Monolithic dome rentals featured on Good Morning Texas

Recently, WFAA Channel 8 featured Monolithic’s president, David South, and his monolithic dome rental units on Good Morning Texas. Reporter, Paige McCoy Smith, traveled to Monolithic’s headquarters in Italy, Texas to interview Mr. South and see first-hand, “How these domestic domes can become dream dwellings for people around the world.”

Smith begins GMT’s Did You Know? segment at “Bruco,” Monolithic’s caterpillar-shaped airformed membrane manufacturing facility, which is easily seen from I-35 when traveling from Dallas to Austin. She quickly moves to the dome rentals and points out, “The monolithic homes are very inexpensive to produce and they’re even less expensive to run.”

David South joins Ms. Smith on a walk down a long driveway lined with the monolithic rental units. They discuss how the rentals are extremely tough because they are made of concrete. Mr. South mentions that the units are fire-safe, tornado-safe, and exceptionally energy-efficient. He claims, “It’s typical to cut power costs by fifty percent.”

“The idea is to have safe housing for people that want them,” Mr. South says.

Smith adds that part of what he does at Monolithic is, “To make housing affordable for people in this country and also all around the world.”

According to Mr. South, one of his main goals is to make rental houses affordable. “If you look at the numbers, two-thirds of all the renters in America are 1 or 2 people. They don’t need big houses, and of those two-thirds, 40% of them make less than $8 an hour, and so they need something they can afford.”

As Ms. Smith and Mr. South continue their walking tour, Smith brings up the fact that even though the dome rental units may look small on the outside, it is an optical illusion. “They’re very spacious,” she says, “When you walk inside, you can really get a sense of how much room the dome shape really provides—this kind-of spacious existence.”

Viewers next get a quick tour of David South’s beautiful 2,800 square-foot Monolithic dome home that he and his wife, Judy, built. Mr. South says the cost of building a house like his is about the same as a conventional, custom home.

When asked what his hope was for the future of Monolithic, Mr. South responds, “Well, as you can tell, I’m getting older, and I’m preaching domes around the world. So far I’ve built in 49 states and 53 countries, and everything’s different. I’ll build a gymnasium in one place; I’ll build a school in another place. But, I build a lot of houses, and my low-cost houses—especially my really ultra-low-cost houses—that’s the one I want to get around the world.”

Mr. South closes the interview with this statement “There are just too many people who do not have a good, clean place to spend tonight.”

Watch the interview in its entirety below: