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Industrial hemp can be used in various ways, including for building houses. Hemp Home Hawaii has constructed two homes on Maui — a tiny home and a three-bedroom house — using a biocomposite material called hempcrete.
Hempcrete is a mixture of the core of the hemp plant and a lime-based binder.
Joe Smith of Hemp Home Hawaii built the larger house for Maui resident Jon Woodhouse on a property shared by Woodhouse and the company. The hemp was purchased and transported from Kansas.
Hemp Home Hawaii
Hemp Home Hawaii uses hempcrete because of its environmental benefits.
Smith said he knew about hempcrete as a material but didn’t know how to build a house with it until he attended various workshops.
“I’m painfully aware of just standard building practices use a lot of toxic materials. And this is green building at its best, and a really healthy living environment,” he said.
According to Hemp Home Hawaii, hempcrete provides various environmental benefits and can offset carbon emissions associated with construction because hemp plants remove large amounts of carbon dioxie during growth. The hempcrete walls also continue to absorb carbon dioxide.
“The walls breathe. They’re vapor permeable, and the way they transmit heat and humidity, it’s a very interesting concept. So it kind of goes against normal building practices,” Smith said.
Woodhouse said he loves living in his new hemp home.
“I am so grateful that we persevered and we did it because there’s something palpable about the energy in a hemp house. It’s not like a regular house, and you can only really experience it by being in it,” Woodhouse told HPR.
Woodhouse recently wrote an article about the environmental benefits of building with hemp. To read that, click here.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Sept. 4, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
Editor’s note: The radio version of this story incorrectly referred to Jon Woodhouse as Jon Waterhouse.
“}]] We jump into a hemp house and talk to a builder and a homeowner of one of the first homes built of what has been described as Mary Jane’s “sober” cousin — and we talk about the possibilities of industrial hemp in Hawaiʻi. Read More