Preparing for Hempcrete

Look at the trusses, some were put up today. We had the weekend to do some painting before the trusses went up. Hempcrete is made up of hemp and lime. Lime and steel are not compatible. The lime will cause the steel to rust, even galvanised steel is not protected. What this means is we have to paint every nail plate, nail and every bolt with bituminous paint, that's a lot of painting. You can see below the black paint on the trusses.

Another thing we have to do to prepare for the hempcrete was to tilt all the noggins on the frame. We had to cut through one of the nails on each side so that they could be tilted at around 30°. If the noggins remained horizontal it would be difficult to infill hempcrete under the noggin, whereas when they are angled the hempcrete should fill more easily. There is quite a lot of preparation!

The noggins have been tilted and renailed

i

Tilly helping to paint the nail plates