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@@UndecidedMF yes that's part of the problem. The second part for me is that i live in area were police regularly confiscate hemp from growers even tho growing hemp for Non recreational use is perfectly legal.
Thank you for presenting such interesting topics. Really enjoy your channel. As the son of a builder and an ex navy Seabee I have seen many construction methods around the world. At 70 years old I still enjoy learning.
This material appears to behave more like a rigid insulator rather than a true structural material. For example, a hempcrete slab doesn't seem like it can function the same way that a concrete slab would. My guess is that this *can* be achieved with hempcrete, but is not necessarily its main purpose. That said, I would guess, it should still find many uses as a building material.
I grew the first hemp fiber trials in California in 2021. We grew 26' tall plants and yielded >8T an acre in dry stalk biomass. The plant and its potential is insane. My partners on the project have converted a cotton gin to process hemp. the process to watch is adding hemp and lime to spray-in insulation machines. It's a complete game changer.
That sounds like it was amazing to be a part of! The growth numbers are always insane to me and then eventually someone comes along and says, “yea, it’s a weed…” …I guess today I’m that person haha
i'm curious to know if the hemp being used for fibers for this sort of building material can also be used to yield hemp seed. I have tried roasted salted hemp seed and it is actually really good and I imagine the seed aswell would be great food for livestock.
@@daemenoth the flowering and seed production process tends to degrade some of the qualities of the bast fiber, which makes it less usable for Textile applications but is not a big deal for building materials. That said, the main trade off to producing seed is that time spent making seed is time not spent growing more stalk. Flowering and seed production takes 40-60 days depending on variety. If that time was spent growing instead you could have a larger plant. It's the difference between having 15 foot tall plants (or two crops of 6' tall plants) and 6 foot tall plants with seed on them. Farmers will optimize around it based on available genetics and their offtakes from the supply chain.
A wheat farmer near my grandfather's farm use the wheat straw from his own fields to build his new house. To prevent insects from living in the straw he built a hopper that sat above the feedshoot of his baler that held borax powder and sprinkled a light dusting of borax on the straw as it come into the baler. This diffused the borax throughout the bale. It not only eliminated any possible insect issue, but borax is a natural fire retardant. When he had completed his house I went over with my Dad (who was an architect and main instigator of the visit) and grandfather to take a look. It was a very normal looking house built up on a slight mound (to make sure water ran away from the house and never had a chance to pond next to the walls) and had an extra thick insulated concrete slab (which was not covered inside, but instead was just stained and polished, and which had water pipes running through it for heating in the cold Oklahoma winters). The only real give away was that the walls were about 2 1/2 to 3 feet thick. I remember the day we visited was a standard hot Oklahoma summer day, yet the inside of the house was cool without the air conditioner running. I can remember my grandfather asking about this since in his older farm house the AC ran all the time. The answer was that they open up the house in the evening and night and get everything inside the house cool, especially the thick floor slab. Then in the morning they close the windows and drew the curtains to limit the heat gain. The farmer pointed out the circular duct in one corner of the room that ran from floor to ceiling with a fan. During the day the fan would pull warm air from the ceiling and blow it across the concrete floor. With the large amount of thermal mass in the floor the house didn't start to get overly warm until around sunset when they opened the windows back up and turn on the whole house fan in the ceiling that drew air through the house. And if the night was still too warm or humid, they would just run their relatively tiny AC unit at night when the temperature difference was lower and it took less energy to cool the house down. BTW, I am an engineer, and some of the above is me backfilling technical details that I understand now. But when we visited I was in high school and already knew I was going to be an engineer, so I actually did understand a lot of what the farmer (who was also an engineer who came back to take over his own father's farm) was saying. And my Dad was so impressed that he did something similar (at least from a thermal mass point of view) when he built his new house in Arizona. Instead of straw he used concrete block with every cell poured full of concrete to create the huge amount of thermal mass and then put 6 inch thick aircrete panels on the outside to insulate it. Nights in Arizona are often too hot to fling the windows open, but the amount of power required to run the AC was much lower at night and with time of day pricing, much much cheaper as well. Well thanks for the chance to remanence.
This is essentially the same as old stone houses built around the mediterranian. Lots of thermal mass, ability to close/open for the day or night. Hope we can get back to these principles to build more effective housings.
Yeah, the open the windows at night trick depends on humidity levels. If you're in a well insulated structure in the shade, the air can get less comfortable at night, as humidity rises
I'm well-retired now, but even as a teenager, it was often discussed by adults around me , how Dupont was behind the legislation banning Hemp. As the patent-holders of artificial fibers, their only real competition was Hemp, which they could never compete with or replace, due to its world-wide use . And the rest, as they say, is History . It is amazing how greedy influential people , can alter the course of history .
@@floriangrob3910 reefer madness, the stupidest movie next to 'an inconvenient truth' from that hypocritical nutjob Al Gorey. The yanks certainly come up with some dross when they want to smear and Gorey is a great candidate for the nuthouse
Actually there was another player in all that. Warehouser had just developed an acid process to make paper from wood pulp, this process is greatly inferior to hemp paper, but would allow the company to make huge profits from deforesting the United States! The two companies lobbied in congress to the tune of several million dollars (huge money back then) and finally got the Marijuana Tax Act passed, effectively making all hemp products illegal in the US.
I started using hempcrete about 10 years ago, the comfort it brought to the house is amazing, it's easy to mix with a concrete mixer once you know how to mix it.
As always, very interesting and informative . The fact that hemp is basically a weed and can grow anywhere that normal crops fail will be a huge factor in this,product.
Weeds by definition are any plant growing where you don't want them. Hemp's been grown in agriculture for many millenia. Sad it got a bad rap here in the USA for so long
Given hemp blocks porous and density properties it should also be a great soundproofing material resulting in a more pleasant living environment within a busy/loud community.
It potentially also has electromagnetic wave blocking abilities, allowing for a quiter RF environment when developing new devices. Thus it can also potentially help reduce emf noise on devices/wires in a building/room built with hempcrete.
When I was in India many years ago, they mixed chopped up hemp when making "low cement powder" blocks. I saw hemp plants 4 meters tall with a single 5 kg seed cola at the top, which they fed to their livestock. As hardy as bamboo and as pliable as flax.
Hempcrete is "mold resistant" in that it doesn't mold as much as papercrete, but it still molds really easily. I went to college in the desert southwest where there was a lot of interest in hempcrete and everything I saw built with it soaked up water during the monsoon season and sat wet and moldy all winter. It can't be in contact with the ground, or in contact with concrete that is in contact with the ground, and it needs a roof over it that is water tight and has broad overhangs.
This is why they put a lime plaster on the outside walls. As far as life expectancy goes, as long as you keep the water out or at least allow the walls to dry out, it will outlast a wooden building - centuries.
@@iancormie9916 But it's hygroscopic and porous so the amount of work that you have to put into keeping it dry is way higher than what you have to do for a wooden building. Mesa Verde has wood still in place that's 800 years old, it's not like we have to worry about the longevity of wood, but there are hempcrete structures with good roofs over top of them that become unsafe to live in because of air quality issues from mold in the very first year.
I now have a list of things to get: A large plot of land in the middle of nowhere A truckload of mycelium making fungi samples A really tall, netted area for growth bamboo, And a hemp fiber farm. Build all the things
I saw Hempcrete at the PA farm show about 15 years ago. I think they had a special license for it or something but it was really cool to see back then. Glad to see it being talked about again.
By groaning using this plant for everything we can we will systematically be improving upon and maintaining the quality of our air, water, landscapes, foods, working living environments in full production 500 million clean high-paying jobs globally.
We've insulated the outside of our 1950s brick house with hempcrete. Our floors are also insulted with 20cm thick blocks and the moisture level in the house has dropped significantly. The combination of that and the loam plaster have created a really healthy climate inside the house. Great to see you cover this in your usual balanced way.
@@stevedugas2806 I've tried twice posting a response to your question. Let's see if this works, if I don't add a hyperlink. We live in Belgium, so bought locally from Isohemp.
This is something I need to consider. My 1960 brick-built house is costing in the region of €3600 in energy bills with prices expected to increase dramatically this year.
How did you plaster the outside? With spray on isochanvre? Also, I learned that hemp homes reduce the EMFs from all the antennas and wireless signals. So I was thinking that plastering pre existing homes would be extremely beneficial. Thank you for sharing! I am happy to know this idea actually works!
Matt in addition to newer products , hemp provided great products in the past as you point out . Would like to mention that using Hemp for paper and in place of cotton would drastically help the environment including carbon capture which is not the way I am hinting at. Great video Matt I have seen this information b4 but your platform will bring this information to more of us
@@pbilk so are you saying to turn hemp into paper doesn't take as much water? and what are the qualities of hemp paper as our use of paper needs a variety various types depending on the printing processes used.
@@CigaretteCrayon One of the first attempts to make synthetic fibers quote : " Rayon is a fiber from regenerated cellulose, generally derived from wood pulp. Rayon is usually made from eucalyptus trees, but any plant can be used (such as bamboo, soy, cotton, etc). To produce the fiber, the plant cellulose goes through a process involving a lot of chemicals, energy and water. "
It's crazy how unbelievably versatile hemp is.. It's sadly really difficult to produce hemp products as most farmers are hesitant to farm it, at least where I live. You hear of new uses for it every other year, wondering when people will start to increase production.
@@ebaziuk Vertical hydroponic and aeroponic farming is an incredibly efficient way to grow food without pesticides, herbicides, etc and uses much less land and water. This could help feed the world's growing population and relieve stress on our environment and allow for some new land uses such as hemp harvesting for more sustainable building materials. Trees take decades to mature and hemp can mature in as little as two months. Imagine being able to harvest building materials 5-6 times a year instead of once every 20-30 years.
@@ebaziuk You seem to worry a lot about farmland with your other similar comment. There is still huge amounts of land that can be turned into farmland. The increased cost of your food in the stores is NOT related to lack of farmland. It is related to government spending too much money causing this inflation by diluting the money supply. It's just another way government steals the value of your money, which is different from income tax, property taxes, or sales taxes, etc., but still another form of government theft.
Interesting approach. Companies in Austria use hemp as insulation material for wood-frame houses, and have actually done so for quite a while. Nice to see that this is growing to other options.
Only because weed has negative stigma around it. It's actually some bullshit weed is probably one of the least dangerous drugs with the fact it's bi products can be used to make anything. Imagine of weed wasn't criminalized to shit to arest people of color and first Nations people, the hemp industry would be booming right now.
It's because regular textile manufacturers know how much more efficient hemp is, but don't want it to overshoot their industries. So of course they spun it as this whole thing of "oh this will encourage unlawful marijuana growth." People have known about Hemp and its uses for more than decades.
@@EzraM5 we would live a in a much better world if hemp was use just as much as oil or concrete. We probably wouldn't be pushing for EVS this heavey if gas production wasn't dependant only oil but booth hemp and oil. Plastics could be replaced by hemp but we don't. 🙃
@@EzraM5 And plastics so Mr big shot oil baron does not want that stuff anywhere near the marketplace. The amount of stuff it can make would not put a dent in their sales, it would ruin them.
Hemp can also be used to replace cotton and wood as a source for paper production. These are two major resource that put pressure on the ecosystem. I read that hemp hardly needs any fertilizer and uses a fraction of the water that cotton uses.
