Homes from Hemp

A building technique for the future?

SUMMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS

Other uses for hemp

Horse bedding made from stalks
Edible oil from seeds also used
as basic ingredient for natural
medicines
Seeds used for making chocolate
bars and other foods
Fibre used for ropes, clothing (the
original Levi jeans were made from
hemp but lasted too long to be
commercially viable!)
High grade papers, such as those
used for bank notes, tissues and
hand towels, tea bags etc. where
strength when wet is critical

Introduction
The Hemp Homes project is an innovative and
exciting experiment which aims to identify the
true environmental and commercial advantages
of building homes using this particularly
ecological and highly sustainable building
material.
Two hemp houses now stand on a small social
housing development in Haverhill, Suffolk, and
are the first of their kind to be built in Britain.
Every step of their construction and
subsequent occupation has been closely
monitored to compare their performance with
identical traditional brick and block built
houses.

Architects in Bury St Edmunds who had seen

the method being used in France where the
hemp processing system was developed.

development using the same methods of

construction with a view to exchanging
information.

Suffolk Housing Society and St Edmundsbury

engaged the support of the Housing
Corporation to fund the Building Research
Establishment to carry out extensive research
into the project. The purpose of this was to
demonstrate that hemp and lime construction
is a viable low energy alternative to the more
conventional forms of construction based on
brick and concrete blocks.

Since this initial contact Suffolk Housing

Society and Hennebont have built more formal
and wider ranging ties to see what they can
learn from one another about providing and
managing social housing in the two countries.

The project has been undertaken by the

Suffolk Housing Society, of Bury St Edmunds,
with support from the Housing Corporation
and St Edmundsbury Borough Council.

The research has studied:

Relative structural, thermal, acoustic,
permeability and durability qualities;
Reduction in waste generated on site;
Environmental impact;
Construction costs of the two systems.

It was prompted by the enthusiasm for using

hemp as a principal building material by local
architect Ralph Carpenter of Modece

Links were also established with a housing

association in northern France, Hennebont
OPC, which has embarked on a larger scale

Funding
The hemp homes and their brick/block
constructed neighbours are part of a larger
1.5 million housing development, 675,000
of which was provided in the form of a social
housing grant jointly by St Edmundsbury
Borough Council and the Housing Corporation.
The four properties involved two hemp and
two brick/block in the research project cost
176,000 to build. The research has cost
75,000 and has been paid for in part by a
60,000 Innovation and Good Practice grant
from the Housing Corporation.

Location

Choice of site and design

The hemp homes are part of a small

affordable housing development of 18
houses and bungalows that have been
built on a 1.2 acre site off Park Road in
Haverhill, Suffolk.

The choice of the site was a pragmatic one.

Suffolk Housing Society and St Edmundsbury
Borough Council were already in discussions
about developing a social housing scheme in
Park Road, Haverhill.

Haverhill is a rapidly growing market town

on the Suffolk/Essex border, 16 miles
from Bury St Edmunds and 12 miles from
Cambridge. It has a population of
21,000. Local employment is provided
by a range of industries and businesses,
from light industrial and manufacturing to
food processing and bio science as well
as service based activities.

A mixture of terraced houses and bungalows

for a diverse range of tenants who were
already on the councils Housing Register
meant that the development had the scope
and diversity to embrace the experiment.

Park Road is on the western edge of the

town in a residential area, close to a
school, a play area, a supermarket and
other large retailers.

The hemp homes and their brick/block

counterparts were introduced into a single
terrace. Their internal design, providing two
bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bathroom
is typical of other properties on the
development.

Materials
used

Choice of
tenants

The principal materials used in

constructing the hemp homes are:

In order to examine how the properties

performed while occupied Suffolk Housing
Society wanted tenants who would be
willing to take part in the project.

The shredded and specially processed

stems of hemp plants. The process,
which was devised in France, effectively
petrifies the hemp fibres producing an
inert material called Isochanvre
Natural hydraulic lime
Sand
Timber (from local forests)

People on St Edmundsbury Borough

Councils Housing Register who were
eligible to take up a tenancy at Park
Road were contacted and asked if they
would be interested in being part of the
project. Publicity was also given to the
search for willing tenants.
Those who expressed an interest were
invited to a briefing where the project
and the commitment they would need to
make to it were explained. From this four
tenants were selected.
7

Wall construction

The mixing process

Shuttering up

Shuttering up

Packing the Isochanvre

Tamping the Isochanvre

Moving shuttering up

Laying ceramic tiles over

hemp floors

Tiles being bonded with

hydraulic lime and sand

Isochanvre cast into

internal walls

Isochanvre is laid between

floor joists

Finished with hydraulic lime

render and yellow ochre lime wash

Pouring the Isochanvre

Hemp wall

Other construction

Kitchen installed

Isochanvre is left
unfinished inside and
dries to a soft buff colour

Why build hemp houses?

