BUILDING WITH HEMP

Suffolk Housing Society Project
Examining the sustainability, economic, and
environmental difference between
hemp and traditional buildings

Four identical homes were built--two constructed from hemp materials and two from the traditional brick and mortar.
In the hemp homes, frames were built and filled with Isochanvre, a French mixture of lime, hemp, and water, which provides its own insulation, water impermeability, and decorative finish.. In testing, the hemp homes stood their ground against and even outperformed the traditional brick homes.

The Perfect Plant?

Hemp is a unique plant that offers a natural non-toxic, eco-friendly, renewable and low energy materials that can be utilized in literally thousands of ways..
~Popular Mechanics February, 1938

Imagine a crop more versatile than the soybean, the cotton plant, and the Douglas fir combined—one whose products are interchangeable with those made from timber, cotton, or petroleum; one that grows like Jack’s beanstalk with minimal tending. Industrial hemp is such a crop.~John W. Roulac

Hemp is a natural product, it is environmentally friendly, produces no toxic by products and is fully recyclable. It is thermally efficient resulting in lower fuel costs. It absorbs sound and is non flammable.
— Suffolk Housing Society

Hemp can be organically grown and processed into a variety of non-toxic insulation products that far surpass the benefits of fiberglass.

The Lakota hemp house project has used three
formulations of “hempcrete”. For the foundation, an earth-clay brick with hemp fiber
reinforcement. For the walls, two variations of a
concrete with chopped hemp stalks as a
reinforcing matrix.

HEMPCRETE & THE LAKOTA HEMP HOUSE PROJECT

COMPOSITES: Hemp vs. Wood

Composite boards are processed fiber (wood, hemp, flax, etc.) held together with resins and currently the fastest growing segment of the timber industry. When made from trees the boards are weak, since the individual fibers of trees are at best 3/4” long, so the boards can only replace lumber where strength is not required. Hemp fibers run virtually the entire length of the plant (up to 15 feet. The first rule of composites is the strength of the board is proportional to the length of the fiber.