This book presents superinsulation as the art of minimizing heat loss from houses and other like structures. When fossil fuels seemed cheap and plentiful, most people didn't worry about how much heat their houses lost. It did not matter how loosely houses were built. The combination of fossil fuels and 20th century stove and furnace technology could pour heat into a structure as fast as it leaked out. As fossil fuels become increasingly expensive, we now would like to do without, or use very little of them. Now we are looking to superinsulation.

Review of a Home Building Classic Ed McGrath published his first book on this subject on 1978. It was pretty general, but it was one of the first attempts at presenting useful information for builders in very cold climates. The present book is fill with solid, well-illustrated details -- all from experience of the toughest sort [Fairbanks, Alaska]. The basic principles are explained in terms that anyone should be able to understand -- one good way to help spread the Word. For many folks, books "born in the filed" as this one was, are more useful than those born in laboratories. -- J. Baldwin, in CoEvolution Quarterly