from the Dome Building Kits. The dome homes are available in seven sizes from one bedroom/one bath to four or five bedroom/four baths. The garage domes are typically one car or two car. In the back of the Stock Floor Plan Booklet are garage dome plans. The dome homes are built on conventional concrete slabs or raised wood floors. If needed, the dome can be built on a basement or pilings and a platform. American Ingenuity does not manufacture a basement wall kit, but does design the basement plans. To learn about possible foundations, click on Foundations. The regular pricing for the Dome Shell Kit which includes one entryway ranges from $14,655 to $65,605 depending on your square footage needs. Click on Pricing for a complete listing of the kit sizes and pricing. Wherever an "opening" is left for doors and windows, we do not ship triangles or riser panels. The entryway and dormer panels "eye brows" are therefore structural and are required to maintain the dome's integrity. The 2x4 wall that you build under the entryways or dormers is not for structural support; it is simply needed to hold your windows and doors. The component panel for the 27' thru 60' domes includes seven inch thick R-28 insulation (22' dome is 3 1/2" EPS). On the exterior of the insulation is ½” to ¾” thick steel reinforced concrete and on the interior of the insulation is ¼” Georgia-Pacific wall board. Onsite the kit is assembled by concreting the entryways, dormers, cupola, link and seams between the panels. You do not concrete over the entire dome. The concrete on the panels does not need to be thick because the seam concrete ends up being about 4" deep and about 6" wide. Once all the panel seams and entryways, dormers, etc. are concreted, the temporary wooden rib system or temporary radial supports are removed. The dome shell is self supporting. No interior walls are needed to support the shell. As a matter of fact the dome shell can support the weight of the second floor. However, normally there is a bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. So those interior walls are used to support part of the second floor. Where there are no first floor load bearing walls, suspension rods are installed in some of the shell seams. The exact locations of the suspension rods is noted on the shell geometry sheet in the Building Plans. That way when the panels are being assembled, the workers know where to install the rods. The suspension rods and top and bottom plates can be purchased from American Ingenuity. Each suspension rod supports 3,000 pounds. We use the AutoCAD program to design and calculate the load on the second floor. So just let us know if you will have an Aquarian, water bed, library, exercise room, etc. on the second floor and we calculate the load accordingly. The average load we calculate to is 40lbs. per square foot. The component panels do not come with any paint on them. We do not add any color to the concrete. On site you concrete the seams between the panels so if we painted the panels or added color to the concrete, the panel concrete would not match your painted seam concrete. The concrete shell is painted after the entire kit is assembled. The paint should include a concrete primer and two coats of good quality latex paint. The dome can be painted any color, tan, green, blue, etc. preferably a light to medium color to reflect the sunlight. The dome exterior is repainted every four to six years depending upon your area's pollution and UV light. If you rub your hand over the paint and get any "chalk" on your hand, that is when you know to repaint. Periodically you may need to pressure wash the dome or if you are in a humid area you may need to spray the dome exterior with a mixture of bleach and water to kill mildew. Ai's dome building kit does not include doors and windows. There is such a variety and varying price points, we leave the selection of the doors and windows up to each client to purchase locally. The floor plan you select will determine how many entryways or dormers you will have. Within the entryways and dormers {eye brows}, you or your framing subcontractor installs a 2x4 wall to frame in what ever standard doors or windows you have purchased locally. No interior items are included in the building kit other than the shell wall board. We believe you should not pay shipping on items you can purchase locally such as plumbing, electrical, framing, flooring, kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, lighting fixtures, etc. To learn about the panel compostion, click on Component Panel. Dome Finished Costs: The finished costs on the domes depends so much on where you live, what the labor costs are in your area and what price points you select for your windows, doors, cabinetry, flooring, lighting fixtures, etc. You can ask at your local hardware store or ask a local contractor what the finished price per square foot is running for a conventional house in the neighborhood you plan to build in. That is what it will cost to finish the domes (if you do no labor yourselves), because everything in the interior is standard whether it is a conventional house or dome home....plumbing, electrical, lighting fixtures, bathroom fixtures, flooring, kitchen cabinets, windows and doors, etc. are all the same. Basically you end up with a super-energy efficient, super-strong home for about the same price as a conventional house. To learn more, click on Finished Cost. Items in the Dome Shell Kit include: Triangular Panels, 4' Riser Wall Panels, panels for one Entryway, Galvanized Steel Mesh, Concrete Fibers, Two Concrete Admixtures, Reinforcing Tension Wire, Concrete Bonding Agent, Connecting C-Rings, C-Ring Pliers and Assembly Manual. To learn more, click on Kit Contents. To learn what is not in the Dome Kit, click on Items not included in the Kit Depending upon your floor plan selection there will be various building options. The Options include: Additional Entryway Panels (standard, high profile, garage), Window Dormer Panels, Door Dormer Panels, Skylight Panels, Cupola Panels and Link Panels. Click on Building Options to learn more. |