Group Launches Effort to Build First Colorado House Made Entirely of Hemp
From the insulation, to the food in the fridge, the newly-formed Team Hemp House is setting out to build the first Colorado house made entirely from hemp, in an effort to educate the public.
“The intent is to show that we can use hemp to build the foundation and the walls and the tiles, but also the furnishings in the house, including the food in the fridge,” states hemp activists Jason Lauve, who’s leading the effort and was instrumental in bringing hemp legalization to Colorado.
According to Lauve’s website; “As a building material, hemp combined with lime is non-toxic, highly insulating and mold, pest and fire-resistant. Hemp has shown it can drastically cut the energy used and money spent heating and cooling homes by approximately 75 percent. This is where Team Hemp House comes in. I see this as the launching pad for this industry!”
In addition to cutting energy and saving money, recent research has found that hemp insulation – from its production to its use – is actually carbon negative.
To help fund this effort, Team Hemp House launched an indiegogo (a crowd-funding website) campaign in the hopes of raising $350,000 in sixty days. According to the campaign, the money will go towards:
- A Colorado building site
- An Architect and Landscape Architect
- A contractor as well as construction labor
- The purchase of approximately 3 acres of industrial hemp
- Processing the industrial hemp into useable hurd
- Manufacturing the hurd into HempBlocä and other hemp composite building materials
- Purhcasing electrical and plumbing equipment
- Purchasing additional building materials
- Obtaining a certificate of occupancy and all building code variations
- Staffing for administration and to manage the implementation of the project
Hemp housing isn’t new to the U.S. (a 2009 USA Today article featured hemp houses, for example), but this would be one of the most comprehensively-built hemp houses in the nation, and would help to exemplify the vast potential of hemp.
– TheJointBlog