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Chugwater's Igloo House Is Earthquake, Fire, and Tornado Proof (cowboystatedaily.com)
8 points by LinuxBender 10 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments



Anyone know rough cost per sq ft?


this can also be done with natural source materials, like wick and cobb


I think if I was trying to build something to stand up tornadoes and quakes I'd look at superadobe [1] and hyperadobe[2], which are a bit like a very large coil pot, with something like barbed wire between the layers to protect against shearing forces. The exterior would need some coating or a skin of waterproof material too. But the "inflate a balloon as the form for concrete, then cut openings later" in the article is very fast, if not as cheap.

1: https://www.calearth.org/

2: https://www.earthbagbuilding.com/articles/hyperadobe.htm


the thing that has to be kept in mind is mitigating environmental concerns for duration of the structure.

you must build to prevent capillary uptake of water from the ground with a break of noncapillary material. if the structure is of substantial weight there must be load path, and that may require foundation, or soils amendment, this in turn will then require proper swaleing and drainage.

drip stopping would be required to direct water off of the building where any openings or convergent features occur, and ice dams jams must be preented with design consideration for shedding snowmelt




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