Source: heraldsun.com.au
Shelley Randle and her husband are using hempcrete, a sustainable
building product, for their house renovation. Picture: Dennis Manktelow
HAVING more than half a dozen tonnes of cannabis on your property is something that would normally raise the eyebrows of police.
But a Kensington couple are using hemp — a variety of cannabis — as a key material in their house renovations.
Grant and Shelley Randle are adding extensions to their Gordon Cres property using hempcrete, an environmentally friendly building material made by mixing the fibres from hemp plants, lime, sand and water.
Mr Randle, who has kept a blog on the renovations, said the pair had used eight tonnes of hemp and 11 tonnes of lime on the project.
He said hempcrete had good thermal resistance values and was fire, pest and mould resistant.
Mr Randle said he had been on the receiving end of a few jokes from his friends but the renovations on his property — which falls on a heritage overlay — had attracted much interest from the neighbourhood.
“We get a really positive response; it is a very sustainably-minded community,” Mr Randle said. The hemp is imported from Holland to a hemp mill in the Hunter Valley in NSW before being trucked to Melbourne.
The Australian Hemp Masonry Company is aiming to have about 100 houses built using hempcrete by the end of 2016. Klara Marosseky, the company’s managing director, said people building houses using hempcrete had enjoyed energy savings between 50 and 80 per cent. Ms Marosseky said the Australian Hemp Masonry Company was working alongside Australian hemp farmers to ensure a local supply of hemp.
Hempcrete has been used as far back as Roman times and is now making a comeback in the Europe due to its sustainability attributes. Well-known British department store Marks and Spencers and the London Science Museum have hempcrete walls.
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