Hempcreting is easy, formwork takes time

Grant has taken a week off work to get more hempcreting done, Alan, his dad has been coming over every day and they have made great progress. We realised that we needed to move some pallets of lime (3 tonnes) into the tin shed as this will be used as part of retrofitting the rear of our house. It will give us some space within the renovation to access the ceiling more easily when we start insulating it with a hemp and lime mix. We will be using MgO boards for the ceiling and then adding 100mm of hemp and lime as insulation.

There has been some frustration when the mixer is not turning. You have a real sense of satisfaction every time you tamp down hempcrete. The fact is formwork takes longer to set up than the hemping.  We didn't design the renovation with careful attention to how the formwork would work...but hey this is all new to us and lessons are learnt. Grant is getting pretty good at making formwork and he ended up buying some plywood seconds so that formwork set up can be created ahead of the hemping.

I cleared out this shed so that Grant, Fynn and Alan could move 3 tonnes
of lime into it, giving us space to put up scaffolding inside and outside. 

Our western wall is now complete, any further work on this will be
when we fill the top of the trusses and add the ceiling insulation

This is a large window and sliding door opening that is nearly
completely filled with hempcrete

The southern wall in the living area is now complete. There are still
some holes from the conduit that I need to fill.

The west side of the link has now been filled up to 1.2m.

6 weeks into the hempcreting - a few progress shots

6 weeks in and things seem to be going pretty well. We are having visitors tomorrow, Neil and Sandy, fellow hempcreters we met before we began building. We are looking forward to catching up with them and to be honest it will be another great opportunity to pick their brains. You may notice the rather strange shadow image below. Well lime dust stiffens the hair somewhat, you want a pineapple look, with lime dust you too can achieve that look!!

This is my new method for avoiding whacking my head on the rafters.
My hair is my alert system. Got to say I look ridiculous but it works
very well. The risk is you have a visitor come over..yes it happened and
it was a little embarrassing, particularly when it is my friend Cazz bringing
over a friend, in this case Scott from the Bright Brewery, he seemed
to take it in his stride.

My brother Paul protecting both his head and shoulders with this
rather swanky sombrero

The southern wall from the inside

This is a photo looking over the western wall to the roof of our
kitchen, the scaffolding is at its highest point here

I was up that high, yikes! That is the highest point in the build.

This is the western wall, we removed a window from here as an
economic measure, I think it is better as the western sun can be
blisteringly hot. We have been using a pulley to hoist the hempcrete
up high. The pulley system works well.

It's quite scary up there

The southern wall from the outside, I think it looks terrific.

20% of our hemp has been used..you gotta be kidding!

I look at how much we have done and find it hard to believe that we have only used just over 20% of our ingredients (it feels like we are making a house rather than building a house). As Grant is back at work things have slowed down a bit. Last weekend was very productive with my brother Paul and nephew Oliver helping out again on Saturday and then Grant's father Alan helping us on Sunday. It makes all the difference having help, it is not just the extra pair of hands but the encouragement of friends and family. We have nearly completed the large south wall. In fact we are getting to the stage that we need to get our MgO board so we can start joining up the ceiling hempcrete with the completed walls.

The question everyone asks is 'how long do you think it will take to finish?' It is a question we have decided not to answer. We are moving along quite happily and as long as we bite off small chunks of the build, we are making progress. Everything takes longer than you expect, doesn't it?

Alan and Grant working on the Southern wall

We built the hempcrete up to the top plate of the frame. We will have
to work out how to complete this later..

The southern wall looking fantastic

building up the hempcrete under the top plate

We have had to use a variety of buckets to get into tight spaces,
including this weaved basket. It feels like we have gone back to
the Roman times using such simple equipment to build.

Visit from a fellow hempcreter

We received a call from Kirsty Wulf, a fellow hemp house builder who is at the other end of the construction phase, you can check out her blog on the link. Kirsty, along with her partner Ben and young son are on holiday visiting family in Victoria and dropped by. It was perfect timing, not only was it great to meet another builder, it was also great to get their reassurances about how well we are doing and how great our walls are looking.

I decided to post a short video of Kirsty opening up a lime bag. It seems obvious now on how you open one. We have been using a blade to hack at every bag..this was a mini revelation, worth sharing.

Are we mad part 2....

