Progress for February

Once again we have only managed to work on the house over the weekend and the odd day here and there. We now have hemp surrounding the entire renovation up to to at least 2.4m - it is a milestone. We are getting close to the stage of using the hempcrete as ceiling insulation. We will be lining the ceiling with MgO boards (a board that looks like plasterboard but is breathable) then dumping a mix of lime, hemp and water (no sand this time). This will then join up with our hemp walls so that our ceiling and walls will be completely cocooned.

looking towards the front of the house

this area above the highlight windows was particularly tricky to hemp
with big beams and a small gap between the formwork and roof. It could be worse.
There would be less gap with a skillion roof.

you can see where the hemp has been finished to, right where the black
bituminous paint is, the hemping will continue all the way along

The west side of the link, the hemp is finished within the old part of the
house, in fact the hempcrete is filled right up against the old back door.

We do have 3 tonnes of lime in one of the sheds but as you can
see we are down to 4 pallets of lime still sitting on the extension floor.

this was our lime

Looking into the window from the north, eventually there will be some
decking here.

Filling holes and Fast wheels

Matilda has been filling these conduits with hempcrete left over from the end of the day.

She hands them to me and I insert them into the holes and use a piece of bamboo to push the hempcrete into the wall. It is a job that needs to be done yet we are able to complete it in a relaxed way, when we have both the time and the leftover hempcrete.

The fast wheels are used to provide something more substantial for the hempcrete to hold on to when we have only 50mm deep hempcrete. We are experimenting with this and some of the wheels have had some OSB added to make it easier to pack hempcrete behind the fast wheel.

Pushing in the hempcrete using the bamboo.

the completed western wall with holes filled

This is a filled in hole,  I have tried to make it either flush or a little
under so that it will be easier for the renderer to achieve a flat surface

We have added a little piece of OSB when we screw in the fast wheels to give it some depth.
Hopefully by doing this we will give the hempcrete something firmer to hold on to when there
is only 50mm of hempcrete.

The fast wheels get covered up with the hempcrete. Note we have also
painted the nail with bituminous paint.