Hempcrete Spray Application (Demonstration & Collaboration)

BY FRANK J. CHEFF

Acollaboration of multiple hemp builders occurred on Sun July 9th in Manchaca, TX just south of Austin. Phelan Dalton of the Hemp Building Co. of Colorado flew in for the event as General Contractor Paul Carbone’s personal guest and ongoing collaborator.

Phelan and his partner Dan Scowcroft were the first to ever put on a Hempcrete Workshop at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems CMPBS.org back in May of 2021. Advertised and reported by the Hemp Reporter at that time. Also present are a number of notable Hemp builders and materials suppliers.

Harry Hemp of hemphomes.com who is a builder of current projects pending permitting in Arkansas, Missouri and Washington states. He was accompanied by his friend and crew member Kekaa Nakupendaa from PA who now lives in the Central African Republic. Both of them recently helped Andrew Hancock, who was also collaborating and helping, Andrew is the owner of Lime Life Construction who is finishing his own Hemp Home build on his property in Nemo TX. https://www.facebook. com/profile.php?id=100070681815622 Another builder and entrepreneur who gained new perspective on hemp with all the knowledge and experience was Theo Ross of Dankdog who is looking to build Tiny Hemprecete homes in Central Texas. Also not present, however, contributing was Finally Sabin whose Hemp Eco

Systems/HES mineral binder was used and has been used by all of these builders combined with KANABAT Certified building grade hemp hurd. That has been utilized for decades in Europe after a string of failures when Hemp was reintroduced in the 1990’s by a number of French builders that had the right ideas but trial and error led to a standardization and ultimately a certification of materials in order that the industry can advance and builders can count on materials being uniform and consistent. Here are a few pictures and you can see demonstration video of the spraying of the Hempcrete at the Host’s Paul Carbone’s Instagram page https:// www.instagram.com/hempknowlogy/ Paul is the owner of Hempknowlogy hemp company. Paul is a creative mentor and collaborator for many of these builders as well as researcher and scientist for the hempcrete chemistry involved as well as a developer of new proprietary mixtures of Geopolymer binders for new products being developed as we speak. Paul is the inventor of the “HempcreteJet”

The Hempcrete industry is going through it’s growing pain phase and has begun to gain much traction in the USA and particularly in Texas with multiple builders available now ready to work on projects and a growing and capable workforce that is becoming ever skilled in this very specialized eco building technique. Hempcrete or Hemp-Lime as some refer to it is known for a number of very attractive benefits to consumers. Hemp, as it grows, sequesters a lot of Carbon so is a green eco-concious material. As it petrifies it becomes hard and basically turns to stone, although you can put nails into it and other than a render or plaster there is no need for drywall, and the hemp is an insulator and noise deadening material due to it’s dense and oatmeal like consistency when still wet as it’s being applied. Hempcrete is simply hemp hurd or shiv (the tiny woody like pulp pieces) processed to a consistent size and split open to be even more absorbent, this is important and not the case in much of the hemp produced in the USA today.. So the Hemp Hurd is mixed with Lime, Water and sometimes with a binder or clinker. Which is a mineral mix of type of pozzolan or other mineral types that chemically bind all the materials together. The hurd materials were sourced from Chanvra Material also known as American Natural Materials at http:// naturalmaterials.us or http://chanvra.org and is the only Certified Building Grade Hemp hurd available in the USA. This certification does not exist yet in the USA. We hope collaborations like this will help change that and builders begin to demand a standardization. For Hempcrete builders there are two types of application that are commonly used. This type of spraying of the Hempcrete mix is a newer version of building with Hempcrete. Although not only the word Hempcrete is a misnomer so is building with Hempcrete. I was told once by a prolific American Hempcrete builder that you should look at it as “Hemp Insulation installation” because hemp