I suspect I will continue with the 'are we mad' theme. When building the hempcrete wall it is important to protect it from direct sun for the first week or so and also from driving rain. Well that is all well and good until you have a very large and heavy tarp protecting your newly built wall and 100km/hr winds. As we watched the tarp bashing into the walls we were nearly in tears. It was too dangerous to remove the tarp because we could easily have been knocked off the ladder with a wind gust. Grant spent a near sleepness night wishing there was something he could do. Instead he dreamt of looking under the tarp and finding the entire wall had collapsed...thankfully it was just a dream.

The tarp has knocked bits of hemp from the wall but when you take into account the severity of the winds it held up remarkably well. Just the odd divet to patch up. We are now very unsure of the benefit of using a tarp at all, it seems to have caused more problems than it has fixed. Klara from the Australian Hemp Masonry Company has provided us with some suggestions on patching these spots so we will have a go at repairing the wall soon. The suggestion includes using 1:4 solution of bondcrete (lime binder) to water and use this to replace the water in a small mix.

We now have to prepare for rain, the slide is just an immediate measure to keep the water away from the wall until we buy some temporary downpipe.

Damage caused by the tarp bashing the walls

It's always satisfying to be able to use stuff lying around the house, in
this case it is a slide!

Not a perfect solution as it doesn't catch all the water from the box
gutter. I will try to improve this, heavy rains are expected this weekend.

I placed the water pump in here so that the water can be pumped away.

Safety around lime and the occasional hospital visit

As I write this entry Sam and Grant are still out working....after all it is only 8.15pm.

We have had a couple of minor injuries, a lime burn on the wrist for Grant- that resulted in just a quick visit to Emergency. Normally you wouldn't need to go to hospital for that, however Grant likes to work until dusk, at this time of year that is about 8.30pm. Dealing with the burn included washing it clean for at least 20 minutes and using a waterproof dressing over a few days. Lime can be very irritating when it is damp on your skin and then gets rubbed in. Grant generally wore an old long sleeve top that worked well until a little bit of lime got in, the shirt would meet up with a pair of disposable gloves and sweat, things then started to go a little pear shaped. The trick is to not let the lime get to the stage of it irritating you. Don't try and quickly finish a job and deal with the lime later. Once you feel it irritating your skin you must stop work immediately and rinse it off.  Sometimes you can only appreciate these lessons from experience.

Some of the other safety issues that you should be aware of when working with hemp:
When chatting to Klara from Australian Hemp Masonry Company she recommends that everyone working onsite should be wearing a dust mask and when you are near the mixer you should also use ear muffs (I suspect it is not necessary with our mixer as it is quite a small one and not that loud-no louder than my Kenwood Chef in fact). A very handy tip that will now become part of our 'safety' routine is to use diluted vinegar  for regular hand washing, as it is acidic and helps to neutralise the lime.

While Grant was at the hospital, the treating doctor gave him a tetanus injection once Grant told him he was building a house. This turned out to be a very sensible idea as he had a small run in with a power drill the next day.

I have been working in a Tshirt and shorts. I am wearing those cloth gloves that look like they are dipped in rubber. Over the top I wear a pair of gardening gloves with sewn on sleeves that reach up past my elbow. I also wear glasses and have tended not to use a face mask unless I'm working directly with the dry lime. If you are working with dry lime a face mask and glasses that seal around the eyes are essential. So far I have haven't had any issues.

Matilda flicked a little bit of hempcrete mix in her eye on Christmas Eve. We used the saline wash with limited success so I got her to jump in the shower for 20 minutes and face the water with her eyes open as much as possible. Meanwhile I rang the Eye and Ear Hospital and they recommended she come in after having her shower eyewash.  The hospital saw her promptly and tested her eyes for alkalinity. Matilda's right eye was 7.5 (the alkalinity of the body is between 7.2-7.4), they numbed her eyeball and then gave it a really good wash with saline, Matilda spent most of the time giggling. I wouldn't be confident of being able to wash out all the lime from the eye at home. My very strong recommendation is that if you are working with lime, wear protective glasses. Although you get treated extremely well in the hospital, it is best to avoid if possible.

These are the style of gloves I use. I wear these underneath, and the
long ones over them.

Found these gloves at the Vic Market at the hardware stall

A friend joked that I am the only woman who buys beauty products
at a hardware store, however this stuff has saved everyone's hands.