The walls are now complete and the ceilings have begun....

We finished our walls on the last day of May, so over the June long weekend we began to place the MgO boards to the ceiling. The mix used for insulation uses the lime, hemp and water. There is no sand and all that needs to be done is to place it on the MgO boards and rake it smooth to about 150mm deep. What is lovely about this is that is quicker than we thought...now that's a first! We will have a perfect seal between the ceiling insulation and the walls, oh the joy!  We haven't used any struts to hold up the ceiling and wet insulation as other hempers have done, so far so good.  When it has dried out it will be much lighter than it is now. Interestingly there has been a lot of condensation on the ceiling, even to the point that it drips along the board. I was going to show this condensation with a photo, unfortunately for the sake of the blog it has dried out, fortunately for us it has dried out.

The plaster lift isn't tall enough for our ceilings                       The first MgO boards are up!!

so we had to raise it by placing it on the black

formwork

Using hempcrete as insulation.

We use conduit for the electrical wires to protect them from the lime

Hemp insulation above the kitchen

Slightly confusing image of me, looking glamorous
in my thermals and limey top

Some of the equipment for the insulation works, protective gloves, silicone broom and light rake

Liz up in the ceiling placing the hemp insulation. We have made
great use of the pulley system, a must have for any hemp renovation

The ceiling in the kitchen is almost complete, we just need to
 complete inside the pantry.

We are probably a quarter of the way along the living room space,
it is really exciting how it is coming along.

May progress

May 31st was a very important day for us......tada.....we finished all the internal walls!! Well what does that mean exactly? It means a couple of things, firstly we can now begin the countdown to when we can begin rendering. The newest hempcrete requires 7-8 weeks of drying time before rendering can begin. Secondly, it means we can start installing the MgO boards for the ceiling and then insulating it with hempcrete, thus creating a perfect seal! Oh the joy of it all.

The ceiling insulation is a huge job, I will post again in the near future with the highs and lows of this task. I have to say, wool insulation does seem like a much quicker and simpler solution?!.....Because we are doing it ourselves, with no (well at least very few) quality compromises, we may as well get the best performance out of our house, hemp insulation will provide that, but at a rather slow pace.

Matilda helping with the tamping. Having a combination of both short
people and tall people works well!

Grant's legs on show as he fills in the wall above the kitchen

Toffee enjoying the sun in what will eventually be the living area

Repairs to Hempcrete

These pictures below show a hole that was created on a very windy night when the tarp we were using to protect the new hempcrete from the 'elements' was in fact the cause of the only damage. It wasn't the first lesson we learnt but it was quite an important one. We never bothered with tarps after that. I think tarps may be more important in extremely wet climates. Our concerns with exposed hemp have tended to be more towards the hemp drying too quickly. 

Back to the holes....Firstly I damped down the hole using the mister on the hose. I then held a piece of formwork over the hole and shoved the hempcrete down behind it, filling the hole up. It was rather rudimentary but it seems to have done the trick. It's certainly one of the things that I really like about hempcrete, it is quite forgiving. I am also hoping that the rendering will hide many of these small imperfections. 

A rather large hole caused by a tarp hitting the
wall all night by strong winds

The hempcrete wall filled.

Aww cute, it looks a little like a love heart

The repair 2 weeks later, I am very pleased with the result.