Another unmentioned advantage of making paper with hemp is the chemical process to turn wood into paper is extremely harsh! The process to make paper from hemp is SO much easier!
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Chemical Use Program, Hemp uses only 2.123 L of water to grow 1kg of fiber, while cotton needs 9.758 L of water to grow 1 kg of fiber (4-5 times more). Hemp requires little if any pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers and can grow in a wide variety of soil types from the Arctic Circle to the Equator.
think the winning sales pitch is that it can be used as a power source in the way of hemp bio fossil fuel. Or compressed Hamp lumber and building material high source of nutrition medical aid clothing fabric so forth and so on etc. etc. because it makes over 20,000 different things. And by using it for everything we can ingrown it everywhere we may we will be naturally systematically almost effortlessly improving upon maintaining the quality of our air water foods landscapes working living environment from coast-to-coast globally. Because the rain forest prior to it being chopped down absorb almost 80% of air pollution Hamp can do that if not better at the same time creating hundreds of millions of jobs that would be classified as clean high paying ones. Versus dirty low-paying jobs which are a major part in global pollution having a diminished the quality of life for all.
I remember using this in a lot of my projects during uni back in 2009 and 10. My teachers laughed at me each time i used it and tried to persuade me to use more familiar materials.
@Undecided, Matt, you explain everything with such calm and cool notes that it makes the video easy to follow and understand. Along with Practical Engineering, your videos keep me entertained while I learn something new. Thank you for that. Keep it up.
I’ve seen some videos about hempcrete homes before. It’s a great idea and we need to take it mainstream. Hempcrete is not only fire resistant and pest resistant, it’s also mold resistant, too! With black mold being such an issue in the US, hempcrete could be the solution alternative building material that solves that problem.
Look up hempcrete mold resistant and it will tell you that hemp is mold resistant it’s entire life ded or not and the other component is lime which is also mold resistant. So it’s mold tesistant
In your video you mentioned Cobb as a building material, and I was wondering if you’re planning on making a video about it. I’ve been researching it for about 5 years as part of my schooling, first independently in high school and now independently in college as I’m studying interior design. It’s really cool! For those that don’t know what Cobb (cob) is, is a building material made out of sand, clay, straw and water. While the walls are a lot thicker than hempcrete (12”-36” thick) the buildings can last thousands of years. No forms are necessary to build the walls, and it’s self insulating. You can use it with a more modern and traditional design, or make it very organic and look like a giant mushroom, fulfilling all your English cottage fantasies.
Like most everything that comes out, it's usually more expensive at first, but as it become more widely used, the price will go down. Interesting video.
As an industry insider this is great to see. Hemp does indeed have A LOT of potential, the issue right now is setting up the infrastructure, because it’s challenging - if at all possible - to convert equipment for other crops to be used on hemp (except simple agricultural tools). We can have the vision of planting thousands of acres and building millions of homes, and could even have the man power and money for it, but we still require the infrastructure. Otherwise we will be importing this material too, and that is almost worse than the concrete supply chain. Thank you for taking the idea a bit more mainstream
Don't forget to maximize the land. Manipulate sunlight to hit a multilevel vertical hemp farm. How many times can you divide sunlight on a clear sunny day? (Aka prisms and refracting light to give light where you want) if this does suck up so much carbon how can it be done in a vertical farm that also goes underground?
45 years ago I was in eastern Nebraska and the farmer shown me a tree that the Federal Government sprays did not affect it. It was over 45 feet tall, and it was over 5 years old. He jokingly asked me if I knew what the tree was called, I went to the tree and made a discovery! It was not a tree! It was hemp!
Sounds like a far better insulation than a Concrete which leaves you needing to use both materials one for internal strength and hempcrete for exterior insulation
There is a similar product like hemp, it’s roselle plant. This will give the same or better strength I believe. My grand parents used it to build their home. Someone should try and experiment. This plant also have lots of food options.
There's maybe a better alternative called kenaf. It grows more like Hemp, and gives seeds that are very high in protein. You can create biochar and heat your house that you can make from kenaf
When I built a guest annex in 2006 I was desperate to use hemp but I couldn’t find any resources available at the time. Great to see that it is finally being taken seriously. I might grow a few acres and see if I can make my own hempcrete to build a barn
Nearly perfect building material in most cases. Should have never been outlawed or been forced out of use decades ago. Just imagine how much further we as a species could have advanced if we weren’t so easily corrupted.
@@ebaziuk - NOPE!!! Do some research. Hempcrete/Cococrete .. have this amazing ability to absorb moisture without molding, and then expel moisture when it's drier. It is an amazing building material.
@@ebaziuk - Funny how stupid people always resort to this response. I not only encouraged them to do research, I also gave them the GD answer. I LITERALLY have contractor friends building these homes not only in the mountainous regions of the state of Mexico and in the Distrito Federal, they are building them in the states of Yucatán and Quintana Roo. Bugger off, wanker.
Why does this not surprise me. 25 to 30 years ago when we were farming I seriously looked into growing hemp for its fibre value but due to issues that you have mentioned it was unviable to pursue as the Government at the time had so many restrictions on growing it they made it unfeasible (like building a 6' secure fence around our whole farm) Can you imagine where we would be today if we were able to make a go of it back then?? The total lack of foresight by the Government of the day made sure we would fail in farming as we knew we had to diversify to be able to make ends meet. Very sad really as the fibre from hemp has so many uses yet we've been so blindsided because of it's cousin 😞
Thanks for the video. I looked into building my house with hempcrete but in the end I decided on timber frame/straw bale. I also used earthen plaster on the inside and out. Looks of good eco options these days.
You should do video for hemp generally, what kind of things it can be used - fabric, plastic, paper, buildings, oil, fuel and food. How much it takes CO2 from air. Hemp may be one of key solutions against climate change.
Thanks for the suggestion. When I was prepping for this video I ended up going down a hemp rabbit hole. There's so many possible angles and topics to cover within hemp.
@@UndecidedMF A good resource book is The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer. When he wrote it, He HAD to be factual. Hope you find an early edition.
I've had my eye on hemp in construction for a while. In my experience, one of the best places it could be commercially applied in the current landscape would be as spray on insulation. Existing spray on foam insulation is rather expensive, so i would imagine it could be priced competitively as well.
My thought as well. In addition, spray-on foam is toxic not only during application but throughout its life, particularly to chemically sensitive people (which are increasing in number in our increasingly chemical-based western world).
@@watsontcbc Good point, i used it on a project and could smell the outgassing months after application. I'd venture a guess that microscopic particles would also slowly make their way in the surrounding area as well, particularly with degradation over the years.
@Gabriel Arthofer That should possibly be addressed with a good formulation, but you raise a good point, compaction should play an inverse factor for insulating properties, yet increase fire retardation. Formulation and application protocol should standardize these factors if its application becomes industrialized.
I am so thankful that we can finally use hemp again here in the states! It really is an incredible plant for such a huge variety of reasons (grows like a weed, highly pest and drought tolerant, and can even clean toxic chemicals out of the soil of industrial brown field sites). Assuming I can find an architect and builder with hemp experience, I plan to build my next house from it!
I’m very interested in hearing more about hemp insulation personally. Cause I feel like I’m unlikely to ever build a house but there’s a good chance I’ll replace insulation one day.
I'd honestly live in a small barn thing made of this. give it a couple solar panels and a tank to collect water for the garden. I'd be happy to live there.
It may have potential of replacing Concrete Bricks/Blocks, but it cant replace concrete. The vast majority of concrete use is structural Reinforced Concrete (RC)
Hey Matt, what a great video series you make! I follow Undecided for a long time. It's nice to see you made a video about hempcrete now. As an architect specialized in biobased ecological buildings, we like to design with this material a lot. There was one detail about hempcrete left out of your video I think. As you mentioned hempcrete has a great R-value compared to concrete. But compared to other insolation materials the R-value of hempcrete isn't that great. Where hempcrete really stands out is the heat capacity. This is truly unique about hempcrete. It takes much more time for heat to travel true a hempcrete wall, compared to a EPS of PIR insulated wall with the same R-value. This good thermal capacity results in a very comfortable indoor climate during hot and sunny days. If you would like to know more about biobased building materials, then i would like to get in touch with you.
@@marymccluer1630 In the Netherlands (where I live) hempcrete "kalkhennep" is gaining popularity everywhere, although still at small scale. You see hempcrete a lot at DIY builiding sites and in so called Eco-villages. A lot example projects in the Netherlands can be found in Oosterwold Almere, Ecodorp Boekel and Olstergaard Olst-Wijhe. Also in Belgium, our south neighboring country, hempcrete is gaining popularity. The knowledge level on this building material is exceptionally in Belgium since the University of Hasselt has published a free and very well documented guide (in Dutch) about building with hempcrete. A link to this guide (in Dutch) : sites.google.com/uhasselt.be/building-beyond-borders/platform/research/research-projects/vlaio-tetra-kalkhennep
There will be some "off-gassing" just like with any other construction material. Fresh paint, or that new-car smell. I imagine this will fade over the first 25 years after Construction. So maybe an older home built with this construction may resolve your concern.
@@robertthompson3447 If you use natural materials, you will not get such an odor in your new house. it is chemicals in materials and paint that smell like that.
Definitely great stuff! Hemp and bamboo my friend. I'm excited to see if we can make these two materials move to the top of the building materials pyramid.
11:50 ; it is not an incredibly versatile product, it is an incredibly versatile plant that can be extracted to create said products. nature is our given, we must remember that it comes before us because we are nature itself. a product is something that is artificially valued.
YEP! He started a scare campaign in his papers saying that it would make white women want to have sex with black and Mexican men. Which played into the Racism of the times. And he helped spread the propaganda film Reefer Madness, which had virtually no truth in it at all.
Hurst had just bought thousands of acres of forest when the problem of making paper from hemp was solved by the invention of the decordirator. He was going to be stuck with expensive to process lumber if the hemp use wasn't stopped. He had the tools to stop it. Yellow Journalism. Funny, how the press can control the narrative and reality, in those days, We're smarter than that now!
Should replace all Soy fields (without pesticides and fertilizer) on earth and be used as food, textile, paper, concrete etc. Hemp + Algea might produce fibers with better and more versatile properties.
I seem to need to come to this channel to hear about the innovation that Australia is achieving in some respects. I live here and you just don't hear about it in the normal course. I'd love to build a small off grid building as a get away, makes sense so little need for heating/cooling given the clime in my area.
If you can get straw bales, that might be a good alternative for a small building. Lots of good info on straw bale buildings, and they need less wood for framing. Can be a do-it-yourself project too.
That's because the authoritarian nanny state that is Australia makes these kinds of initiative extremely difficult to undertake due to excessive laws and regulations, as well as vacuous media merely being a complicit unquestioning mouthpiece for the government's agenda.
@@anonanon7278 Not sure what you're talking about, an Australian company makes/sell these products? It is a very niche market as it's more expensive that traditional materials. I'd think these would be very good for a small bespoke build where site access is restrictive/remote areas.
I have watched so many videos and some of them, by now, are years old. This has been SO slow to production which makes me wonder if it will ever be widely used. I would use hemp blocks in a heart beat if I was building a custom home.
