Hemcrete Projects – part of the Lime Technology Group – has produced two bespoke literature pieces in support of its innovative and advanced, low-carbon prefabricated building systems – Hembuild and Hemclad.
Coinciding with the success that Hemcrete Projects’ has enjoyed across a number of industry awards recently, the new six-page brochures have been produced to detail the suitability of the systems for either the self-build or commercial offsite sectors.
Hembuild is a structural wall panel system that is used in low-rise buildings. Hemclad is the cladding version of Hembuild® and is used alongside a primary structural frame for larger commercial buildings.
As Hemcrete Projects Technical Director and Vice Chairman, Ian Pritchett states: “Our Hemclad system alone has attracted industry-wide acclaim recently, having enjoyed success by winning the Sustainability category at the Museum & Heritage Awards, and both the Workplace Newbuild and Leisure & Retail Greenbuild Awards.
"The system also took top spot at the CIOB/CESW South West Built Environment Wards within the Innovation category. What’s more, with the popularity of Hembuild increasing amongst private individuals looking to create their own bespoke homes, it is our intention to drive home the major benefits that can be enjoyed when building using either system. Indeed the new literature pieces will help convey this.”
Available in printed format or as downloadable pdfs at www.hemcreteprojects.co.uk, the literature serves to detail the key system benefits of the Hembuild® and Hemclad, not to mention their technical performance characteristics and the service package that Hemcrete Projects is capable of providing, from panel design and engineering to manufacture and installation.
Developed to deliver highly sustainable and energy efficient buildings, Hembuild and Hemclad represent the ultimate in truly sustainable building systems. This comes about as both options are based around a bio-composite building material made from hemp shiv (the woody core of industrial hemp) mixed with a lime-based binder – Tradical® Hemcrete. This product, when used in conjunction with equally efficient hemp fibre insulation quilt, Breathe, delivers a groundbreaking combination of insulation and thermal inertia.
Building using these systems creates a substantial smoothing out of temperatures, thus reducing peak loads and the capital costs of an M&E system. The building fabric partially takes over the regulation of the internal conditions using the passive properties of Hemcrete, instead of using the active properties of the M&E system. This creates the potential for reducing capital and running costs, both of which can be modelled by Hemcrete Projects Ltd.
As Ian Pritchett adds: “We have now built quite a few Hembuild® and Hemclad buildings that are delivering reduced energy bills – on average a third to a quarter of the running cost of a conventional new building. And what’s even more exciting is that the post-occupancy data that is in the process of being collated is pointing to even greater savings moving forwards, such is the inherent efficiency of the systems themselves.”
In addition to exceeding expectations based on conventional steady state U-values and standard thermal modelling, the panelised systems tick the main sustainability and environmental boxes, as both are negative embodied carbon products. This arises due to hemp capturing carbon dioxide during its rapid growth, whilst releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. The carbon is then locked up within the walls of the building to give a carbon negative solution, which is suitable of receiving a variety of cladding systems that are available with a range of sustainable and breathable finishes, including wood fibre board and render.
Concluding, Pritchett said: “These are two high performance offsite systems that are not only cost-effective at delivering economic construction costs, whole of life costs are also considerably reduced. Both Hembuild and Hemclad are tried and tested whether in relation to the self-build or commercial arena, and across a wide variety of building styles.”
