I know it’s easy to laugh.
But the first cars, planes, submarines,.... didn’t perform very well either.
Far out man...
It worked so well in Europe and Canada !
“The house was being constructed from Hempcrete, which a biocomposite of hemp hurds, and either lime, sand, or pozzolans “
They have to demolish it? They can’t roll it up in little pieces of paper and smoke it?
Gives a whole new meaning to:
“I’m going to huff, and puff, and blow your house down.”
Hard to believe they actually went to production BEFORE lab testing the material. And this is being run by a college?
Have they thought of constructing the with adobe?
> One of the goals for the project was to have students research hemp’s properties,
And while the students never produced a finished paper, they did run up an astronomical bill at the local Domino’s Pizza.
I wonder if 3d printing a foam encased cavity and then pouring concrete would be a better option.
The technique of printing structural materials is okay when cost effective. Use concrete, it works. Organics should be left out of the mix unless it is Adobe Brick which is not suitable for 3D printing. Adobe is great in the Southwest and a cheap material. It is not suitable for a wet climate.
snow loads I can understand the concern, but building one stories down south shouldnt be an issue...
Building a better mud hut with pot - maybe.
Brought to you by White Rabbit Timothy Leary Construction, more or less.
Hemp, another solution to every problem known to man except it’s desperately looking for a single problem it can solve well.
The only reason we have this raw material is dope growing operations.
Hemp used to be grown commercially, mainly to make rope and canvas. But the material has been superseded with other better materials.
A fraternity buddy in Missouri had lots of old hemp fields on the family farm. It had been grown commercially decades earlier to produce rope. Helpful hint: don’t try smoking the stuff.
The mechanical properties of hemp have been studied for decades. It’s well-known to have very poor compressive strength and it needs the support of some structure around it. Apparently it does have good thermal and acoustic insulating properties, but you have to build it into a surrounding structural wall.
1400 sf for $300,000? You gotta be kidding me. I’ll bring in a 1,000 sf addition with bathroom and septic for less than $90 a square.
Would aircrete work?
“Hemp hurd is the woody inner core of the hemp stalk12. It is produced by breaking and scutching the stalk to separate it from the fiber1. Hemp hurd is also called shives or hemp wood1. It is not suitable for making materials that require long, strong fibers, but it has many other uses”.
The problem is the mixture. No Portland cement was used.
Cool. So now we're back to cardboard.