I had an idea to use both straw bales and earth bags for an internals on a passive solar house.
Effectively it would be a straw bale (for insulative properties) 'sandwiched' between earthbags (for thermal mass). So a cross section of the walls would be Earth bad - Straw bale - Earthbag.
Aside from having ridiculously thick walls, are their any good reasons Not to do this?
On the north side where the sun doesn't hit. More insulation is a good idea. The rest of the place is a thermal battery. Consider a greenhouse room on the south side for thermal gain.
From my perspective, all thermal mass NEEDS to be insulated, if not it ends up at chilly ambient temperature all year round. A house that is constantly -10c degrees would suck.
Edit: sorry I just saw the 'internal walls' description. John has a point, not much need to insulate interior walls unless they have a thermal bridge to the outside.
Building soil in the Yukon.
There's no place like 127.0.0.1. But I'll always remember this tiny ad:
montana community seeking 20 people who are gardeners or want to be gardeners