The idea of building a structure is to last as long as possible and not have it disinigrate after a period of time... Just build houses out of stone and mortar like we do in Greece and Italy and you will be fine...
@@upgames1313 It takes a long time to heat stone up. It takes a long time for stone to cool down. It is a great matterial for insulation. Thats why northen European castles and mansions where made out of stone with wood and carpet lining the interior.
CEB (Compressed Earth Blocks) especially those stabilized with minuscule amounts of lime or cement (7-10 %) are a much better option. With strength close to or equal to concrete, vapor permeability, thermal mass, and completely fireproof. Compressed earth blocks can be manufactured almost anywhere in the world from local resources. They are dirt cheap because they're literally made out of dirt. The only expense is the initial cost of the machine used to manufacture them. CEB's overcome almost ALL of the disadvantages seen in adobe or other earthen structures. They can even be used in extreme climates if you use a double wall design with an insulation cavity in the middle. It is the single greenest most environmentally friendly construction option on the planet! They can even be used in the construction of multiple story structures.
@@sydneymokgoatsane9751 I posted other information and websites but they were deleted. AECT earth block and colorado earth are two great places to start.
Let us know when one can install electrical/plumbing/heating/ac/communications CHEAPLY in said Hempcrete. Those systems cost FAR more than any structure of the home which in comparison is free. Far cheaper to add rockwool to outside of house and double thickness all interior walls and then insulate said walls. Hempcrete is NOT our future. Unless everyone goes to Post and Beam construction. Maybe then Hempcrete could work. Same reason no one likes concrete block installation or block concrete forms until the advent of ICF where one can easily route electrical/plumbing/HVAC in the insulation of said forms quickly.
@@abowden556 What insanity are you living on? Hemp is 3X the cost. And no, there is no hemp spray insulation and even if there was, you would still need a foaming agent and a binding agent which fits whatever wacked out world you live on.
Another thing to consider is that concrete uses a specific type of sand that needs to be quarried and processed, before getting shipped across the world. This has an environmental impact that is hard to offset.
funniest thing ive heard in a long time " concrete uses a specific type of sand that has to be shipped all around the world " you dont know much about concrete do you? stop spreading lies
@@UndecidedMF We have a surface mine up here in north Vancouver island that scrapes large hills down to sea level that destroys the habitat for bears eagles cougars and hundreds of other birds and animals ,all for the rock and sand that is shipped thousands of miles by ship tot he coast of California and Hawaii.It is used for specialty concrete .this is one of the last accessible place to get this sharp sand and rock .This shows we are running out of this resource,We need to use it more wisely and start using more sustainable renewable products locally ,Good video thanks
I've been hearing about Hemp for almost all of my life. It's like the Hydrogen Car of the Electric Car dominated world. Sounds great but not enough corporate push.
This is why I love your channel. You explore all the options and take a fair case for anything that can make the world better. Thanks Matt! I always learn something new when I watch a video.
Thorium Liquid Molten Salt Reactors and now Hempcrete?! You are hitting the nails on the head Matt! Keep it up brother! Next you'll probably talking about the therapeutic effects of mushrooms and other psychedelics this rate.
An excellent overview of Hemp. As a Mass construction manager, future video content should include acceptance by International & US building codes, acceptance from local building & fire officials, interior and exterior finishing techniques & costs, US manufacturers & distributors, skill training for tradesmen, wiring & plumbing integration during construction.
From what i am hearing, hemp could be used on the side walls while having a concrete core in tall buildings. you use the core to hold the sides up while the hemp walls keeps the core from getting any weather so its in the optimal environment so cracks and such are on lower chance. other than that you could use it for normal houses as you dont build that tall.
Mould is a common issue in homes and a significant health risk. I would think that a good question would be what are the risks of hemp building materials harbouring mould. Especially given it can absorb and hold moisture.
Interesting using "plants" in construction, I went to visit southern Egypt, visited a Pharaonic temple that had brick walls that had straw in them and the walls were still standing in good shape for thousand of years. In another area, they had another wall that was severely corroded from rain and it had no straw in it.
nowadays we put iron in the concrete and it holds well,. I do frequently still see horsehair plaster walls in old houses, although this is considered a negative and decreases the value of the house
If we changed your question to mRNA vaccines, you’d find Google would remove the postings and label it as disinformation or “conspiracy theory”. When lobbies reach a critical mass and can yield vast amounts of power and control, nothing is beyond their scope. Hopefully hemp can break through it all with enough people becoming aware.
With the new knowledge about this hemp being used for construction, I think I’ll design my own home with this material in mind for the basement if it works out. It’s very useful after all, considering it being energy efficient and how it can lower cost of heating and such, definitely will attempt using this in the future. Thanks for the video!
would love to see a estimated comparising between 2 houses, 1 concrete 1 hempcrete. Listing: buildingcosts, energy bills, repairs on a timespan of 10, 25 & 50 years
I am doing a partial renovation of an old building. I discovered these blocks under the concrete floors used as an underlayment then covered with tar paper ans 2 inches of concrete. Guessing the building was built in the 1940s. Located in southern Utah.
Amazing. Seems like a lost custom that's finding its way back. It also looks very light-weight, based on the construction worker carrying a block that looked about 10x10x16. That would be pretty heavy for concrete. Also, with blocks that big, laying one block at a time goes a lot quicker. Awesome Matt 👍
Love this vid - I personaly combined hemp with mycelium and came up with an insulating material that is fire resistant and has a better R value than polystyren and mineral insulation
As someone who lives in a 200 year old house you lost me at “lasts 100 years.” Sure it would not be my problem but part of net zero home (especially load bearing walls) should be sustainable for generations.
Permanent housing isn't sustainable. There needs to be an attitude change towards how we view and use architecture as we advance as a species. Net zero homes don't need to last forever since they have already had no negative environmental effects over their lifespan and, when their time comes to an end, they can be replace with the newest technology. While the blocks themselves may only have a lifespan of 100 years and your house is 200 years old, look around your house, is everything in it 200 years old or has it been continually updated over 200 years to keep it functional?
@@aaronwebb7090 sure interior components have been updated. That holds true for homes that are only 30+ years old as well. A home is an average person’s largest investment and I just cannot see a future where they eventually become landfill and the only value is the property on which it sits.
@@aaronwebb7090 If you think that countries with important cultural heritage such as Wales with farmhouses as old as 500 years (such as my family home) are going to tear it down, think again pal.
I'd like to see someone try the same with bamboo. I've worked with bamboo composite lumber. It's heavy as hell, but more than matches traditional pine. I suspect that the bamboo fiber would perform as well as, if not better than shredded hemp. Bamboo is just as renewable as hemp, but grows much quicker.
I've been interested in bamboo ever since I randomly came across terra preta. It is a dark soil in the Amazon that is a combination of biochar (a type of charcoal), dirt, composts, and various waste products. It is supposed to be excellent soil for farming. To tie this into bamboo, I was looking for fast growing plants to make the charcoal out of, and bamboo and duckweed kept showing up at the top of the list. Not sure if they would actually work for making biochar, but they both have other interesting uses as well.
I remember going to Hong Kong decades ago and first seeing the bamboo scaffolding. I thought it was crazy, but yes, there is another great alternative to wood for construction and other uses.
@@artboymoy now imagine that bamboo scaffold but instead of just using raw bamboo, you cut into quarters and laminated together to make a 2x4. It's unbelievably strong, rot resistant and in a few months you'll have another crop after you cut it off the root system. And there are species of bamboo that will grow in temperate to tropical climates.
@@Babarudra I'll have to look up to see the comparison between bamboo and pine construction. YOu would think uniformity would have something to do with it. Or maybe we don't want all of our houses looking like Gilligans Island. :)
This sounds like a wonderful product that when used with traditional support systems could be of major benefit to the construction and energy consumption needs of single family dwellings. It's definitely a product to keep an eye on for the future (and today).
Great show as always, Matt. You mentioned about 5 minutes in using hempcrete in self inflating walls. So like the aeroforms that Monolithic Domes uses in making their concrete structures? Maybe replace the noxious foam they use, if not the concrete too, to build up the structure. That sounds awesome. No follow up that I noticed in the video though. Love to know who’s working on that.
I honestly wish we kept using hemp for construction and textiles. I live around pine tree blocks. And while the forests are cool. I don't really approve of the clear cut, mono culture approach. The land always looks dead afterwards. I think hemp would help to keep things far greener in many ways- no pun intended.
yes and no Justin, nature burns forests to allow for new growth (Re-gen) that brings back deer and small animals that couldn't eat anything in mature forests, cyclic and for a very good reason. But I understand (I am a pilot and live in BC Canada) I have seen allot of Clearcut on the mountainsides - it's rape basically. But in the old days when they used horses to pull out the logs (not skidders) they used to take 20-50% of the trees and leave the rest - and move on. No more.
From what I’ve heard it’s great interior insulated firewall that’s insulated … sounds awesome. Wonder how much it dampens sound… or would be awesome with a steel stud home and use it as walls . Would def make a great combo for cheap building materials that are strong
Thanks Matt. What about hemp mixing concrete? I also think a video containing all of these alternative construction materials and comparing them against each other would be cool.
Easy: What consumes all the $$$ in a modern home, House structure(foundation/walls/insulation), or installation of electrical, plumbing, HVAC, communications? Obviously not the structure. Structure costs half what the systems cost for installation. If one wants far superior insulation, slap rockwool or spray foam on outside of normal building methods and insulate internal walls and floors. As for a direct comparison, you will not get one as no one builds with Hemp other than one off random projects where a lot of $$$ is just learning how to use said product. Last I knew, someone on YT said 2X-->3X Rockwool and normal construction.
Taking VERY conservative estimates, from the low end of compressive strength to the high end of density, you could have a hemp block wall 10 feet high and still have over half its compressive strength left. Knowing that that is possible without any kind of support armature within the wall, that means that approximately every two square inches of wall top can support a square foot of roof (structure plus live load allowance). Add in framing, of course, and the sky is the limit. And if you want to rely on the hemp for structural support, a denser, thicker wall will support more weight. "Oh no! MORE carbon sequestration whatever will we dooooo?" What kind of tensile strength are we talking about here? Concrete is essentially zero without rebar; hempcrete naturally has a lot of fiber running through it every which way. This is likely why it stands up against earthquake-type stresses, some actual tensile resistance. For greater durability, plaster. Okay, it's not carbon friendly but if it makes the wall last 200 years instead of only 100 years, that sounds like a solid win; it's still only a fraction of the cementitious product a concrete wall would require. And it makes the wall a lot more resistant to moisture and critters that might gnaw through the softer, gentler hemp wall. It seems to me like this is a good way forward. It costs more on the first day and a bit less every day after that.
With all the swindle there have been in the carbon credit sistem i think letting the marked regulate itself maby would be better in the long run.... I also think it's regulation and the fear of new materials that's maby the biggest problem here.. But with firtilicer shortege hemp would defently be a verry good opertunerty for many farmers right now. Seeds for oil the soft material for animal food and the stems for fiber..
2:02 hi, plant biologist here. Hemp doesn't have "about 0.3% thc". its considered hemp if it is under that arbitrary human-defined limit (also depends on where you are as laws dictate this difference). To further complicate matters, the thc content can vary depending on growing conditions (so hemp can become marijuana on a sunny day but don't get excited 0.4% isn't going to do much but its still legally MJ). edit 3:15 never mind, you clarified. sorry for jumping the gum lol thanks for a great vid!
