#8 - Lime rendering Hempcrete walls

[@dsmith9456]

Excellent work, very nice to see lime being used again. I am looking forward to see it completed. Well played.

[@miepmaster25]

Really interesting series! I'm from the north Netherlands, where there's a lot of cheap land available so channels like yours are crucial to people like me

[@thelowcarbonproject]

That's good to hear. Let us know if you end up building one, maybe we can come do an episode on it

[@davidjlee7992]

Looking great, Matt, a lot of hard work involved looking forward to a pan round .

[@davefrofisher]

Loving this man. I've been helping a hempcrete builder out in Australia to gain some experience before hopefully tackling something you are doing myself. You are providing some great information.

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Great to hear. We welcome questions so if you have any, ask away., although it sounds like you are in a good place to learn anyway, we've never done this before so are just learning as we go. Cheers for following along

[@davefrofisher]

@@thelowcarbonproject wondering if you could maybe do a financial breakdown video of the whole project? One of the biggest concerns taking on something like this myself is the potential to run out of money before the build is complete. I find the entire financial planning side a little overwhelming

[@thelowcarbonproject]

@davefrofisher We'll be covering a bit about that in the upcoming Q&A episode but can do more further down the line, probably closer to the finish. The price here may be a bit different to Aus though.

[@ricos1497]

Great effort, it looks really nice. One question for your AMA episode is: did you consider trying to reach passivhaus standards? If so, what were the barriers (cost!), and what extra would have been required (thickness of hemp, MVHR or whatever) to get it to that standard?

[@marilynalspachtoth5635]

Thank you for explaining doors, windows, plastic trims. I thought I missed something at the beginning of this episode. However I am curious on any outside accoutrements such as electric plugs, outdoor lighting or exterior shutters, attached to the home, is there a specific way to attach since the wood structure is buried in the hemp? This form of construction is foreign to me in the USA, but I’m definitely interested.

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Hi, we have just used regular wall plugs and screws to attach the rainwater downpipe and that survived a recent storm. This way should be fine for light weight things but we were talking about maybe drilling a hole in the wall and banging some slightly larger wooden dowels in and then screw the fixing into that. The book we have been using also suggests banging some wedge shape wood into the wall and again, fixing to that. Cheers 🍻

[@urbanfpv3852]

Hi Matt, the house is looking great so far! Quick question for the AMA but where did you source your hemp bales from? Apologies is you already have answered this in a previous video, if you did I must have missed it. Cheers.

[@OPS-Clothing]

Amazing video’s! Found your channel and after 7 years of KZbin I think this is the first channel where I putt the bell icon on to receive notifications 😄. I created a small clothing brand with clothing made from Hemp textiles and I fell in love with everything surrounding Hemp! I was wondering if the Lime is sustainable since it’s bad for your skin like you said and if it’s possible to put paint over the Lime/water mixture or does that also interfere with the breathing capabilities of the Hemp wall?

[@thelowcarbonproject]

😊 Best comment received so far! Good question, we'll include that in the AMA. Cheers for watching 🍻

[@adrianhaines5852]

Thanks for all the great videos Matt. Very professional and practical. What is the position with agrement certification on hempcrete houses. Keep up the great work 👍.

[@AdamLee-b8z]

Great work, Matt, house is looking fantastic. Is this render coat very durable? Will it need annual care?

[@olindatime8697]

Great video/s. I'd love to see/hear some zoomed in detail on hemping and rendering for curved windows. For example, how do you render on the inside of the window box without encroaching on the window frame.

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Hi, thanks for watching. By curved windows do you mean curved reveals, e.g curved from the wall up to the frame? Matt didn't do anything like that, we did straight edges and corners but he just rendered (same for plaster) up to the frames. He says if your worried about gettingt it onto the frames you could use a wide masking tape around the edges and then cut with a stanley blade along the edge /corner and remove. Hope that helps

[@olindatime8697]

@@thelowcarbonproject I mean curved reveals, sorry, should have been clearer = ) Thanks for the response.

[@ptolemyauletesxii8642]

Is that just pure lime? Is there no aggregate in your render?

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Hi, it was a premixed lime from here bestoflime.co.uk/product/limecote/

[@ptolemyauletesxii8642]

@@thelowcarbonproject Thanks for that link. It's almost like a venetian plaster, but able to be applied more thickly. I can see why the fibres are necessary. I can't imagine a product like that not cracking without it.

[@matthewchrisman6682]

Hey first I’d like to say that you guys do amazing work and I’m absolutely fascinated by building homes with hemp! I’m in the mid western United States and I’d really like to have a go at this. I suppose my question is. How do you run the mechanical through hemp? Where I’m located we have days that hit 40 degrees Celsius in the summer and can stay at 0 degrees Celsius in the winter. Would I need to have mini splits for HVAC. Also plumbing. Would pex do the trick. Also the finishing side of things. Wall outlets and such. I really want to jump on board and do a build. I appreciate your time and all the great content!

