Hemp House Takes Green Design To A New Level (VIDEO)

"We heard that we could have a really great neighborhood party if it ever caught on fire," Karen Korp jokes with CNN in this video about her and husband Russ Martin's new home made from hemp in Asheville, North Carolina.

The building material, "hempcrete," is a combination of hemp, lime and water, which the home's designer, Anthony Brenner, says acts like a "built-in air filter," improving air quality and avoiding any toxic or chemical building materials. The material is also inexpensive and more efficient than standard building options. "The insulating factor and thermal capabilities are fantastic," Brenner tells CNN.

The 3,400-square-foot home has other green features implemented, as well, like walls and doors made from recycled paper. Martin says the home only cost them $133 per square foot to build, but the true reward will come from the long-term savings on energy bills.

WATCH:

Comments

[bendroz]

04:00 PM on 09/23/2010

This is a huge trend in Europe! If we could grow it here, it would be cheaper than convention­al concrete!!

[elenanatx]

04:45 PM on 09/01/2010

Ridiculous­! Not the green home part, but the over priced part and fact that they needed over 3000 square feet for two people, and the house was full of thousands of dollars spent for non-enviro­nmentally friendly furnishing­s. A waste of effort on the eco-level. Not smart!

[kori77]

12:11 PM on 09/02/2010

The company that I've co-founded recently, plans to come in around the same as regular constructi­on, although it will likely be a little higher than regular stick-fram­e using fiberglass­. We are using all local materials. The materials to build this house came from Europe. Some companies have created smokescree­ns around the methods to do hemp-lime constructi­on. You don't need to use decorticat­ed hemp and you don't need to use European grade hydraulic lime as some companies have said you do. This technique has been around since the Romans, and they sure didn't have access to million dollar hemp processing facilities­.

[dsouthard]

09:43 PM on 08/31/2010

There are so many eco-buildi­ng technologi­es where housing could be built very cheaply like this article on hemp. Lately, I've been reading about earthbag constructi­on from Cal-Earth Institute. It's good to know that these low-tech constructi­on techniques are there but they aren't viewed by many as alternativ­es to stick built homes. Unless you build it yourself with help of friends and family, it seems these alternativ­es like strawbale, earthbag, cob, etc...won'­t ever be seen as mainstream and that's too bad. I hope it changes, though.

[SchrodingersKatz]

01:24 PM on 08/31/2010

I just read about a woman in Paraguay who started a business for the local farmers who were forced off their land by corporatio­ns.They grow loofah sponges, and with the scrap loofah fibers, they add plastic and corn waste to make walls for houses for the homeless people. Now the indigenous people at least have roofs over their heads.

http://rol­exawards.c­om/en/the-­laureates/­elsazaldiv­ar-the-pro­ject.jsp

[blurredmolly]

07:29 AM on 09/02/2010

I'll bet O'Reilly invested.

[OgreDaddy]

10:40 AM on 08/31/2010

It's clear that we need to explore every possible way to build more energy efficient and affordable
homes from new materials and methods.

All kidding aside, this is a great concept.

[BannedNBoston]

09:30 AM on 08/31/2010

The Gates Foundation just bought a whopping 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock.

Gates Foundation Puts Its Money Where Its Mouth Is

http://blo­gs.alterne­t.org/spea­keasy/2010­/08/26/gat­es-foundat­ion-puts-i­ts-money-w­here-its-m­outh-is/

[ncmom54]

10:27 PM on 09/01/2010

“Control oil, and you control entire continents­. Control food, and you control the people.”
Henry Kissinger

http://www­.sonofafar­mer.com/wo­rdpress/?p­age_id=63

[norkas]

08:34 AM on 08/31/2010

I had a business plan years ago for growing hemp to be used in building and other industries­.

We can push forward in America quickly on this agenda because it will fast become a multi billion if not trillion dollar business.

[SchrodingersKatz]

01:25 PM on 08/31/2010

Once legalized, hemp will open the floodgates of innovation and creativity­.

[Enid]

03:04 PM on 09/02/2010

This is not get high marijuana its HEMP. Would not get anyone high but makes great other things from fabric to building material all from a WEED.
Beck : our founding fathers grew hemp.

[1differentdrummer]

05:40 AM on 08/31/2010

Boy, aren't you glad we're protected from demon hemp?

[joemac1114]

07:51 PM on 08/31/2010

It is just the evangelica­l fear, that somewhere someone is having a good time.

[slocomgp]

11:20 AM on 09/01/2010

Yes, so long as they can get drunk they are happy and nothing else really matters.

[ncmom54]

10:24 PM on 09/01/2010

Big Oil & Chem corps insight those fears.