The problem with all these building alternatives is that local governments always get in the way because the people that work for local governments don't do their research about the new building alternatives that are available. All they care about is getting a paycheck so their always stuck in the past with their rules and regulations.
then the market needs to have a well known Engineering firm to produce some videos explaining the process, the pros and cons, cost benefits for the products and where it can be used to offset carbon/green positives/negatives. That would carry some weight - also some interactive/Q&A zoom calls for various municipalities around the world to be videoed and provided free of charge for other municipalities/cities etc. EDUCATION is key right now to allay the fears, educate ignorance by answering pertinent questions most people/communities have.
Matt, How does Hemp Block compare with ICF construction? Are there any thoughts of combining operations- Hemp with a fill of concrete for rigidity? ICF seems to have some great value in the discussion. Thanks!
This is why I voted to legalize weed in my state even though I don’t smoke it! I’m so excited to see it used in industries where it can cut down our emissions like textiles and construction!
same for me - 67 and stopped smoking it 2 yrs after I started - haven't had any in 48 yrs. but it has so many health and engineering and clothing benefits - it should be mainstream (its the cotton growers and clothing manufacturers that stop it mostly...hemp jeans will last 10 x longer than cotton = lower sales = not good for cotton growers)
@@stevemyers2092 yup. It sucks that we miss out on something that could benefit all citizens just because a handful wanted to protect their profits. Still, doesn’t mean that we can’t fix it now at least.
Maybe long fibers from the length of the plant can be used with a hempcrete matrix to make sheets similar to plywood (more like wattle and daub) or beams.
people are way ahead of you, not just hemp plywood... proper hemp lumber, any way you want it. MUCH cheaper to grow and make and process than wood, but better and more tunable and consistent material properties.
This might be able to replace down insulation in jackets/blankets, I don't know whether it would be washable or as soft as down but it could be an interesting idea.
Blankets sure, but not coats, unless you lived somewhere very dry; hemp is moisture-absorbing while down (and in fact all feathers) are naturally water-repelling, as their molecular structure is more like that of hair. That said, if you could give it a coat of a hydrophobic substance (run it through a tumbler-mister that sprays it with such a coating, preferably something like a silica gel coat which is rather safe to use) and you could likely replace it just fine in meant-for-outside uses as well, such as in jackets.
I plan on starting my hemp house this year. I'll be documenting the entire process. Starting from seed, to plant, to hurd. While the plants are growing, I'll be falling trees on the property and milling them into lumber on site.
Great video topic and great job covering it! Hemp gets slept on too much... ever since the plastic hemp car was filmed in black and white and the sledgehammers they were beating with were bouncing right off. But I can't resist: actually extracts can reach nearly 100% THC. Known as diamonds because the THC is so pure it's not even a yellow substance anymore, it's a clear THC-a crystal, that looks like, you guessed it, a diamond. Hemp is an amazing plant though. I remember picking up a dried stalk that was probably 4 inches in diameter and it felt hard as oak and was light like balsa wood. And besides the materials for building you can make paper, clothes, plastic, etc, and hemp seeds are a great source of protein with a good bioavailability and good amino acid profile... Truly an amazing plant. I'm not particularly religious but the Bible does say that all seed bearing plants are good, and made by God for man. So very interesting is the cat and mouse game with Delta 8 being legal, even though it's about half the strength of regular THC it can definitely get you high especially edibles. And if they make that illegal there's already a form of THC called HHC, there's THC-O, about 3x stronger than D9 THC; THC-P, which is roughly 30x more active at the CB1 receptor site (its a trace cannabinoid), the main endocannabinoid receptor. And these are just a few, even if these are made illegal there's semi-synthetics like Delta 6a10a... And I could go on with interesting facts forever, I was recently reading about how a higher/specific dose of a specific cannabinoid can allow it to interact with different neurotransmitters than lower/other doses of the same cannabinoid. And they think there's about 100 cannabinoids. I can't wait for them to isolate them all!
that's wrong the color f the trichomes is due to the maturity of it... it's crystal clear at the beginning and there is no much THC in it when you let i mature become cloudy and when THC is at its maximum and become yellowish toward the end losing thc but adding and that's when the weed put you to sleep. So yeah can be crystal clear but 100% thc is unsmokable. the good of legalization is the choice to use weed that are less potent that street market. Generally to use land to grow cement is not a nice idea becaus eit requires land, work and can be scaled but it's less efficient that crash a mountain. It's necessary to check the economics behind although thc is bad for you. Researching higher yield of THC or potency in the process is generally a bad idea and can develop some serious illness or addition. Weed is already commercialized enough and smoker are generally less productive than non smoker it will be a societal plague. Also, Alcohol, cigarette are gateway for weed which is gateway for coke and meth. it seems like that people underestimates the damages.
Great vid Matt. It's good to see hemp moving in a more sustainable and usable direction every year. As a Contractor I can see this taking off. Unfortunately there is always the bottom line and building restrictions. I personally would love to see this take off. 😎✌💚
Would there be any issue with drilling anchor holes in walls made from hempcrete? Just a question that occurred to me while I was watching the footage since I’m used to seeing studs with drywall.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Depending on the density of the material. If the block is as solid as concrete or just a touch softer, you can use XP Set 22 epoxy. It is expensive as the gun applicator is as well. But you can install all thread bolts after drilling the block.
hemp jeans will last at least 10x longer than cotton jeans...that's why hemp was pushed off the stage. Remember when a chevy used to last 20-30 yrs? same reasoning. Same reason for Apple Phones that stop working after 5 yrs or less and the batteries cannot be replaced by you or me..
Dark history of underhanded moves and greedy motives. Hemp is SO , SO disruptive to SO many industries, it had to be stopped or we wouldn't have oil companies, drug companies, or Drug Wars and you know how some people really profited from those. The best book is The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer. It's one of the best resources.
In each and every instance you cited the hemp has been shredded. I can't help but think that the the directional strength that aligned fibers offer has been overlooked. I cite the difference between conventional plywood, which maintains the directional strength of the original wood vs. composite fiberboard, which has no directional strength, absorbs moisture at a high rate and deteriorates quickly. Why not employ the tensile strength of the original plant with some binding agent under pressure ( as has been done with great effectiveness with bamboo) to add extra strength and durability to the product?
I don't think this could be done in the block format he is talking about in this video. And I think hemp plywood would be no better and probably worse than actual plywood.
I have seen people use grasses or weeds when compressing red bricks for building, i wonder if hempcrete could be used instead to make a stronger more insulated air dryed redbrick
What do you think of using hemp in construction like this? Go to curiositystream.com/Undecided to get Curiosity Stream for only $14.99 for the whole year!
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I think it's good. I was trying to find someone who could build me tiny house made from hemp but i couldn't find anyone.☹️
Sadly, that's not too surprising. There's not a lot of people or companies familiar with working with hemp yet.
@@UndecidedMF yes that's part of the problem. The second part for me is that i live in area were police regularly confiscate hemp from growers even tho growing hemp for Non recreational use is perfectly legal.
Thank you for presenting such interesting topics. Really enjoy your channel. As the son of a builder and an ex navy Seabee I have seen many construction methods around the world. At 70 years old I still enjoy learning.
This material appears to behave more like a rigid insulator rather than a true structural material. For example, a hempcrete slab doesn't seem like it can function the same way that a concrete slab would. My guess is that this *can* be achieved with hempcrete, but is not necessarily its main purpose. That said, I would guess, it should still find many uses as a building material.
I grew the first hemp fiber trials in California in 2021. We grew 26' tall plants and yielded >8T an acre in dry stalk biomass. The plant and its potential is insane. My partners on the project have converted a cotton gin to process hemp. the process to watch is adding hemp and lime to spray-in insulation machines. It's a complete game changer.
That sounds like it was amazing to be a part of! The growth numbers are always insane to me and then eventually someone comes along and says, “yea, it’s a weed…”
…I guess today I’m that person haha
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet this video was from late June, when the plants were only about 12' tall. th-cam.com/video/EnOcHFHndyw/w-d-xo.html
i'm curious to know if the hemp being used for fibers for this sort of building material can also be used to yield hemp seed. I have tried roasted salted hemp seed and it is actually really good and I imagine the seed aswell would be great food for livestock.
The thing is those were skinner than a regular tree yet you could hang a semi off the side of it lmao with it maybe bending but not snapping
@@daemenoth the flowering and seed production process tends to degrade some of the qualities of the bast fiber, which makes it less usable for Textile applications but is not a big deal for building materials. That said, the main trade off to producing seed is that time spent making seed is time not spent growing more stalk. Flowering and seed production takes 40-60 days depending on variety. If that time was spent growing instead you could have a larger plant. It's the difference between having 15 foot tall plants (or two crops of 6' tall plants) and 6 foot tall plants with seed on them. Farmers will optimize around it based on available genetics and their offtakes from the supply chain.
A wheat farmer near my grandfather's farm use the wheat straw from his own fields to build his new house. To prevent insects from living in the straw he built a hopper that sat above the feedshoot of his baler that held borax powder and sprinkled a light dusting of borax on the straw as it come into the baler. This diffused the borax throughout the bale. It not only eliminated any possible insect issue, but borax is a natural fire retardant. When he had completed his house I went over with my Dad (who was an architect and main instigator of the visit) and grandfather to take a look. It was a very normal looking house built up on a slight mound (to make sure water ran away from the house and never had a chance to pond next to the walls) and had an extra thick insulated concrete slab (which was not covered inside, but instead was just stained and polished, and which had water pipes running through it for heating in the cold Oklahoma winters). The only real give away was that the walls were about 2 1/2 to 3 feet thick.
I remember the day we visited was a standard hot Oklahoma summer day, yet the inside of the house was cool without the air conditioner running. I can remember my grandfather asking about this since in his older farm house the AC ran all the time. The answer was that they open up the house in the evening and night and get everything inside the house cool, especially the thick floor slab. Then in the morning they close the windows and drew the curtains to limit the heat gain. The farmer pointed out the circular duct in one corner of the room that ran from floor to ceiling with a fan. During the day the fan would pull warm air from the ceiling and blow it across the concrete floor. With the large amount of thermal mass in the floor the house didn't start to get overly warm until around sunset when they opened the windows back up and turn on the whole house fan in the ceiling that drew air through the house. And if the night was still too warm or humid, they would just run their relatively tiny AC unit at night when the temperature difference was lower and it took less energy to cool the house down.
BTW, I am an engineer, and some of the above is me backfilling technical details that I understand now. But when we visited I was in high school and already knew I was going to be an engineer, so I actually did understand a lot of what the farmer (who was also an engineer who came back to take over his own father's farm) was saying. And my Dad was so impressed that he did something similar (at least from a thermal mass point of view) when he built his new house in Arizona. Instead of straw he used concrete block with every cell poured full of concrete to create the huge amount of thermal mass and then put 6 inch thick aircrete panels on the outside to insulate it. Nights in Arizona are often too hot to fling the windows open, but the amount of power required to run the AC was much lower at night and with time of day pricing, much much cheaper as well.
Well thanks for the chance to remanence.
That's an awesome house. The world needs more houses like it.