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Hi, that's great that you want to have a go at it. Matt has always been a general (old school) builder but has loved doing this and is already talking about doing it again, and that's before he's even finished this one 😅 We haven't put it to the test yet, but we have heard these houses keep a temperature of 16 to 18 degrees C even without heating. Matt is using underfloor heating and a heat pump and will be interesting to see how much it actually gets used, stay tuned for future episodes on that! You won't need mechanical air circulation, the hempcrete does a good job of that on it's own by regulating the humidity inside to perfect levels and trickle vents in the window frames are plenty for air replacement. If you have good orientation and dpace you could design the house to be shaded in the summer and benefit from sun in the winter. The winter sun can heat the thermal mass of hempcrete walls inside which will radiate heat in the evenings, back into the house. I have also heard that a small log burner is good enough to heat a house aswell as just human body heat but I guess that would depend on room / house design. We are running all plumbing within the envelope of the house and any pipes that do go through the walls just need to be plastic as the hempcrete is corrosive to copper pipes. I had a look at pex and it looks similar to what we have used in the underfloor heating. As for wall outlets, if you check our wood wool board episode (number 4) you can see we fix the back boxes into them with conduit that later gets encased in the hemp wall (episode 6) Hope that helps. Thanks for watching 🍻

[@Betty-zl8ve]

Wondering why you don't use hemp fibers, are more durable

[@thelowcarbonproject]

The fibres were just what the manufacturer supplied and recommended for use with this particular product, but agree, it would have been nice if we could have used hemp instead.

[@aitch369]

Great to see you moving on. I wonder what lime you used and ratios? Also did you second coat same day? I didn’t see any wind or sun protection too? 😊

[@thelowcarbonproject]

We used bags of Limecote from bestoflime.co.uk/ simple to use, just add water until its at the consistency needed.

[@Giulia-yq4nj]

Perfect

[@gtiggsmusicstudent]

i found you today i hope to see the full build and learn from it.

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Awesome, glad to have you here. Feel free to ask any questions along the way

[@gtiggsmusicstudent]

@thelowcarbonproject thank you very much if there is anyone else doing this kind of project I would love to come on and help for a few days for hands on experience on framing and hemp build. I have acquired so much off KZbin but need it to be practical. And another thing do wood chips work out the same suppose they are a resource available and wasting away?

[@raresriti6253]

You will use the same method on the interior?

[@thelowcarbonproject]

We have recently finished an interior supporting wall that we are experimenting with to make if a feature wall, that episode is almost finished. We have some hemp left so will probably use that to fill the stud walls as far as we can. We will then use some for of eco insulation for the rest of the walls, luckily we don't have loads of walls. Again all this will be in future episodes. Thanks for watching 🍻 Edit* we will likely use a lime plaster wherever possible such as anywhere that doesn't need waterproofing

[@lynnegoswell7617]

would love to build a hemp house with a flat green living roof on a Loch side plot 100 miles west of Glasgow are there any hemp building companies in the west highlands

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Hi, that sounds like a nice project. We don't know of any based in Scotland but you could try contacting Graham Durrant from hemplimespray.co.uk/ he sourced and hired out some equipment to us and is very knowledgeable, he may even venture up there himself. Depending when you are thinking of doing it, we may have even started offering our services out to the wider world too 🙂

[@lynnegoswell7617]

Thank you for doing your videos and for the link in your reply to my question may you continue to grow your business.@@thelowcarbonproject

[@AlexBodnar-ij9wk]

❤

[@FloridaDock]

Great work. Can Lime Plaster be sprayed on? Of course it has to be smoothed.

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Good question, hadn't thought of that before but yes, looks like it is possible strawbale.com/spraying-lime-plaster/

[@aidanjhealy3707]

No sand in the plaster Mix??

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Nope, just add water. We got it from these guys. bestoflime.co.uk/

[@vdsw9166]

@@thelowcarbonproject very relieved to see that you're using non-hydraulic lime. I'm not sure if you've stressed this enough. A lot of folks make the mistake of using hydraulic limes which are not suitable to keep water out and dry out the walls as fast as possible. Pure lime has incredible capillary action and this is the secret to keeping your walls dry. The problem with hydraulic limes is that the pore size is too big after the mortar has set. What you need is 1 micron pores because these achieve the best capillary action and that's what you get with pure lime. Research Nigel Copsey's work if you want more information.

[@gregvance4042]

Love it would love to have you on a space with us

[@thelowcarbonproject]

Cheers. Do you mean twitter / X space? BTW it's not Matt that's running the channe sidel. I'm the one behind camera and darting about occasionally in time lapses. Matt doesn't have social media.

[@gregvance4042]

Well we might be doing on all the spaces but yes would love to chat with you

[@gregvance4042]

And it doesn't matter who it is whoever wants to chat about it would be great it's just the information that's beautiful doesn't matter

[@thelowcarbonproject]

@@gregvance4042 Ah nice, yeah I'd be up for a chat, love talking about it all. Drop me an email to [e-mail] with your socials and some details. Our twatter name is the same without the gmail bit. Cheers

[@gregvance4042]

Yes would love it Twitter and maybe KZbin

[@chrisphillips6229]

Where in the UK is this?

[@thelowcarbonproject]

We're in Kent

[@debbie7116]

Ha-ha I'm the 420th person to like. (US slang term for a day to smoke weed - possibly derived from a police code for same)

[@thelowcarbonproject]

🤣 Awesome, yes we have 420 here too 🍻