One of the main reasons for using hemp is
that hemp construction is environmentally
friendly and highly sustainable. This is in part
due to the fact that hemp can be grown in the
UK in four months and Isochanvre can be
produced from the stem of the plant which is
currently considered to be a waste product.
Amongst the other reasons put forward before
the research commenced were:
Extremely low amount of energy used in
hemp processing (1.15 kw/m3 to
manufacture) and significantly less energy
used in the lime than conventional
cement mortars.
Significant savings can be achieved because

the building method requires less excavation.

The skills required to build hemp houses
are not radically different to some of the
well established craft skills employed in
concrete work and carpentry in the UK.
The lime/hemp slab forming the ground
floor is considered to be vapour permeable
but water resistant and is unlikely to require
the inclusion of a damp proof membrane in
most circumstances.
The lime binder provides protection to the
timber frame in terms of resistance to rot
and the framing to the external walls is
therefore thought unlikely to need any
timber treatment.

The mixture used for the walling is

considered to be resistant to fire
and vermin.
The hemp and lime walls have a breathing
quality that gives hemp houses a pleasant
and slightly more rustic feel.
The production of the natural hemp fibres
is an environmentally friendly process with
no toxic by-products. The hemp is fully
recyclable.
Hemp buildings are considered to be
thermally efficient resulting in lower fuel
costs and no condensation. Hemp is also
sound absorbing.

Construction to occupation
Work started on site in November 2000.
The two Hemp Houses are built on a shallow
limecrete foundation and brick plinth.
The timber frames for the walls were
constructed on site creating a balloon type
structural frame.
Work on infilling the frames with the
hemp/lime mix started in the following March.
This was done by tamping small amounts of
the mixture at a time into shuttering fixed to
the timber frames.

The ground floor is a hemp/lime/sand slab

topped with a sand/lime screed. The upper
floor is of tongued and grooved boarding on
timber joists. The roof is of trussed rafters
covered with concrete tiles. Heating pipes and
conduits for the electrical services are cast
into the walls. Isochanvre was used loose as
the insulation material in the roof.
The properties were ready for occupation in
December 2001 when two of the selected
tenants moved in, one into a hemp home the
other into a traditionally constructed house.

The other hemp and brick/block houses

remained empty for three months and their
performance was monitored as a control in
the research.
For the following four months all four
properties were studied for temperature and
humidity. The energy consumption and
acoustic properties of the houses were also
studied and the findings analysed by the BRE.

TIME 7th JANUARY

KEY: Temperature

Humidity

TIME 7th JANUARY

KEY: Temperature

23:29

22:44

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04:44

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03:59

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03:14

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02:29

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01:44

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00:59

60

00:14

20

TEMPERATURE C

70

RH%

25

23:14

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60

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Humidity

Summary of the research and results

Structure and durability

Thermal comparisons

Visual appraisal of the overall stability of the

hemp buildings shows no evidence that these
have been affected by wind or ground
movement as there are no signs of stress.

SAP ratings and U value calculations

suggested that the hemp houses should have
used significantly more energy than the brick
houses, but this was not the case.

The BRE has accepted that the mineralisation

process enables Isochanvre to withstand
weathering and provided it is protected by a
lime and sand render externally it should last
more or less indefinitely.

The data collected using thermal and humidity

loggers in the homes revealed that the
temperatures maintained in the hemp houses
were consistently one or two degrees higher
than in the brick houses for the same amount
of heat input.

Crushing tests revealed that the wall mix,

which included no sand, will deform as load is
applied to it and for this reason vertical loads
are borne by the timber frame. The flooring
material is more rigid as a result of its sand
content and floors covered with a 30mm lime
and sand screed are able to withstand
domestic loadings.
Inspections undertaken six months after
completion revealed significant cracking, both
internally and externally to the hemp buildings.
This is likely to be due to normal settlement
and drying out and is straightforward to
remedy. Further monitoring will be needed to
see if this is an ongoing problem.
Overall, the structural and durability qualities
of hemp homes were found to be at least
equal to those of traditional construction.