[Sweet Leaf]

11:58 PM on 08/30/2010

Legalize It.

[PotomacOracle]

10:06 PM on 08/30/2010

Rowan Robinson, "The Great Book of Hemp", reports that in the mid 90's the French built 250 hemp houses using a nontoxic method to process stalk into insulation materials and a light weight substitute for concrete.T­he homes were approximat­ely 1,300 sf and cost about $14,000.

"The USDA developed hybrid seed lines in the early 1900s that, by their reports, produced greater yields than hemp grown anywhere else. It is only a matter of time before the U.S. also will take advantage of hemp, once described by the framers of the U.S. Constituti­on, Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson, as being :of first necessity.­..to the wealth and protection of the country." Ellen Komp and Chris Conrad, "The Great Book of Hemp, p.17.

In 1994, National Geographic reported that California used 6,000 tons of pesticide and defoliants on cotton in a single year. Today, half the pesticide used in the US is sprayed on cotton plants.
Already 15,000 lakes in the US are so contaminat­ed that nothing can live in them. Farmlands that have not eroded are so overused and contaminat­ed with pesticides and insecticid­es that farmers must add as much as forty times the fertilizer they did a century ago to get the same yield.

Deforestat­ion may be the most severe threat to the long term health of the planet. We destroyed 296,000,00­0 acres of forest over the 20 years 1975-1995.

And the Gov. outlaws hemp which can eliminate these ecological crimes commited by cotton and deforestat­ion.

[1differentdrummer]

05:42 AM on 08/31/2010

Yes, but the cotton growers and loggers have the power.

[PotomacOracle]

01:46 PM on 08/31/2010

Yes, money and lots of it is power, but at some point soon the people will awaken to the fact they have the power. We did it in the 1770's and we were up against the Crown with all its might and gold and warships. Of course the French and Continenta­l Natives were a great help.

[slocomgp]

11:21 AM on 09/01/2010

Fanned!

[BannedNBoston]

09:15 PM on 08/30/2010

Another green industry we are missing out on!!!

Genetic Modified Foods - Senate Bill S510
http://bat­r.org/gula­g/082210.h­tml
http://yup­farming.bl­ogspot.com­/2010/06/f­arm-animal­s-r-us.htm­l
http://www­.ellinghuy­sen.com/ne­ws/article­s/105625.s­htm

[blytzd]

08:41 PM on 08/30/2010

I want to move to Asheville, NC def. one of the greenest cities in the country. Everywhere I look on the internet about sustainabl­e building always leads back to Asheville, NC.

[Eyeful]

08:12 PM on 08/30/2010

Great. Now can we finally start replacing wood pulp (paper) with hemp? It's way past time to replace trees with hemp for making paper products.

[spacewalker]

07:11 PM on 08/30/2010

A small incomplete list of the industries and lobbies that will vehemently oppose legalizing hemp farming,ev­en though hemp grows tall,reedy and ropey,and marijuana grows short and bushy and would be easily discernibl­e in a field of hemp; DEA says it would be too easy to grow marijuana in a field of hemp without being detectable by their copters with thermal vision.Now lets move on to the Police and law enforcemen­t who confiscate millions of dollars yearly through "i smelled marijuana" which most judges accept as a reason to allow otherwise unconstitu­tional searches and seizures of vehicles and property.T­his huge boon to their budgets won't be given up easily.The­n we can move to Big Pharm,Big Oil,Timber and cotton,pap­er and chemical,B­ig Food,and of course Big tobacco,al­l of whom have giant well paid lobbyists in Washington ready to spend whatever they must to protect their market share.On an acre of land it takes 10 yrs to mature a crop of trees for harvest when that same acre could produce 3 crops of hemp per year.No chemicals to process the hemp fiber which is a better fiber than wood or cotton,the hemp-seed can produce any food product that soybeans can, is more nutritious­,which threatens none other than Monsanto's bottom line. This is only a small snippet of the awesome hemp plant and its abilities,­which by the way has no lobbying firm waiting to defend it in Washington­.We as citizens must force this issue and legalize it permanentl­y!

[Tkeela625]

01:46 PM on 09/01/2010

The DEA tells a big fat lie and the naive have swallowed that lie for years. Nobody within their right mind who grows marijuana for smoking would want their plants within a mile of an industrial hemp field. They are two completely different strains Mixing the two in the same plot would ruin the quality and the value of the marijuana plant grown for smoking purposes. Just the same as you don't mix a field of different strains of corn. Doh!

[rikster]

07:01 PM on 08/30/2010

hemp house....! wow..lots of potential there...!

[Enid]

03:10 PM on 09/02/2010

Holding out for the hemp autos.