Reminds me of houses in India
Would love to see them both I live in AZ and know how expensive AC in the summer can be and would love to build to offset that !
This is essentially the same as old stone houses built around the mediterranian. Lots of thermal mass, ability to close/open for the day or night. Hope we can get back to these principles to build more effective housings.
Yeah, the open the windows at night trick depends on humidity levels. If you're in a well insulated structure in the shade, the air can get less comfortable at night, as humidity rises
I'm well-retired now, but even as a teenager, it was often discussed by adults around me , how Dupont was behind the legislation banning Hemp. As the patent-holders of artificial fibers, their only real competition was Hemp, which they could never compete with or replace, due to its world-wide use . And the rest, as they say, is History . It is amazing how greedy influential people , can alter the course of history .
the name of the guy who was responsible is Harry Jacob Anslinger
Common capitalist moment
Are we speaking of Harry Anslinger and William Hearst by any chance?
@@floriangrob3910 reefer madness, the stupidest movie next to 'an inconvenient truth' from that hypocritical nutjob Al Gorey. The yanks certainly come up with some dross when they want to smear and Gorey is a great candidate for the nuthouse
Actually there was another player in all that. Warehouser had just developed an acid process to make paper from wood pulp, this process is greatly inferior to hemp paper, but would allow the company to make huge profits from deforesting the United States! The two companies lobbied in congress to the tune of several million dollars (huge money back then) and finally got the Marijuana Tax Act passed, effectively making all hemp products illegal in the US.
I started using hempcrete about 10 years ago, the comfort it brought to the house is amazing, it's easy to mix with a concrete mixer once you know how to mix it.
As always, very interesting and informative . The fact that hemp is basically a weed and can grow anywhere that normal crops fail will be a huge factor in this,product.
Weeds by definition are any plant growing where you don't want them. Hemp's been grown in agriculture for many millenia. Sad it got a bad rap here in the USA for so long
Given hemp blocks porous and density properties it should also be a great soundproofing material resulting in a more pleasant living environment within a busy/loud community.
It is, that's certainly our experience
It potentially also has electromagnetic wave blocking abilities, allowing for a quiter RF environment when developing new devices. Thus it can also potentially help reduce emf noise on devices/wires in a building/room built with hempcrete.
This is such an important factor in multi-tenant dwellings. Nothing worse than having privacy eroded by poor soundproofing.
Hibiscus Cannabinus...
@@HaydenL is a natural fibre, how you figure that ?
When I was in India many years ago, they mixed chopped up hemp when making "low cement powder" blocks. I saw hemp plants 4 meters tall with a single 5 kg seed cola at the top, which they fed to their livestock. As hardy as bamboo and as pliable as flax.
Blessings from the US..
Yeah but the hemp plant vaguely looks like the marijuana plant… so… it’s a NO for those of us in the US.
ITS THE DEVIL’S LETTUCE AFTER ALL!!!
Very interesting.
Surreal to think of one plant as food and cement. Hemp keeps expanding uses.
@@asmodiusjones9563 Yeah, because God judges everything by its appearance... smh
Hempcrete is "mold resistant" in that it doesn't mold as much as papercrete, but it still molds really easily. I went to college in the desert southwest where there was a lot of interest in hempcrete and everything I saw built with it soaked up water during the monsoon season and sat wet and moldy all winter. It can't be in contact with the ground, or in contact with concrete that is in contact with the ground, and it needs a roof over it that is water tight and has broad overhangs.
Exactly, if something is bio degradable, it will eventually add up to costs and carbon footprint if you have to do it again and again.
This is why they put a lime plaster on the outside walls. As far as life expectancy goes, as long as you keep the water out or at least allow the walls to dry out, it will outlast a wooden building - centuries.
@@iancormie9916 But it's hygroscopic and porous so the amount of work that you have to put into keeping it dry is way higher than what you have to do for a wooden building. Mesa Verde has wood still in place that's 800 years old, it's not like we have to worry about the longevity of wood, but there are hempcrete structures with good roofs over top of them that become unsafe to live in because of air quality issues from mold in the very first year.
I now have a list of things to get:
A large plot of land in the middle of nowhere
A truckload of mycelium making fungi samples
A really tall, netted area for growth bamboo,
And a hemp fiber farm.
Build all the things
I saw Hempcrete at the PA farm show about 15 years ago. I think they had a special license for it or something but it was really cool to see back then. Glad to see it being talked about again.
By groaning using this plant for everything we can we will systematically be improving upon and maintaining the quality of our air, water, landscapes, foods, working living environments in full production 500 million clean high-paying jobs globally.
We've insulated the outside of our 1950s brick house with hempcrete. Our floors are also insulted with 20cm thick blocks and the moisture level in the house has dropped significantly. The combination of that and the loam plaster have created a really healthy climate inside the house.
Great to see you cover this in your usual balanced way.
Where did you get your hempcrete?
@@stevedugas2806 I've tried twice posting a response to your question. Let's see if this works, if I don't add a hyperlink.
We live in Belgium, so bought locally from Isohemp.
This is something I need to consider. My 1960 brick-built house is costing in the region of €3600 in energy bills with prices expected to increase dramatically this year.
Sounds like a mold magnet.
How did you plaster the outside? With spray on isochanvre?
Also, I learned that hemp homes reduce the EMFs from all the antennas and wireless signals. So I was thinking that plastering pre existing homes would be extremely beneficial.
Thank you for sharing! I am happy to know this idea actually works!
Matt in addition to newer products , hemp provided great products in the past as you point out . Would like to mention that using Hemp for paper and in place of cotton would drastically help the environment including carbon capture which is not the way I am hinting at. Great video Matt I have seen this information b4 but your platform will bring this information to more of us
Thanks for sharing, Tom! Great call out.
Hibiscus Cannabinus...
Cotton is horrible. It takes so much water to produce. Hemp could be a great replacement for it.
@@pbilk That was one reason it was banned,besides the paper and oil. Once they learned they could make polyesters from the oil Hemp was shut down.
@@pbilk so are you saying to turn hemp into paper doesn't take as much water? and what are the qualities of hemp paper as our use of paper needs a variety various types depending on the printing processes used.
Matt - a video covering the replacement of cotton and wood by hemp fider would be very welcome.
👍 Thanks for the suggestion
Go discover Hibiscus Cannabinus
Bamboo can make fibers, I believe Rayon is a brand named bamboo cloth.
@@CigaretteCrayon One of the first attempts to make synthetic fibers quote : " Rayon is a fiber from regenerated cellulose, generally derived from wood pulp. Rayon is usually made from eucalyptus trees, but any plant can be used (such as bamboo, soy, cotton, etc). To produce the fiber, the plant cellulose goes through a process involving a lot of chemicals, energy and water. "
It's crazy how unbelievably versatile hemp is.. It's sadly really difficult to produce hemp products as most farmers are hesitant to farm it, at least where I live.
You hear of new uses for it every other year, wondering when people will start to increase production.
A complete, unemotional explanation of the pros and cons of using hemp in construction. Enjoyed it very much.
@@ebaziuk Vertical hydroponic and aeroponic farming is an incredibly efficient way to grow food without pesticides, herbicides, etc and uses much less land and water. This could help feed the world's growing population and relieve stress on our environment and allow for some new land uses such as hemp harvesting for more sustainable building materials. Trees take decades to mature and hemp can mature in as little as two months. Imagine being able to harvest building materials 5-6 times a year instead of once every 20-30 years.
@@ebaziuk You seem to worry a lot about farmland with your other similar comment. There is still huge amounts of land that can be turned into farmland. The increased cost of your food in the stores is NOT related to lack of farmland. It is related to government spending too much money causing this inflation by diluting the money supply. It's just another way government steals the value of your money, which is different from income tax, property taxes, or sales taxes, etc., but still another form of government theft.
Interesting approach. Companies in Austria use hemp as insulation material for wood-frame houses, and have actually done so for quite a while. Nice to see that this is growing to other options.
You should wonder why Australia has not been using Hibiscus Cannabinus, it's always been free
Useful for so many things, the fact that we don't make use of it is incredible.
Only because weed has negative stigma around it. It's actually some bullshit weed is probably one of the least dangerous drugs with the fact it's bi products can be used to make anything. Imagine of weed wasn't criminalized to shit to arest people of color and first Nations people, the hemp industry would be booming right now.
It's because regular textile manufacturers know how much more efficient hemp is, but don't want it to overshoot their industries. So of course they spun it as this whole thing of "oh this will encourage unlawful marijuana growth."
People have known about Hemp and its uses for more than decades.
@@EzraM5 we would live a in a much better world if hemp was use just as much as oil or concrete. We probably wouldn't be pushing for EVS this heavey if gas production wasn't dependant only oil but booth hemp and oil. Plastics could be replaced by hemp but we don't. 🙃
Oil conglomerates stopped it. Hemp can make plastics and Mr Oil baron does not like that.
@@EzraM5 And plastics so Mr big shot oil baron does not want that stuff anywhere near the marketplace. The amount of stuff it can make would not put a dent in their sales, it would ruin them.
Hemp can also be used to replace cotton and wood as a source for paper production. These are two major resource that put pressure on the ecosystem. I read that hemp hardly needs any fertilizer and uses a fraction of the water that cotton uses.
Another unmentioned advantage of making paper with hemp is the chemical process to turn wood into paper is extremely harsh! The process to make paper from hemp is SO much easier!
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Chemical Use Program, Hemp uses only 2.123 L of water to grow 1kg of fiber, while cotton needs 9.758 L of water to grow 1 kg of fiber (4-5 times more). Hemp requires little if any pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers and can grow in a wide variety of soil types from the Arctic Circle to the Equator.
Rooting for Hempire since 2015! It’s amazing how light hempcrete is - you can hold 3ft piece in your hands easily )
think the winning sales pitch is that it can be used as a power source in the way of hemp bio fossil fuel. Or compressed Hamp lumber and building material high source of nutrition medical aid clothing fabric so forth and so on etc. etc. because it makes over 20,000 different things. And by using it for everything we can ingrown it everywhere we may we will be naturally systematically almost effortlessly improving upon maintaining the quality of our air water foods landscapes working living environment from coast-to-coast globally. Because the rain forest prior to it being chopped down absorb almost 80% of air pollution Hamp can do that if not better at the same time creating hundreds of millions of jobs that would be classified as clean high paying ones. Versus dirty low-paying jobs which are a major part in global pollution having a diminished the quality of life for all.
I remember using this in a lot of my projects during uni back in 2009 and 10. My teachers laughed at me each time i used it and tried to persuade me to use more familiar materials.
@Undecided, Matt, you explain everything with such calm and cool notes that it makes the video easy to follow and understand. Along with Practical Engineering, your videos keep me entertained while I learn something new. Thank you for that. Keep it up.
And they are very "Punny"...
That means a lot, Nuno. Thanks!
Sometimes too punny.
@@UndecidedMF never!
I’ve seen some videos about hempcrete homes before. It’s a great idea and we need to take it mainstream. Hempcrete is not only fire resistant and pest resistant, it’s also mold resistant, too! With black mold being such an issue in the US, hempcrete could be the solution alternative building material that solves that problem.
