Hempcrete Workshop Lays Foundation to Build Industry and Community

Episode • May 2, 2024 • 1h 34m

This week’s podcast takes us to a hempcrete workshop in Barto, Pennsylvania.

That’s where Cameron McIntosh of Americhanvre Cast-Hemp hosted a four-day hands-on training session to teach the basics of the spray-applied method of hempcrete installation using the Ereasy system.

Training began Saturday morning at McIntosh’s shop at a farm in Berks County.

With a total of 14 participants and four assistant instructors, he said, “this is our single biggest training.”

Attendees traveled from around the country and the world, including Texas, North Carolina, Minnesota, California, and British Columbia.

Damien Baumer, who developed the Ereasy Spray-Applied system in 2014, traveled from his village in France to help McIntosh with the training.

Baumer said his system is not in wide use in France, but is used in many other European countries, and now has a strong footprint in America, thanks to McIntosh.

McIntosh’s company, Americhanvre (a mash-up of America and the French word for hemp, chanvre), is the authorized North America distributor of the Ereasy system, and there are now more Ereasy systems in use in America than in the inventor’s home country.

Baumer is happy to see the growth in America, and said through a translator, “Cameron’s a warrior who’s been fighting for the last three years to make this happen.”

Earlier this year, Americhanvre was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the U.S. Army for $1.9 million.

While the training isn’t directly related to the grant, McIntosh sees the connection.

The purpose of the SBIR program, he said, “is to commercialize your technology and your company, not only in the private sector, but also publicly.”

Attendees get more than basic instruction on how to run the spray machine.

“We also teach estimating and bidding. We teach accounting, we give the participants tools that they would need not only to run the system, but also to run a successful business around it,” McIntosh said.

The Ereasy system is simple in its design and function. Hemp hurds are mixed with lime and water in a hopper. That slurry is then pushed through tubes by a large air compressor while the lance operator sprays the wet hempcrete mixture at a wall or, in this case, an SIP panel, which can then be used in construction.

Attendees sprayed over 30 panels during the course of the workshop.

Denzel Sutherland Wilson traveled from Gitxsan Nation in north British Columbia.

“I came to learn how to spray hempcrete and just see if this would be something that could help us back where I come (from),” he said.

Wilson is from the community of Kispiox, which sits at the confluence of the Skeena and Kispiox rivers. It’s surrounded by mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

“We have a lot of poorly insulated and overcrowded houses and mold issues,” he said. “And this hemp seems like it could address a lot of issues in the housing realm.”

He also said he finds great inspiration from the work the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Minnesota is doing with hempcrete, where the tribe is building houses for community members in need.

Danny Desjarlais is the head builder at Lower Sioux and was on hand at the workshop to assist in the training.

Desjarlais and his team have built three hempcrete houses in the past year and they are gearing up to build more.

He sees hemp construction as a way to rebuild rural communities around the country.

“For any community that wants to give their community members jobs and even better homes or whatever product you’re going to make with it,” he said, “the potential for the jobs is there and the potential to take back your community.”

On this week’s podcast, we meet the people at the workshop. Why did they sign up? What did they learn? All that, plus a tour of a hempcrete house in Pottstown.

On this episode we talk to the following people:

Cameron McIntosh

Damien Baumer

Navid Hatfield

Danny Desjarlais

Tim Callahan

Henry Valles

Dani Baker

Denzel Sutherland Wilson

Cliff the Gardener

Tina Jones

John Price