What makes a monolithic structure so fire resistant? Try as you might, you could not burn a monolithic dome. A dome home in California sustained only smoke damage during a massive forest fire. The inch-thick layer of concrete sprayed on its exterior made it a permanent structure that no amount of heat or fl.
Traditional homes are wood based. The frame that the house is built on is made of 2X4s nailed together. The frame work, floors, ceiling and walls are made of wood based materials. Of course, wood is flammable. Plaster, stucco, and ceramic tile will all melt if you get them hot enough.
Monolithic Domes homes are made two layers of concrete with a layer of insulation in between. The outer layer of concrete, the layer exposed to the elements, is several inches thick. Concrete is not flammable, and we have not found anything on Earth hot enough to melt it, either.
There is a Monolithic Dome in Iraq. A 500 pound bomb was dropped in the are of the dome The bomb fell through the concrete dome and exploded inside. The dome is still standing, the only structural damage sustained is a hole where the bomb came through. The interior walls are black from the resulting fire, but after a good cleaning and a paint job, there is no indication that a bomb went off in there.
David South is the co founder of The Monolithic Dome Institute in Italy, Texas. He and his brothers hold the patent to the monolithic dome building process. He compares his home to the dome in Iraq. "But it's that layer of concrete that protects a dome home from nearly everything. That's why no fire -- nothing it can penetrate it. If you had a tree fall against this house and it fell and broke a window and a branch landed into the inside and set fire to the couch, you could get a fire on the couch. But like in my house, if you gathered up all the furniture in the house and stacked it in the living room and set fire to
it, you could make a huge horrible stinking, smoking mess out of the inside of my house, but you couldn't burn it down. I would have to repaint it."
Monolithic domes have been built in high forest fire areas. Fire fighters consider these domes a safe spot when they need an out.
"In the case of the dome we built in California that sustained only minimal damage during a massive forest fire, we had sprayed about an inch layer of concrete on the outside of it which makes it absolutely permanent. On the outside they had some wood structures that were damaged, but everything that was inside the shell was fine. They did have some smoke damage. They had to go in and clean it and de-smoke it and so forth, but the head of the fire suppressions team in that community said that during the fire, he told his crews, "If you need refuge, go in that dome house," says David.
Concrete simply doesn't burn or melt, which makes it the perfect building material for structures that could be exposed to fire. After a raging fire, the monolithic dome is still there. Oftentimes, it is the only thing still standing.