It sounds good, but nobody can just decide to build with it. There are building codes which need to be followed in every town and state in the USA
Who told you it was mold resistant.. i grow,its not at all, son.. lol
@@dertythegrower exactly
@@dertythegrower maybe hempcrete itself is? but I'd like to see the source for that claim
Look up hempcrete mold resistant and it will tell you that hemp is mold resistant it’s entire life ded or not and the other component is lime which is also mold resistant. So it’s mold tesistant
In your video you mentioned Cobb as a building material, and I was wondering if you’re planning on making a video about it. I’ve been researching it for about 5 years as part of my schooling, first independently in high school and now independently in college as I’m studying interior design. It’s really cool!
For those that don’t know what Cobb (cob) is, is a building material made out of sand, clay, straw and water. While the walls are a lot thicker than hempcrete (12”-36” thick) the buildings can last thousands of years. No forms are necessary to build the walls, and it’s self insulating. You can use it with a more modern and traditional design, or make it very organic and look like a giant mushroom, fulfilling all your English cottage fantasies.
Like most everything that comes out, it's usually more expensive at first, but as it become more widely used, the price will go down. Interesting video.
Great video! Really appreciate the time and effort you put into this!
Can't wait to see 3d printers printing hemp houses!
As an industry insider this is great to see. Hemp does indeed have A LOT of potential, the issue right now is setting up the infrastructure, because it’s challenging - if at all possible - to convert equipment for other crops to be used on hemp (except simple agricultural tools). We can have the vision of planting thousands of acres and building millions of homes, and could even have the man power and money for it, but we still require the infrastructure. Otherwise we will be importing this material too, and that is almost worse than the concrete supply chain.
Thank you for taking the idea a bit more mainstream
and legislation to go along with it.
@@reinmarandi6174 outside of subsidies, the regulations around fiber hemp are quite clean
@@revelaidan depends on the country I guess 😃
Don't forget to maximize the land. Manipulate sunlight to hit a multilevel vertical hemp farm. How many times can you divide sunlight on a clear sunny day? (Aka prisms and refracting light to give light where you want) if this does suck up so much carbon how can it be done in a vertical farm that also goes underground?
Insider rofl... So what about Hibiscus Cannabinus?
45 years ago I was in eastern Nebraska and the farmer shown me a tree that the Federal Government sprays did not affect it. It was over 45 feet tall, and it was over 5 years old. He jokingly asked me if I knew what the tree was called, I went to the tree and made a discovery! It was not a tree! It was hemp!
Sounds like a far better insulation than a Concrete which leaves you needing to use both materials one for internal strength and hempcrete for exterior insulation
There is a similar product like hemp, it’s roselle plant. This will give the same or better strength I believe. My grand parents used it to build their home. Someone should try and experiment. This plant also have lots of food options.
There's maybe a better alternative called kenaf. It grows more like Hemp, and gives seeds that are very high in protein. You can create biochar and heat your house that you can make from kenaf
I always appreciate your well rounded research and production...Thanks Bob
When I built a guest annex in 2006 I was desperate to use hemp but I couldn’t find any resources available at the time. Great to see that it is finally being taken seriously. I might grow a few acres and see if I can make my own hempcrete to build a barn
Have you started building yet?
Nearly perfect building material in most cases. Should have never been outlawed or been forced out of use decades ago. Just imagine how much further we as a species could have advanced if we weren’t so easily corrupted.
I have friends building hemp homes in Mexico. This video has all the data that I have been wanting to know. Thanks, Matt.
@@ebaziuk - NOPE!!! Do some research. Hempcrete/Cococrete .. have this amazing ability to absorb moisture without molding, and then expel moisture when it's drier. It is an amazing building material.
@@ebaziuk - Funny how stupid people always resort to this response. I not only encouraged them to do research, I also gave them the GD answer.
I LITERALLY have contractor friends building these homes not only in the mountainous regions of the state of Mexico and in the Distrito Federal, they are building them in the states of Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
Bugger off, wanker.
Why does this not surprise me. 25 to 30 years ago when we were farming I seriously looked into growing hemp for its fibre value but due to issues that you have mentioned it was unviable to pursue as the Government at the time had so many restrictions on growing it they made it unfeasible (like building a 6' secure fence around our whole farm) Can you imagine where we would be today if we were able to make a go of it back then?? The total lack of foresight by the Government of the day made sure we would fail in farming as we knew we had to diversify to be able to make ends meet. Very sad really as the fibre from hemp has so many uses yet we've been so blindsided because of it's cousin 😞
Thanks for the video. I looked into building my house with hempcrete but in the end I decided on timber frame/straw bale. I also used earthen plaster on the inside and out. Looks of good eco options these days.
You should do video for hemp generally, what kind of things it can be used - fabric, plastic, paper, buildings, oil, fuel and food. How much it takes CO2 from air. Hemp may be one of key solutions against climate change.
Thanks for the suggestion. When I was prepping for this video I ended up going down a hemp rabbit hole. There's so many possible angles and topics to cover within hemp.
@@UndecidedMF A good resource book is The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer. When he wrote it, He HAD to be factual. Hope you find an early edition.
@@jmatthewssmith he will be missed..
@@jmatthewssmith is that the same guy with the strain named after him?
I've had my eye on hemp in construction for a while. In my experience, one of the best places it could be commercially applied in the current landscape would be as spray on insulation. Existing spray on foam insulation is rather expensive, so i would imagine it could be priced competitively as well.
My thought as well. In addition, spray-on foam is toxic not only during application but throughout its life, particularly to chemically sensitive people (which are increasing in number in our increasingly chemical-based western world).
@@watsontcbc true that. spray foam can be nasty stuff
Făină de cereale, ipsoz, borax, apă, zer( din lapte),argilă.
@@watsontcbc Good point, i used it on a project and could smell the outgassing months after application. I'd venture a guess that microscopic particles would also slowly make their way in the surrounding area as well, particularly with degradation over the years.
@Gabriel Arthofer That should possibly be addressed with a good formulation, but you raise a good point, compaction should play an inverse factor for insulating properties, yet increase fire retardation. Formulation and application protocol should standardize these factors if its application becomes industrialized.
I am so thankful that we can finally use hemp again here in the states! It really is an incredible plant for such a huge variety of reasons (grows like a weed, highly pest and drought tolerant, and can even clean toxic chemicals out of the soil of industrial brown field sites). Assuming I can find an architect and builder with hemp experience, I plan to build my next house from it!
I’m very interested in hearing more about hemp insulation personally. Cause I feel like I’m unlikely to ever build a house but there’s a good chance I’ll replace insulation one day.
That America can't use Hibiscus Cannabinus also means so called Industrial Hemp won't go far. We've "had" Industrial Hemp since 2012...
Look into the hoops you gotta jump through to grow hemp. Our govt keeps it difficult to protect their big biz interests.
I'd honestly live in a small barn thing made of this. give it a couple solar panels and a tank to collect water for the garden. I'd be happy to live there.
It may have potential of replacing Concrete Bricks/Blocks, but it cant replace concrete. The vast majority of concrete use is structural Reinforced Concrete (RC)
I'm genuinely ignorant, isn't the only difference between those two the structural rebar?
@@Jetfast619 different materials, production methods and application
@@teoengchin super interesting. Is there any way to get it to that strength with additional research or is it a flaw in the material
@@Jetfast619 it's just not what the material is designed to do. Like trying to go camping in the woods with a Ferrari
@@teoengchin Good analogy, definitely gonna steal it. Been trying to explain how the human brain is maladapted to the modern world.
Hey Matt, what a great video series you make! I follow Undecided for a long time. It's nice to see you made a video about hempcrete now. As an architect specialized in biobased ecological buildings, we like to design with this material a lot.
There was one detail about hempcrete left out of your video I think. As you mentioned hempcrete has a great R-value compared to concrete. But compared to other insolation materials the R-value of hempcrete isn't that great. Where hempcrete really stands out is the heat capacity. This is truly unique about hempcrete. It takes much more time for heat to travel true a hempcrete wall, compared to a EPS of PIR insulated wall with the same R-value. This good thermal capacity results in a very comfortable indoor climate during hot and sunny days.
If you would like to know more about biobased building materials, then i would like to get in touch with you.
Question? Where in the country is hempcrete most gaining in popularity?
@@marymccluer1630 In the Netherlands (where I live) hempcrete "kalkhennep" is gaining popularity everywhere, although still at small scale. You see hempcrete a lot at DIY builiding sites and in so called Eco-villages. A lot example projects in the Netherlands can be found in Oosterwold Almere, Ecodorp Boekel and Olstergaard Olst-Wijhe.
Also in Belgium, our south neighboring country, hempcrete is gaining popularity. The knowledge level on this building material is exceptionally in Belgium since the University of Hasselt has published a free and very well documented guide (in Dutch) about building with hempcrete.
A link to this guide (in Dutch) : sites.google.com/uhasselt.be/building-beyond-borders/platform/research/research-projects/vlaio-tetra-kalkhennep
As long as my home doesn't smell like bong water every time it rains, I'm all for it.
Haha😃
Not unless you were first caught in a series of small house fires beforehand.
There will be some "off-gassing" just like with any other construction material. Fresh paint, or that new-car smell. I imagine this will fade over the first 25 years after Construction. So maybe an older home built with this construction may resolve your concern.
@@robertthompson3447 so the house will smell like skunk for a few years? I'm in!
@@robertthompson3447 If you use natural materials, you will not get such an odor in your new house. it is chemicals in materials and paint that smell like that.
Definitely great stuff! Hemp and bamboo my friend. I'm excited to see if we can make these two materials move to the top of the building materials pyramid.
Both versatile! Appreciate it 👍
I love the content you provide, keep up the great work Matt.
11:50 ; it is not an incredibly versatile product, it is an incredibly versatile plant that can be extracted to create said products. nature is our given, we must remember that it comes before us because we are nature itself. a product is something that is artificially valued.
Hemp is so versatile. If memory serves it was phased out in the US due to newsprint using wood pulp by William Hurst.
YEP!
He started a scare campaign in his papers saying that it would make white women want to have sex with black and Mexican men. Which played into the Racism of the times. And he helped spread the propaganda film Reefer Madness, which had virtually no truth in it at all.
Hurst had just bought thousands of acres of forest when the problem of making paper from hemp was solved by the invention of the decordirator. He was going to be stuck with expensive to process lumber if the hemp use wasn't stopped. He had the tools to stop it. Yellow Journalism. Funny, how the press can control the narrative and reality, in those days, We're smarter than that now!
Should replace all Soy fields (without pesticides and fertilizer) on earth and be used as food, textile, paper, concrete etc. Hemp + Algea might produce fibers with better and more versatile properties.
I seem to need to come to this channel to hear about the innovation that Australia is achieving in some respects. I live here and you just don't hear about it in the normal course. I'd love to build a small off grid building as a get away, makes sense so little need for heating/cooling given the clime in my area.
If you can get straw bales, that might be a good alternative for a small building. Lots of good info on straw bale buildings, and they need less wood for framing. Can be a do-it-yourself project too.
That's because the authoritarian nanny state that is Australia makes these kinds of initiative extremely difficult to undertake due to excessive laws and regulations, as well as vacuous media merely being a complicit unquestioning mouthpiece for the government's agenda.
@@anonanon7278 Not sure what you're talking about, an Australian company makes/sell these products? It is a very niche market as it's more expensive that traditional materials. I'd think these would be very good for a small bespoke build where site access is restrictive/remote areas.
