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Concrete Dome Home

20K views 39 replies 14 participants last post by  jagans 
#1 ·
Hello! We have a solid concrete dome home, the walls curve up to eventually become the roof. The house has leaks to the inside just about everywhere. The house was painted with Conflex XL Elastomeric before we bought it and it's now filled with water bubbles and peeling off in sheets of rubber. We are working on removing the Conflex XL, but it's not an easy task... I asked about that in the painting forum.
For the *Roof Forum* I'm wondering a few things...
The house has many flat roofing sections, all made of concrete. They are incredibly uneven, some pitch in, some have parts that pool water, all of them look bad, and all of them have the same Conflex paint on them. Is there some method that I can concrete over them with a thin layer that's pitched a bit to get the water away from the house? How would I prepare that? or would it be better, or possible to attach a wooden framed peak over these areas and then shingle them or something? I don't know anything about roofs, so if I did that, wouldn't the empty space just fill up with hornet nests and whatnot? (We also have a bad problem with giant black ants)
For the second part of my question... the house is primarily made of large pre-manufactured concrete triangles that are joined together on-site and concreted together in the joins. These joins are the weakest part of the house and I'm not sure the concrete was mixed and installed properly in the first place. Our thinking was to cover these seams (about 12" wide, 6' long) with Henry 208 or Henry's 208R and then painting the triangles between with normal, good quality latex house paint (and paint over the Henry's for looks instead of big black strips all over the house). We also plan to use Henry's on all of the flat roof areas and wall corners for extra waterproofing. The thinking is that the Henry's will create the waterproofing with a solid seal while the regularly painted triangles (made of properly mixed uncracked concrete) would allow the house to breathe because it's painted with regular paint. The Dome manufacturer (AIDomes.com, the kit maker, not the actual house builder) suggests just painting the house with a quality latex paint and to avoid Elastomerics. However at this point the house has had years with improperly applied Elastomeric and has so many problems that it *feels* like the house needs a fresh "skin" on much of it and Henry's 208 is the only thing we can come up with as novices that will give us quality long lasting results.

Thanks for taking the time to read and think! :thumbsup:
 
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#38 ·
No, you misunderstand me. A bond breaker is needed where movement is expected. The PUF should take care of panel to panel movement, so I still think that PUF is the way for you to go. I am somewhat concerned about trapped moisture, but the guy you had did mention that he was going to take care of that I think. Again, the use of the foam here is to reduce movement, and to create a seamless surface onto which the silicone coating can be applied, it is not for R-Value.

There are other coatings that can be applied to foam, and maybe the Graco material is one of them. The advantage to silicone is that it is not organic, and therefore not nearly as subject to attack by organisms like black mold, or red algae, as organic coatings are. Your flat roof areas are small so I would probably just foam them also.
 
#39 ·
I haven't used or heard of Graco but I have Gaco. I used it on top of our RV and it worked great for us, it is a little pricy and it will work over foam. Just contact the people and talk to them about how to prep and use the product. I am very satisfied with it. Oh and you will need the tape for the joints, by all means get the tape that you stick down, the unglued stuff is the pits to use.
 
#40 ·
Sorry, I am not that familiar with all of the current coatings for foam. I was with an engineerinf firm that had the national account to do the inspections on the Dow Silicone over PUF system, and one of my colleagues handled that and said it was a good coating. I remember him saying that he found a lot of problems in other types of coatings. I handled all of the Specifications for low slope roofing like BUR, Single Ply, and also Metal Roofing. My feeling regarding foam is that it is great for domes, Quonset huts, storage tanks and things that have pretty good slope. I never specified it for low slope applications, because I saw a lot of failures in low slope roofs where foam was applied.
 
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