[Greenbuilding] Where to Find Hempcrete

[Stephen Collette]

Hello Jason and all,

So I poked around in my old straw bale connections and the guy I used to buy hemp hurds from, which we added to the plaster mix to reduce cracking, is no longer around. Moved out west. So that's a dead end unfortunately. I do however remember someone having hemp blocks at Greenbuild when it was in Toronto, but for the life of me, I can't find the company propaganda anywhere in my office. I googled and couldn't find it either. I did find a hemp insulation company. I have one of their sample batts, lovely stuff, nice and stiff and pleasant. http://www.memvegetal.com  The website is all in French, so you might need to run it through the translator, but neat stuff. 

There was talk of trying to get Durisol to use hemp, but I don't know where that went. Also Hebel would be another to consider as they use natural materials too. 

I suspect that the majority of any of these items, if available, would be difficult to ship to the US, especially the raw material due to your laws. I don't know though.

I did work on one straw bale house where we built with hemp bales. If anyone is considering it, I would strongly advise against it, simply because those stalks are very strong. For those who have played with bales, know you cut it open, and retie to make a smaller bale by separating the "flakes". This doesn't work with hemp, as the stalks are 8+ feet long, and so you drag and try to cut (very hard to cut) and curse and make a general mess. Never again.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Stephen

Stephen Collette BBEC, LEED AP, BSSO
Your Healthy House - Indoor Environmental Testing & Building Consulting
http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca
stephen at yourhealthyhouse.ca
705.652.5159


http://www.memvegetal.com





On 2013-10-21, at 2:00 PM, greenbuilding-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:

> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 21:37:48 -0400
> From: Jason Holstine <jason at amicusgreen.com>
> To: Greenbuilding Listserv <Greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Where to find Hempcrete
> Message-ID: <CE89FDAC.33F3B%jason at amicusgreen.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> Hi Stephen,
> 
> Most likely looking for blocks to be stacked. But if there are leads on raw
> hulls and formulas for making the blocks, it could be very useful, too.
> Thanks.
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20131024/89e95b97/attachment.html>