@@Damascus_404 I'm sure the regulatory and compliance hurdles would have been a walk in the park.
Since concrete is used in so many industries, being able to have alternatives in a shortage etc is great
I have watched so many videos and some of them, by now, are years old. This has been SO slow to production which makes me wonder if it will ever be widely used. I would use hemp blocks in a heart beat if I was building a custom home.
The idea of building a structure is to last as long as possible and not have it disinigrate after a period of time...
Just build houses out of stone and mortar like we do in Greece and Italy and you will be fine...
@@PAIP_Studio I mean it gets to -20C here so I can only imagine how hard that would be to keep warm during winter
@@upgames1313 It takes a long time to heat stone up. It takes a long time for stone to cool down. It is a great matterial for insulation. Thats why northen European castles and mansions where made out of stone with wood and carpet lining the interior.
CEB (Compressed Earth Blocks) especially those stabilized with minuscule amounts of lime or cement (7-10 %) are a much better option. With strength close to or equal to concrete, vapor permeability, thermal mass, and completely fireproof. Compressed earth blocks can be manufactured almost anywhere in the world from local resources. They are dirt cheap because they're literally made out of dirt. The only expense is the initial cost of the machine used to manufacture them. CEB's overcome almost ALL of the disadvantages seen in adobe or other earthen structures. They can even be used in extreme climates if you use a double wall design with an insulation cavity in the middle. It is the single greenest most environmentally friendly construction option on the planet! They can even be used in the construction of multiple story structures.
Please supply contacts for CEB Materials
@@sydneymokgoatsane9751 th-cam.com/video/IuQB3x4ZNeA/w-d-xo.html
@@sydneymokgoatsane9751 I posted other information and websites but they were deleted. AECT earth block and colorado earth are two great places to start.
Yes! Finally, someone has began spreading the news! Hempcrete is our future!
I think so too. 🙂
Let us know when one can install electrical/plumbing/heating/ac/communications CHEAPLY in said Hempcrete. Those systems cost FAR more than any structure of the home which in comparison is free. Far cheaper to add rockwool to outside of house and double thickness all interior walls and then insulate said walls.
Hempcrete is NOT our future. Unless everyone goes to Post and Beam construction. Maybe then Hempcrete could work. Same reason no one likes concrete block installation or block concrete forms until the advent of ICF where one can easily route electrical/plumbing/HVAC in the insulation of said forms quickly.
Hibiscus Cannabinus... Don't keep getting left behind
don't forget hemp based foam bats, hemp based wood (much better and cheaper) and hemp based spray insulation. hempcrete ain't the only option.
@@abowden556 What insanity are you living on? Hemp is 3X the cost. And no, there is no hemp spray insulation and even if there was, you would still need a foaming agent and a binding agent which fits whatever wacked out world you live on.
Another thing to consider is that concrete uses a specific type of sand that needs to be quarried and processed, before getting shipped across the world.
This has an environmental impact that is hard to offset.
Good call out. The supply chain and production pipeline plays a big role here as well.
funniest thing ive heard in a long time " concrete uses a specific type of sand that has to be shipped all around the world " you dont know much about concrete do you? stop spreading lies
@@cordellej You think you know. Do you know Saudi Arabia and other sand-desert regions have to import a lot of sand to make concrete?
@@UndecidedMF We have a surface mine up here in north Vancouver island that scrapes large hills down to sea level that destroys the habitat for bears eagles cougars and hundreds of other birds and animals ,all for the rock and sand that is shipped thousands of miles by ship tot he coast of California and Hawaii.It is used for specialty concrete .this is one of the last accessible place to get this sharp sand and rock .This shows we are running out of this resource,We need to use it more wisely and start using more sustainable renewable products locally ,Good video thanks
@@cordellej Look it up then before you accuse someone of lying. It has to be a very fine grained sand to work well or the concrete becomes brittle
I've been hearing about Hemp for almost all of my life. It's like the Hydrogen Car of the Electric Car dominated world. Sounds great but not enough corporate push.
Hemp was a thing for a while and then it got banned with weed
@@alexzanderroberts995 well technicly they are like 2 brothers
Not enough becasue its not profitable for them that's also one of reasons why hemp was banned
This is why I love your channel. You explore all the options and take a fair case for anything that can make the world better. Thanks Matt! I always learn something new when I watch a video.
Thorium Liquid Molten Salt Reactors and now Hempcrete?! You are hitting the nails on the head Matt! Keep it up brother! Next you'll probably talking about the therapeutic effects of mushrooms and other psychedelics this rate.
Ha! Or building homes with them.
@@UndecidedMF cut scene to children licking the walls of their bedrooms when the parents have gone to bed...
@@UndecidedMF Or building thorium Liquid Molten Salt Reactors out of Hempcrete and nails whilst off your tree on Mushrooms. At home.
An excellent overview of Hemp. As a Mass construction manager, future video content should include acceptance by International & US building codes, acceptance from local building & fire officials, interior and exterior finishing techniques & costs, US manufacturers & distributors, skill training for tradesmen, wiring & plumbing integration during construction.
From what i am hearing, hemp could be used on the side walls while having a concrete core in tall buildings. you use the core to hold the sides up while the hemp walls keeps the core from getting any weather so its in the optimal environment so cracks and such are on lower chance. other than that you could use it for normal houses as you dont build that tall.
Mould is a common issue in homes and a significant health risk. I would think that a good question would be what are the risks of hemp building materials harbouring mould. Especially given it can absorb and hold moisture.
hemp is mold resistant and it resists pests as well as rot
Since it has a potential as a building material, it would be interesting to know what a hemp GMO could be capable of
Interesting using "plants" in construction, I went to visit southern Egypt, visited a Pharaonic temple that had brick walls that had straw in them and the walls were still standing in good shape for thousand of years. In another area, they had another wall that was severely corroded from rain and it had no straw in it.
Straw/mud construction is a bit popular among the 'hippies' here in Australia...
Straw adds tensile strength. It doesn't protect a wall from water damage.
nowadays we put iron in the concrete and it holds well,. I do frequently still see horsehair plaster walls in old houses, although this is considered a negative and decreases the value of the house
@@jamesmurphyrealtor1277 that is because capitalism is stupid. Horse hair plaster is well known to reduce cracking in your walls.
@@y0nd3r it is the government regulations that dictate the building code. Not capitalism
There are people who believe that it is Hemp's competition with various existing products that is the true reason it was outlawed.
EXACTLY!
Not a belief son. Fact.
If we changed your question to mRNA vaccines, you’d find Google would remove the postings and label it as disinformation or “conspiracy theory”. When lobbies reach a critical mass and can yield vast amounts of power and control, nothing is beyond their scope. Hopefully hemp can break through it all with enough people becoming aware.
With the new knowledge about this hemp being used for construction, I think I’ll design my own home with this material in mind for the basement if it works out. It’s very useful after all, considering it being energy efficient and how it can lower cost of heating and such, definitely will attempt using this in the future. Thanks for the video!
would love to see a estimated comparising between 2 houses, 1 concrete 1 hempcrete. Listing: buildingcosts, energy bills, repairs on a timespan of 10, 25 & 50 years
I am doing a partial renovation of an old building. I discovered these blocks under the concrete floors used as an underlayment then covered with tar paper ans 2 inches of concrete. Guessing the building was built in the 1940s. Located in southern Utah.
Amazing. Seems like a lost custom that's finding its way back. It also looks very light-weight, based on the construction worker carrying a block that looked about 10x10x16. That would be pretty heavy for concrete. Also, with blocks that big, laying one block at a time goes a lot quicker. Awesome Matt 👍
Good point. So the transportation emissions is probably fairly low.
This is awesome
It’s pretty cool stuff.
, he typed one-handedly, as another layer of cheeto dust coalesced in his keyboard...
Love this vid - I personaly combined hemp with mycelium and came up with an insulating material that is fire resistant and has a better R value than polystyren and mineral insulation
Sounds interesting. Maybe you should send Matt the info!
As someone who lives in a 200 year old house you lost me at “lasts 100 years.” Sure it would not be my problem but part of net zero home (especially load bearing walls) should be sustainable for generations.
Permanent housing isn't sustainable. There needs to be an attitude change towards how we view and use architecture as we advance as a species. Net zero homes don't need to last forever since they have already had no negative environmental effects over their lifespan and, when their time comes to an end, they can be replace with the newest technology.
While the blocks themselves may only have a lifespan of 100 years and your house is 200 years old, look around your house, is everything in it 200 years old or has it been continually updated over 200 years to keep it functional?
@@aaronwebb7090 sure interior components have been updated. That holds true for homes that are only 30+ years old as well. A home is an average person’s largest investment and I just cannot see a future where they eventually become landfill and the only value is the property on which it sits.
@@aaronwebb7090 If you think that countries with important cultural heritage such as Wales with farmhouses as old as 500 years (such as my family home) are going to tear it down, think again pal.
@@andrewjones-productions When did I say anything about tearing down houses? We are talking about a building material for new houses.
@@aaronwebb7090 Wouldn't the most sustainable houses be ones that last longer? It takes time/money and building something again wastes energy.
I'd like to see someone try the same with bamboo. I've worked with bamboo composite lumber. It's heavy as hell, but more than matches traditional pine. I suspect that the bamboo fiber would perform as well as, if not better than shredded hemp. Bamboo is just as renewable as hemp, but grows much quicker.
Bamboo is an incredible wood alternative. Adding it to my list for possible videos down the road.
I've been interested in bamboo ever since I randomly came across terra preta. It is a dark soil in the Amazon that is a combination of biochar (a type of charcoal), dirt, composts, and various waste products. It is supposed to be excellent soil for farming. To tie this into bamboo, I was looking for fast growing plants to make the charcoal out of, and bamboo and duckweed kept showing up at the top of the list. Not sure if they would actually work for making biochar, but they both have other interesting uses as well.
I remember going to Hong Kong decades ago and first seeing the bamboo scaffolding. I thought it was crazy, but yes, there is another great alternative to wood for construction and other uses.
@@artboymoy now imagine that bamboo scaffold but instead of just using raw bamboo, you cut into quarters and laminated together to make a 2x4. It's unbelievably strong, rot resistant and in a few months you'll have another crop after you cut it off the root system. And there are species of bamboo that will grow in temperate to tropical climates.
@@Babarudra I'll have to look up to see the comparison between bamboo and pine construction. YOu would think uniformity would have something to do with it. Or maybe we don't want all of our houses looking like Gilligans Island. :)
This sounds like a wonderful product that when used with traditional support systems could be of major benefit to the construction and energy consumption needs of single family dwellings. It's definitely a product to keep an eye on for the future (and today).
Great show as always, Matt.
You mentioned about 5 minutes in using hempcrete in self inflating walls. So like the aeroforms that Monolithic Domes uses in making their concrete structures? Maybe replace the noxious foam they use, if not the concrete too, to build up the structure. That sounds awesome. No follow up that I noticed in the video though. Love to know who’s working on that.
I've been preparing to build with hempcrete for a while and have sourced several suppliers here in Canada.
I think is just GREAT, also so is your presntation!!
Spreading the word on sucg Great alternative. Thank you.
The more hemp I can surround myself with the happier I will be!
