Hempcrete in building

Tuesday 11 February 2025

About 65 people gathered at the Huonville Town Hall to hear four presenters talk about hempcrete as a building material.

First was a video from Andi Lucas of XHemp Tasmania, a unique and fascinating new company, run and operated by women, who now grow and process hemp in Cressy Tasmania, and export those products all over Australia. The PowerPoint presentation she used can be seen here.

Then came Chloe Meyer from the Franklin Hempcrete house recently featured on Grand Design, twith an entertaining talk about experiences building with hempcrete. We highly recommend watching this episode of Grand Design, it's a great story as well as being very informative about hempcrete.

This was followed by an online Tors Graham, executive officer of the Tasmanian Hemp Association, giving an overview of the advantages of this useful and amazing plant, how it produces much more carbon and fibre per hectare/year than practically all other plants, especially trees, and about Hempcrete's superior building attributes, water and moisture resistance, insulation properties and its ability to lock up carbon in the building. It results in a house that is relatively chemical free and therefore provides a much healthier home, and much less of a pollution or risk should it need to be removed after fire or flood.

This online presentation was followed by Ros, who lives on Bruny Island and she recounted her building experience at a time when local hempcrete was not available and she went to the trouble of importing the hempcrete and the lime from Belgium in Europe. Despite this extra cost she is absolutely wrapped with her home, and which ended up being competitive in cost given its inherent insulative qualities. A transcript of her talk is available here, and her PowerPoint can be seen here.

Andy Armstrong, a CEH committee member and local architect put together this Q&A document on hempcrete. This document formed the basis of the discussion with Chloe Meyer.