We will shortly be supplying several new products which we think are fantastic enough to adorn our website, ho ho. The first is the NBT Thermoplan fired clay block, it is a brilliant highly insulated block that can be used for solid walling to give extremely good levels of insulation and thermal mass.
It is, like Hemcrete, very simple to construct with and easy to get good results with. We think it’d be great for use at the bottom of a Hemcrete wall to give a robust, well insulated base to the wall. It can of course be used to build the whole wall but being fired and coming from Germany, it has moderately high embodied energy and doesn’t lock up CO2.
Next we have the aforementioned Hemp Wool insulation, which will be in 100mm thick sheets, the perfect alternative to mineral wool, same insulation values as well. Great for eco-friendly installations and carbon capture, especially good for those who install it as it doesn’t irritate the skin!!
We also have two types of Hemp blocks for sale. One is structural, 3.3N compressive strength and carbon neutral, the other is a non-structural insulating block. These blocks have a thermal conductivity of 0.11 W/mK and lock up 1.65kg of CO2 per block. Unfortunately you have to use a mortar to lay them so this will reduce the carbon capture per block but still better than an aerated concrete block.
We are about to start our next Hemcrete project which is an extension to a house in Oxfordshire which I hope to be adorning various newspapers and magazines in the not too distant future. We have also started another project recently in which we are using Hemcrete to replace collapsed cob walls in an old barn which we may be able to get on to the local TV with a bit of persuasion………….Keep your eyes open!!