10

The graphs above show the comparison of

temperatures and humidity in the lounge of
the traditional brick house and the hemp
house on 7th January 2002.
Thermal performance of the hemp homes
ensures that the heating fuel consumed is no
greater than that used in the traditionally
constructed control houses.

Acoustics test
The BRE Acoustics Centre tests were carried
out prior to occupation.
The requirement for the sound resistance of
party walls is that the average sound insulation
should not be less than 53dB with no
example less than 49dB. Sound reduction
at ground and first floor levels for both types
of construction exceeded this requirement,
with a mean of 57.5dB for the hemp

construction and 63.5dB for the traditional

construction.
Although the hemp houses did not perform
as well as the traditionally built houses in the
acoustic test they did, nonetheless, meet
the requirement.

Permeability
Moisture vapour permeability in the hemp
houses compares favourably to the
conventionally built houses where cement
mortars and gypsum plasters retain moisture
and are not very vapour permeable.
Although vapour permeability was not
specifically tested, there is no reason to
believe that the performance of the hemp
houses will be different from other lime based
buildings. Hemp and lime are naturally
breathable materials ensuring that the
moisture generated inside migrates rapidly to
the outside. This eliminates the possibility of
condensation on wall surfaces and allows the
buildings to feel warm.
On completion of a 96 hour water spray test,
there was no evidence of rain penetration from
outside through the complete thickness of any
of the hemp walls tested.
Both forms of construction appear to give
complete protection against water
penetration, but the hemp homes generate
less condensation than traditional
construction.

RH%

BRICK HOUSE, EMPTY LOUNGE

25

00:14

TEMPERATURE C

HEMP HOUSE, EMPTY LOUNGE

Waste minimisation

Construction costs

The SMARTWaste report produced at the end

of the monitoring period indicates that:-

The tender price for building each hemp

house at Haverhill was around 54,000
compared to 34,000 for each of the
traditionally built control houses.

Excavated material from the hemp houses

was considerably less (about 50%) than
that from the traditional houses.
Other than excavated material, waste from
the hemp houses was mainly work-related
packaging and offcuts. Reasonable
quantities of waste resulted from the
timber shuttering.

The BRE measured the relative construction

costs by:-

Renewable materials, particularly the hemp

which grows in four months.
Low embodied energy (energy used to
manufacture the three principal materials Isochanvre, timber and lime) as opposed to
the relatively high embodied energy of
bricks and cement.
Reduced excavation of subsoil for
foundations because of natural flexibility
of superstructure.
Recyclable once buildings reach the end
of their useful life and minimal amounts of
energy required to demolish buildings
when compared to conventional brickwork
and concrete.

Measuring quantities of materials used

and resultant costs.
It has been difficult to accurately compare the
costs mainly because of the learning exercise
in using hemp but the man hours spent on
the second hemp home were considerably less
than the first. This was partly due to its mid

Hemp House 2 Trd. House Shell

This is an area where the hemp construction

has significant advantages over traditional
construction and is demonstrated by:-

Below: Recorded Man-Hours

Analysing the construction time spent on

each house (see graph below)

The reduction in the time taken to construct House 2 is

due to two factors. The first is that House 1 has a
gable end which increases the amount of construction
work. The second, and more important, is that it is clear
that the builders learned on the first house and were
able to put this into practice on the second one.
It is reasonable to expect some further savings
(in time and labour costs) if more houses had
been constructed using hemp.
Note the total for House 2 is probably
underestimated by around 60 hours because the fitting
out was not complete at the time the recording stopped
but this still makes the time very comparable with
the traditional houses.

RECORDED MAN-HOURS
112

299

96

KEY:

Non-Added Value
Added Value
Added Value Support
Statutory

68

Hemp House 1

Environmental impact

It is estimated that the true cost of hemp

construction was 526 per square metre
compared to 478 per square metre for
traditional construction, although it must be
stressed that these are estimated figures.

This was not a true reflection of the cost of

construction, since the contractor had little
experience on which to base the tender.

Other than excavated material, waste from

the traditional houses tended to involve
offcuts, damage in packaging, particularly
offcuts of brick and blocks.
On balance there would appear to be little
difference in the waste produced in the two
forms of construction, although this waste is
of a different nature in each case and is likely
to have an environmental impact.

terrace location, but partly also to the

experience gained from the first home being
put into practice on the second.

