UK Hempcrete
While architects, inspectors, planners and other industry professionals may well be interested in attending our practical training courses, others will have a more specific interest in the design considerations when using hempcrete, and the proper detailing of the material within a building.
Indeed, this is an important area, since – as with all natural materials – effective detailing and consideration of the material within a hollistic understanding of the building, is a crucial factor in the success, ease of contruction and overall cost of a hempcrete build.
We have dealt with many of the issues around Hempcrete design and detailing in The Hempcrete Book, but as the material becomes ever more widespread in the UK construction industry, with construction methods and specific hempcrete materials ever-evolving, many professionals choose to purchase a CPD training session to ensure that their whole team is kept up to date with the latest issues in hempcrete design.
To ask about CPD sessions for your practice, or discuss your team’s training needs, contact us.
We provide online CPD sessions for your practice or company. Delivered over Zoom, the timing of sessions is flexible to fit in with your team’s CPD timetable.
This general introductory session also serves as a good update for practices that may have been involved in hempcrete projects previously, but haven’t kept up with recent developments in the industry, or that have team members who have joined the team more recently, and haven’t worked with hempcrete.
This session follows our standard format – a zoom meeting, including:
- 45-minute (approx.) slide presentation
- Time for questions afterwards
READY TO BOOK A CPD? COMPLETE OUR CONTACT FORM AND WE'LL BE IN TOUCH.
If your practice is already engaged in, or actively considering, a hempcrete project, you may find one of our other services more useful:
A bespoke online presentation and /or discussion tailored to the needs of your team around a specific project or focusing on the particular aspect of hempcrete construction that is most relevant to your practice.
A flexible online workshop including live review and mark up of drawings, working out and sketching of robust details for your project, using the screen share, and annotation functions in Zoom.
We offer specialist hygrothermal modelling of your hempcrete building. This modelling is based on your expected occupancy patterns and local climate data and factors in the unique performance of hempcrete as a vapour open, hygroscopic, insulation-thermal mass fabric. This early-stage model is a critical part of the design process, since modelling hempcrete buildings based on U-value alone typically results in over-specification of fabric and/or M&E systems within the building.
A dynamic model specifically adapted for hempcrete allows the optimisation of the building fabric and M&E requirements to achieve optimally comfortable buildings within the constraints of the budget. It can also provide output data which describe the carbon sequestration of the hempcrete fabric, and operational carbon reductions to feed into a Whole Life Carbon assessment for the building, as well as demonstrating the economic savings available from the reduced requirement for heating, cooling & ventilation systems (capital savings at build stage), and operational savings from the very low energy requirements throughout the lifetime of the building.
We have found this information to be essential in ensuring that clients and consultant teams have a full understanding of the cost-, and carbon-benefits that hempcrete brings to a project. It enables them to build accurate cost models, and inputs into Whole Life Carbon assessments to evidence that the building meets the new net-zero requirements.
Interested in our modelling services? Get in contact to find out how we can help.
We can provide an early-stage feasibility study report to assess the potential use of hempcrete within your domestic or commercial project. Hempcrete can be applied in a number of different ways within the building, and which one is most appropriate depends on factors as diverse as the building type, scale of the project, internal and external finishes desired, and choice of contractor.
Based on your concept for the development, our team can assess a range options for the realising the project in hempcrete and other biobased construction materials, and comment on the suitability of each within the context of the building and site.
This feasibility report will include example options for wall, floor and roof build-ups, with U value calculations, and moisture risk analysis (in the context of your local climate data) for each build up.
It provides enough information on which to make early- stage fabric decisions/assumptions, allowing the design to progress to the stage where volumetrics are fixed, at which point more detailed dynamic modelling can be carried out.
Tell us more about your project using our contact form and we’ll be in touch.
We offer specialist hempcrete consultancy services on a “pay as you go” or retainer basis, to assist architects with the development of a project based on hempcrete and other bio-based construction materials, throughout the design process.
Our involvement can be requested at any RIBA work stage and might, for example, start with a small number of one-off sessions at concept or planning stage, and increase as required as the project progresses into technical design, and construction stages.
Our in-house design team, Studio Bio, is able to provide fees quotations for subcontractor design services at any RIBA stage of works, including specification and technical detailing of the hempcrete, and other bio-based elements in your building fabric., timber frame design and thermal and moisture calculations, including PSI calcs for the SAP.
Read more about our in-house design practice, Studio Bio, here.