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House Of Hemp
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Jan 2004
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2004 The Toronto Star
Contact: http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Roberta Avery, Special To The Star
HOUSE OF HEMP
Couple Built 4,500-Square-Foot Octagonal Home To Show Hemp's Versatility
Commercially Grown Hemp Means House Won't Get You High
Dalston, Ont .- Kelly Smith and Greg Herriott built their new home as an
homage to hemp.
The walls of Smith and Herriott's 4,500-square-foot house are filled with
hemp weed, the floor and ceiling beams are stained with hemp oil, the roof
is shingled with hemp composite and they plan to use hemp oil in the furnace.
But though their octagonal home has hemp at every turn, they won't be
getting high.
Like all commercially grown hemp, the weed grown at Herriott's Hempola
Valley Farm contains only the minutest traces of tetrahydrocannabinol or
THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
"We built the house because we wanted to show people that hemp is a
versatile product with a lot of applications," said Herriott.
Part of Hempola's mandate is to develop hemp products that our
environmentally friendly, so they incorporated that philosophy into the
building of their octagonal home, said Smith.
"We used natural products such as slate and bamboo and as much reclaimed
wood that we could get our hands on."
The focal point of the house is a 45-foot-tall white pine beam - stained
with hemp oil of course - that reaches from the basement through all three
storeys. From that central beam eight more beams fan out on each floor to
support the ceilings.
In a building technique similar to that used in straw homes, more than 400
bales of hemp weed were used to form the outer walls. The walls were then
secured with wire mesh, which was then parged with concrete and painted.
"I can tell you, painting all that concrete was a huge job," said Smith.
The result is a home "that breathes" while still maintaining an insulation
level of R42, said Smith.
Since the hemp weed is encased in concrete, it poses a very low fire risk,
she added.
To make the home more energy efficient, a glassed-in sunroom forms an
envelope on the west and south sides of the building.
"It works very well when we get sun," said Smith.
Herriott installed a regular oil furnace but is working on developing
heating oil from the oil squeezed from hemp seeds.
"In theory it should work very well, even in a house furnace," said Smith.
The couple used reclaimed doors, reclaimed hemlock for the floors and
bamboo compressed into strips that resemble hardwood flooring for the stairs.
All the natural wood in the home, including the reclaimed elm in the
breakfast bar, is stained with hemp oil, and the board and batten that
covers some of the exterior is also stained with hemp oil.
The Enviro Shakes used for the roof are a composite of hemp and recycled
tires and carry a 50-year warranty.
The couple's budget was $300,000 for the three-bedroom, three-bath home,
built on 20 hectares near the village of Dalston, about 15 kilometres north
of Barrie, but their determination to make the house both environmentally
friendly and luxurious led to some serious overruns.
Smith estimates that even though they have done much of the work
themselves, the home has cost more than $570,000 so far.
"And we're not totally finished yet," she said.
Some of the luxury features include a two-person Jacuzzi in the
master-bedroom ensuite and large windows on the third floor that give a
spectacular 360-degree panorama of the rolling hills that surround the
property.
The third-floor room is used as Herriott's office, but Smith doesn't rule
out making it into a stunning master suite.
Herriott and Smith started Canada's first commercial hemp farm in 1998.
They grow, manufacture and market hemp seed and hemp seed oil products
through national distributors throughout Canada and the United States.
Hempola, which also contracts farmers to grow hemp on 160 hectares of
farmland in southwestern Ontario, has about 30 product lines, including
hemp oil salad dressing, high-protein pancake mix, lip balm and hemp oil
used as a wood finish.
With much of the Dalston farm turned over to research and development of
hemp crops, they had to buy most of the bales of hemp weed they needed for
the building, at about $5 a bale.
"That's about twice the cost of buying regular straw for house building.
But when you own a hemp company, you don't want to use anything else," said
Herriott.
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