Geodome Greenhouse Part 1 - May 5, 2019

Our geodome greenhouse actually started at the end of 2018 when my husband thought, "It'd be great to grow our own plants 10 out of the 12 months of the year". Now, just so you know, we are in zone 4B (MN) and generally the growing season is Memorial Day to Oct 10 maybe. So this was a big deal that required a lot of research to make happen. We could use LOTS of energy to heat up a typical greenhouse in the colder months. This would make it cost prohibitive and better off going to the big box store to get our produce.

So, we looked into other options and stumbled across this wonderful research at the University of MN (https://extension.umn.edu/growing-systems/deep-winter-greenhouses). We were fortunate enough to visit one of the prototypes and thought that it was pretty cool. However, the $40K pricetag and R40 insulation was a bit more than what we budgeted.

Also, since our back yard faced SE we wanted something that was more esthetically pleasing. So, we decided on our geodome design from Paul Robinson.

We also used information from Growing Spaces, a company in Colorado that sells geodome greenhouse kits! https://growingspaces.com/

We hired a crew to dig the hole--4 ft. below grade and below the frost line here in Woodbury, MN.


Insulated with 4" of extruded PS foam per Ceres plan.


GAHT level 1, 4 ft. down, and back filled with 1" gravel and soil for use as thermal mass.


GAHT level 2, 2 ft. down


Filled up to grade.


Made oodles of triangles from cedar with a 6.5 degree bevel in accordance with Paul Robinson's plan. Paul Robinson is a guy from the UK who designs and builds geodomes. He built some for folks and then had the plans available for purchase. I believe he's a one man show and is quite busy. We chose to purchase his plans and watch his Youtube videos for instructions. Here's a link to his youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL--oBARR8PwZtH7drz5Sjw. And his website: https://geo-dome.co.uk/

How we screwed them together in case you were interested in building one.

How we screwed them together in case you were interested in building one.

Friends were invaluable for installing the larger pieces.


Most dome sections are now in.  The half-triangles next to the doorways were especially tricky.  We had to temporarily pop out the insulation panels to screw in the struts from below.


View from the inside.


South side view.