288

90

175

708

200

400

205

600

800

1000

1200

Labour Materials Total cost % extra Comments

Traditional Shell House

6,554

4,845

34,000

Hemp House 2

7,450

8,375

38,420

13%

Almost exclusively cost of

materials as they are being
produced on small scale and
price still higher than
conventional materials.

Hemp House 1

18,501 11,102

52,200

53%

First house to be built and

took longer while builder
learnt the system. Also has
one additional exposed
gable wall.

11

Commentary on results
The most interesting aspect of the test results
for the hemp construction relates to thermal
performance. Initial fears that the houses
would not perform well have been unfounded,
and in the first winter of use they have
maintained marginally higher temperatures for
the same amount of energy used when
compared to the brick control houses.
It is anticipated that further monitoring of
energy use will show that as the houses dry
out the hemp homes will remain drier and
warmer than the traditional brick houses.
Data will be available during the late
spring of 2003.
The hemp and lime walls are the ultimate in
breathing wall construction and as a result
there is never any surface condensation on
them to make them feel cold. Perceptions of
comfort are greater, and the living
environment is free of mould and therefore
healthier than in the brick houses.

Acoustic performance and comfort are closely

linked. Whilst the tests show that the hemp
party walls provide good levels of sound
reduction between the houses, they perform
slightly less well than the brick houses.
What these results do not take into account is
the sound reduction within the houses where
the hemp walls absorb sound and make the
rooms feel more comfortable than the brick
houses with their hard surfaces.
The unique nature of the project inevitably
resulted in a less efficient building process
than would be expected by the standards of
traditional methods. For the hemp homes this
will have resulted in labour costs being higher.
However, improvements to the process and
familiarisation with the system will reduce the
time taken to build future houses.

materials like hemp and lime will come

into their own.
It is likely that pollution taxes will make these
materials financially much more attractive in
future, and enable them to appeal to a wider
market than at present. Furthermore, as
people begin to appreciate the increased
comfort of buildings constructed using all
natural materials they will start to place
greater demands on the construction
industry.
Hemp is ideally placed to meet these
increasing expectations.

As concern over the environmental impact of

construction increases, so very low impact
13

Opinion of next steps

There are several issues that now need to be
addressed if hemp and lime construction is
to expand on any scale.
The shuttering system needs to be refined
to make it easier and quicker to fix and
remove. A prefabricated system that can
be clipped into place and reused needs to
be developed in order to speed up the
process and further reduce waste.
The mixing process needs to be improved
to ensure consistency and speed of mixing.

Pumps should be used to convey the

mixture straight into the shuttering. These
actions would reduce the time taken to mix
and cast the walls and reduce labour costs.
There needs to be a greater understanding
of the interrelationship between dry
buildings, comfort and energy use so that
the true environmental impact of natural
materials on buildings can be understood.
At present there is no accepted method of
measuring thermal performance and
theoretical figures for hemp and, indeed,

other natural materials do not identify

their true performance characteristics.
Manufacturing capacity for both
Isochanvre and hydraulic lime needs
to be increased to meet any
future demand.

A future for hemp houses?

There is little difference in the performance of
the two types of houses when it comes to
energy efficiency, acoustic insulation,
permeability and stability.

sustainability. At present brick and block

houses cost less to build, even if improved
efficiency from familiarisation with techniques
used in building hemp houses is taken into
account. But hemp houses have far less
impact on the environment and provide a
more sustainable building solution.

However, there are significant differences

when it comes to cost and environmental

Whether hemp homes have a large scale

commercial future will be decided by the

The research analysis of the hemp homes

project leads to three broad conclusions.

result of the inevitable debate that the

construction industry must have over whether
financial or environmental cost is the most
important factor to take into account when
building homes in the future. It will also be
determined by the industrys ability to
improve the technical efficiency of building
with hemp therefore making it more viable.

15

Acknowledgements

Old Mission House

St Botolphs Lane
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk IP33 2AX
Tel: 01284 767224
Fax: 01284 701573
Email: office@suffolkhousing.org
www.suffolkhousing.org

The Building Research Establishments full report and findings

can be found at: www.bre.co.uk/pdf/hemphomes.pdf
1

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Modece Architects
Poole & Pattle Architects
Royal Bank of Scotland
St Edmundsbury Borough Council
The Body Shop
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