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Combine Hemp & Timber Frame - Grow Your Own House! |
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Written by Henry O'D. Thompson
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Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
The combined use of hemp and timber frame is the ultimate in true sustainable
eco friendly construction; yes you can grow your own house.
By using hemp and timber frame construction these buildings have a potential for
zero CO2 emissions. The proposed carbon tax may have been temporally shelved but
will ultimately have to be introduced if we are to live up to our Kyoto agreements.
This will affect all Irish builders in the future. This carbon tax will hit many
building components suppliers hard as there will be a tax on the carbon dioxide
emissions produced by such materials. A Hemp House may have net zero emissions
and so contribute to keeping costs down. The carbon tax could be likened to when
the unleaded petrol first came; at first it wasn’t popular but it eventually
became more sensible to use the unleaded and ultimately it may be the only option.
In France they have been building with hemp for 15 years with hundreds of homes
completed. The OldBuilders are pioneering hemp technology building here to provide
houses that will be warm, breathable and eco-friendly. Normal concrete block or
standard airtight timber frame buildings often aren’t breathable and so
need ventilation and heat exchangers. They usually contain many synthetic materials
many of which may be harmful to our environment in production or harmful in the
environment in which we live, IE our house.
The hemp building is a solid wall construction that beats most conventional insulation
methods because of its thermal mass. This means the hemp houses are cool in the
summer and warm in the winter and are not prone to condensation and mildew buildups,
very important as we come to realize the importance of indoor air quality on our
health and in particularly the health of our children with the staggering growth
in child allergies.
The OldBuilders Company is primarily a specialist in the restoration and conservation
of old and historic buildings and it was in our pursuit of green and environmentally
friendly techniques for conservation that we learned that hemp mixed with water
and hydraulic lime was ideal for insulating and old stone buildings. It’s
an extremely breathable vapour permeable material, a terrific alternative. Studies
have shown that 35% of dry lined buildings after 10 years have toxic moulds growing
behind the walls.
Over a number of years and experiences I became fascinated with all things relating
to hemp and subsequently the OldBuilders Company in cooperation with Terry McGrogan
and in consultation with Tom Wooley professor of green building at Queens University,
built the first hemp house in Ireland for client Marcus McCabe, a well-known environmentalist
in Clones, Co. Monaghan. Marcus produces read bed sewage treatment systems. This
building is now being used as his office.
The OldBuilders are now completing the second and third hemp buildings in Dunlavin,
Co. Wicklow. The hemp house in Dunlavin will be used as a workshop and the adjoining
hemp building will be a sunroom.
Design
We design the hemp houses to be as conventional looking as possible, the results
are very similar to any masonry built modern building. The structure of the
buildings is built similar to a standard timber-frame house although with some
significant framing differences. The timber is then encased entirely by the
hemp lime mix which solidifies to a masonry type structure, it’s solid
not a cavity wall.
Experiment
An interesting experiment has been undertaken in Sussex in England where two
houses were built alongside each other, one made from hemp the other from conventional
concrete block. A thermal picture was taken of both houses at night and the
difference was staggering. The conventional house was glowing because it was
losing so much heat. The study found that the hemp house was on average two
degrees warmer with the same energy input. That could translate into heat savings
of between 15% and 20%.
In Ireland, the number of hemp advocates is growing daily and it is becoming
very likely that the cultivation of hemp won’t be just a pipe dream. At
the moment the only drawback to hemp is that it is more expensive than concrete
but if it were to be grown in bulk in Ireland that problem would very quickly
sort itself out.
Henry O’D. Thompson, OldBuilders Company.
www.oldbuilders.com
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