Hempcrete… Natural, Healthy, Sustainable
Creating eco-friendly sustainable homes is becoming increasingly important as we consider new and innovative ways to minimise our impact on the environment...but knowing where to start can be overwhelming.
At CCBUILD, we are passionate about sustainability and on our endeavour to build sustainably, found that all arrows point to Hempcrete. Whether you’re renovating or building from scratch, read on to learn about its benefits and what you can expect.
Hempcrete is the sustainable alternative to a traditional brick and mortar home. The building material is created from a completely natural mix of the woody core of the industrial hemp plant, combined with lime binder, water, and sometimes sand.
Despite being used for decades, our desire to be more eco friendly as a society has ensured this material has slowly grown in popularity. You may have seen it on Grand Designs!
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Accredited Hurd and Lime products available in Australia have been rated for use in BAL-FZ (Fire Zone), the highest possible rating.
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The natural lime binder acts as a repellant to mould, rodents, and other pests.
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Hempcrete buildings have excellent insulation properties. We typically build our walls to a thickness of 250mm. This achieves an R value of 3.55, Standard insulation batts are around R-2.5.
The construction method used in Hempcrete buildings features continuous insulation from the wall to the ceiling and drastically reduces air leakage and draft.
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Many building products and their manufacturing processes use and release large amounts of polluting components.
These include V.O.C's (volatile organic compounds) which are in glues, paints, polyurethanes etc. The mix of hemp wood and lime creates a long lasting, toxin-free building product that can offer zero carbon constructions. This makes hempcrete allergen free.
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Hempcrete also eliminates the need for paint, one of the largest contributors of Volatile Organic Compounds in a home.
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Rendered hemp around a timber frame forms a complete wall, eliminating need for the layers of materials in a more traditional wall system such as cladding, wall wrap, insulation, gyprock plaster, paint and even skirting and architraves.
Living the high life 😉
The Hemp Masonry Company’s Hempcrete workshop was well worth the journey interstate for Dave and our friends.
An opportunity to rub shoulders with Shane at Hannan Build, an expert in his field, and chat sustainable building 🌱
Benefits of Building with Hempcrete for the Environment
Waste Minimisation
Did you know building waste makes up around 40% of Australia’s total waste?
Renewable and reusable products such as Hempcrete help to drastically reduce this.
At the end of a buildings life, a home made out of hempcrete can be deconstructed to separate the internal timber from the hempcrete, allowing both the timber to be reused AND the hemp to be reused and/or composted!
Carbon Negative
At CCBUILD we want to help Australian’s reduce their carbon footprint through conscious home design.
Did you know Australians have one of the highest personal carbon footprints in the world? The good news is we can change that. With passive building design and the use of sustainable materials, followed by small changes to your everyday living, together we can combat climate change.
We love Hempcrete, because it sequesters carbon from the atmosphere for the life of the building. An average home using 50m3 of hemp will lock up around 5.5 tonnes of carbon!
Renewable Resource
It has become vital to us at CCBUILD that we can do our part to contribute to change in our construction policies and methods to more reliable and greener or sustainable choices.
When we say ‘greener’ or ‘sustainable’ choices in construction, we are passionate in choosing building materials made from renewable resources that have longevity and do not exhaust our natural reserves.
Green building materials, like Hempcrete, aim to consume less energy, water, and labour for production and most importantly, is non-toxic to the environment!
