The first hempcrete building in Atlantic Canada will be constructed this summer at the DorjeDenma Ling program centre near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, reports Daily Business Buzz.
“Hemp-lime masonry, or ‘hempcrete‘, is a cutting-edge natural building material,”DorjeDenma Ling Sustainability Manager Dominic Watson Wall explains. “It is attractive, has great thermal and acoustic insulation properties and is carbon-negative, with no toxic elements, while being affordable and extraordinarily simple to build with.”
Wall says hempcrete”can be used to build walls or as an in-fill for roofs, floors or as a plaster. It uses industrial hemp, a crop already widely grown in Canada and renowned as fiber, food, and biomass.”
Hempcrete is a bio-composite made up of the hemp plant’s woody inner core (shive or shiv) and a lime-based binder.
There is high silica content in the shive, according to American Lime Technology (ALT). Its website says hempcrete is “a lightweight cementitious insulating material weighing about a seventh or an eighth of the weight of concrete.”
ALT’s website also notes that weather conditions at the jobsite can effect drying so the company has a factory that can dry hempcrete panels off-site.
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