Love your videos and Podcast Matt, keep up the great work my friend… 😀
Thanks so much!
I honestly wish we kept using hemp for construction and textiles. I live around pine tree blocks. And while the forests are cool. I don't really approve of the clear cut, mono culture approach. The land always looks dead afterwards.
I think hemp would help to keep things far greener in many ways- no pun intended.
yes and no Justin, nature burns forests to allow for new growth (Re-gen) that brings back deer and small animals that couldn't eat anything in mature forests, cyclic and for a very good reason. But I understand (I am a pilot and live in BC Canada) I have seen allot of Clearcut on the mountainsides - it's rape basically. But in the old days when they used horses to pull out the logs (not skidders) they used to take 20-50% of the trees and leave the rest - and move on. No more.
From what I’ve heard it’s great interior insulated firewall that’s insulated … sounds awesome. Wonder how much it dampens sound… or would be awesome with a steel stud home and use it as walls . Would def make a great combo for cheap building materials that are strong
I've actually made a bowstring out of hemp. It worked really well.
Thanks Matt.
What about hemp mixing concrete?
I also think a video containing all of these alternative construction materials and comparing them against each other would be cool.
Easy: What consumes all the $$$ in a modern home, House structure(foundation/walls/insulation), or installation of electrical, plumbing, HVAC, communications? Obviously not the structure. Structure costs half what the systems cost for installation. If one wants far superior insulation, slap rockwool or spray foam on outside of normal building methods and insulate internal walls and floors.
As for a direct comparison, you will not get one as no one builds with Hemp other than one off random projects where a lot of $$$ is just learning how to use said product. Last I knew, someone on YT said 2X-->3X Rockwool and normal construction.
How long are we going to keep talking about how great hemp can be?
This needs to happen now
Taking VERY conservative estimates, from the low end of compressive strength to the high end of density, you could have a hemp block wall 10 feet high and still have over half its compressive strength left.
Knowing that that is possible without any kind of support armature within the wall, that means that approximately every two square inches of wall top can support a square foot of roof (structure plus live load allowance). Add in framing, of course, and the sky is the limit. And if you want to rely on the hemp for structural support, a denser, thicker wall will support more weight. "Oh no! MORE carbon sequestration whatever will we dooooo?"
What kind of tensile strength are we talking about here? Concrete is essentially zero without rebar; hempcrete naturally has a lot of fiber running through it every which way. This is likely why it stands up against earthquake-type stresses, some actual tensile resistance.
For greater durability, plaster. Okay, it's not carbon friendly but if it makes the wall last 200 years instead of only 100 years, that sounds like a solid win; it's still only a fraction of the cementitious product a concrete wall would require. And it makes the wall a lot more resistant to moisture and critters that might gnaw through the softer, gentler hemp wall.
It seems to me like this is a good way forward. It costs more on the first day and a bit less every day after that.
Fascinating. I'm in earthquake territory. We also have massive humidity in the summer. Does it stand up to moisture?
You can always use traditional lime plaster: closer to carbon neutrality, looks great and helps to maintain healthy air quality inside!
It would be awesome to be able to invest in hemp farms as a carbon offset option, helping to alleviate our carbon and housing issues.
With all the swindle there have been in the carbon credit sistem i think letting the marked regulate itself maby would be better in the long run.... I also think it's regulation and the fear of new materials that's maby the biggest problem here.. But with firtilicer shortege hemp would defently be a verry good opertunerty for many farmers right now. Seeds for oil the soft material for animal food and the stems for fiber..
2:02 hi, plant biologist here. Hemp doesn't have "about 0.3% thc". its considered hemp if it is under that arbitrary human-defined limit (also depends on where you are as laws dictate this difference). To further complicate matters, the thc content can vary depending on growing conditions (so hemp can become marijuana on a sunny day but don't get excited 0.4% isn't going to do much but its still legally MJ). edit 3:15 never mind, you clarified. sorry for jumping the gum lol thanks for a great vid!
Why not mix both hemp fibers with concrete. We already mix Perlite with it to get a lighter weight concrete so why not Hemp fiber?
Maybe the hemp fiber is heavier...
The problem with all these building alternatives is that local governments always get in the way because the people that work for local governments don't do their research about the new building alternatives that are available. All they care about is getting a paycheck so their always stuck in the past with their rules and regulations.
then the market needs to have a well known Engineering firm to produce some videos explaining the process, the pros and cons, cost benefits for the products and where it can be used to offset carbon/green positives/negatives. That would carry some weight - also some interactive/Q&A zoom calls for various municipalities around the world to be videoed and provided free of charge for other municipalities/cities etc. EDUCATION is key right now to allay the fears, educate ignorance by answering pertinent questions most people/communities have.
Matt, How does Hemp Block compare with ICF construction? Are there any thoughts of combining operations- Hemp with a fill of concrete for rigidity? ICF seems to have some great value in the discussion. Thanks!
Don't forget one of Henry Ford's earliest cars was made out of hemp plastic and used hemp for fuel.
This is why I voted to legalize weed in my state even though I don’t smoke it! I’m so excited to see it used in industries where it can cut down our emissions like textiles and construction!
🤔Perhaps we can use pornography as a building material also? Oh and high proof alcohol as a refrigerant.
@@robertthompson3447 spunkcrete?
same for me - 67 and stopped smoking it 2 yrs after I started - haven't had any in 48 yrs. but it has so many health and engineering and clothing benefits - it should be mainstream (its the cotton growers and clothing manufacturers that stop it mostly...hemp jeans will last 10 x longer than cotton = lower sales = not good for cotton growers)
@@stevemyers2092 yup. It sucks that we miss out on something that could benefit all citizens just because a handful wanted to protect their profits.
Still, doesn’t mean that we can’t fix it now at least.
Never needed any progressive legislation. We had Hibiscus Cannabinus the whole time. Hempsters pulled the biggest fraud ever...
Maybe long fibers from the length of the plant can be used with a hempcrete matrix to make sheets similar to plywood (more like wattle and daub) or beams.
I think there are already people making hemp lumber. I think Hemp Earth is doing some of it.
people are way ahead of you, not just hemp plywood... proper hemp lumber, any way you want it. MUCH cheaper to grow and make and process than wood, but better and more tunable and consistent material properties.
This might be able to replace down insulation in jackets/blankets, I don't know whether it would be washable or as soft as down but it could be an interesting idea.
Would it smell like grass?
Blankets sure, but not coats, unless you lived somewhere very dry; hemp is moisture-absorbing while down (and in fact all feathers) are naturally water-repelling, as their molecular structure is more like that of hair. That said, if you could give it a coat of a hydrophobic substance (run it through a tumbler-mister that sprays it with such a coating, preferably something like a silica gel coat which is rather safe to use) and you could likely replace it just fine in meant-for-outside uses as well, such as in jackets.
Those differences in R-value are mind boggling
I plan on starting my hemp house this year. I'll be documenting the entire process. Starting from seed, to plant, to hurd.
While the plants are growing, I'll be falling trees on the property and milling them into lumber on site.
Great video topic and great job covering it!
Hemp gets slept on too much... ever since the plastic hemp car was filmed in black and white and the sledgehammers they were beating with were bouncing right off.
But I can't resist: actually extracts can reach nearly 100% THC. Known as diamonds because the THC is so pure it's not even a yellow substance anymore, it's a clear THC-a crystal, that looks like, you guessed it, a diamond.
Hemp is an amazing plant though.
I remember picking up a dried stalk that was probably 4 inches in diameter and it felt hard as oak and was light like balsa wood.
And besides the materials for building you can make paper, clothes, plastic, etc, and hemp seeds are a great source of protein with a good bioavailability and good amino acid profile...
Truly an amazing plant.
I'm not particularly religious but the Bible does say that all seed bearing plants are good, and made by God for man.
So very interesting is the cat and mouse game with Delta 8 being legal, even though it's about half the strength of regular THC it can definitely get you high especially edibles. And if they make that illegal there's already a form of THC called HHC, there's THC-O, about 3x stronger than D9 THC; THC-P, which is roughly 30x more active at the CB1 receptor site (its a trace cannabinoid), the main endocannabinoid receptor.
And these are just a few, even if these are made illegal there's semi-synthetics like Delta 6a10a...
And I could go on with interesting facts forever, I was recently reading about how a higher/specific dose of a specific cannabinoid can allow it to interact with different neurotransmitters than lower/other doses of the same cannabinoid.
And they think there's about 100 cannabinoids. I can't wait for them to isolate them all!
You should really like Hibiscus Cannabinus then
that's wrong the color f the trichomes is due to the maturity of it... it's crystal clear at the beginning and there is no much THC in it when you let i mature become cloudy and when THC is at its maximum and become yellowish toward the end losing thc but adding and that's when the weed put you to sleep.
So yeah can be crystal clear but 100% thc is unsmokable. the good of legalization is the choice to use weed that are less potent that street market.
Generally to use land to grow cement is not a nice idea becaus eit requires land, work and can be scaled but it's less efficient that crash a mountain.
It's necessary to check the economics behind although thc is bad for you. Researching higher yield of THC or potency in the process is generally a bad idea and can develop some serious illness or addition.
Weed is already commercialized enough and smoker are generally less productive than non smoker it will be a societal plague. Also, Alcohol, cigarette are gateway for weed which is gateway for coke and meth.
it seems like that people underestimates the damages.
Great vid Matt. It's good to see hemp moving in a more sustainable and usable direction every year.
As a Contractor I can see this taking off. Unfortunately there is always the bottom line and building restrictions. I personally would love to see this take off. 😎✌💚
Would there be any issue with drilling anchor holes in walls made from hempcrete? Just a question that occurred to me while I was watching the footage since I’m used to seeing studs with drywall.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Depending on the density of the material. If the block is as solid as concrete or just a touch softer, you can use XP Set 22 epoxy. It is expensive as the gun applicator is as well. But you can install all thread bolts after drilling the block.
There is a history of cotton and hemp industry and why it was banned back then.
hemp jeans will last at least 10x longer than cotton jeans...that's why hemp was pushed off the stage. Remember when a chevy used to last 20-30 yrs? same reasoning. Same reason for Apple Phones that stop working after 5 yrs or less and the batteries cannot be replaced by you or me..
Dark history of underhanded moves and greedy motives. Hemp is SO , SO disruptive to SO many industries, it had to be stopped or we wouldn't have oil companies, drug companies, or Drug Wars and you know how some people really profited from those. The best book is The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer. It's one of the best resources.
In each and every instance you cited the hemp has been shredded. I can't help but think that the the directional strength that aligned fibers offer has been overlooked. I cite the difference between conventional plywood, which maintains the directional strength of the original wood vs. composite fiberboard, which has no directional strength, absorbs moisture at a high rate and deteriorates quickly. Why not employ the tensile strength of the original plant with some binding agent under pressure ( as has been done with great effectiveness with bamboo) to add extra strength and durability to the product?
Hemp rope has long been known for high strength. Was once considered a national strategic resource.
I don't think this could be done in the block format he is talking about in this video. And I think hemp plywood would be no better and probably worse than actual plywood.
I did a lot of research on Hemp, yesterday... I'm still organizing the findings.
I have seen people use grasses or weeds when compressing red bricks for building, i wonder if hempcrete could be used instead to make a stronger more insulated air dryed redbrick