Increase Your Walls insulation

Insulation, especially "super" insulation (R30+) is one of 9;

1)Low wood use, 2)a lot of thermal mass,3) use of indigenous materials,4) solar thermal gain, 5)solar power and/or wind power, 6)water catchment and/or recycling/minimal use,7) use of recycled materials, 8)super insulation and 9) interior year around gardens that grow food.
The Earthship is the "Holy Grail" of eco-homes because it can have all 9 characteristics. Others can be designed to have all nine also, like straw bale homes with trombe walls and interior gardens. An A frame could have up to 7 out of 9, and a dome maybe up to 6 out of 9 with difficulty.

Put extra insulation in the attic/roof add an another layer to increase thickness to around 270mm-300mm after that i think it becomes counter productive, as the weight of the top layer affects the performance of the material. You can now buy hemp/sheep/ eco-friendly attic insulation, which goesthat one step futher to being better for the environment.

Originally Posted by Val

Insulation, especially "super" insulation (R30+) is one of 9;

1)Low wood use, 2)a lot of thermal mass,3) use of indigenous materials,4) solar thermal gain, 5)solar power and/or wind power, 6)water catchment and/or recycling/minimal use,7) use of recycled materials, 8)super insulation and 9) interior year around gardens that grow food.
The Earthship is the "Holy Grail" of eco-homes because it can have all 9 characteristics. Others can be designed to have all nine also, like straw bale homes with trombe walls and interior gardens. An A frame could have up to 7 out of 9, and a dome maybe up to 6 out of 9 with difficulty.

Like I said, super insulation is 11% of the package, and by itself---IS NOT ENOUGH!!

Agreed Val but we can't just destroy all these already built homes.. don't you think its best to retrofit until the usable lifetime is up then build these earthship style homes? and in the case of retrofitting.. these green boron treated replacement insulation packages stunt fire kill mold etc.. and drag out useful lifetime in retrofitted houses while BTW old fiberglass increases a homes burn rate.

Existing homes can have solar/wind power added, extra insulation added, thermal mass trombe walls and solariums added. Catchment systems added. Straw bales covered in thick stucco, protected on the bottom and under good overhangs can be added and rammed earth tire trombe walls used inside the solariums.