Social media and the DIY movement have contributed to the growing popularity
of natural building materials, eco-friendly products, improved air quality, and healthy homes.
Hemp is at the forefront of this movement. It is the oldest domesticated crop in the world
and can be traced back to 8000 BC. Unfortunately, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 that was meant to
fight rampant use of drugs, also blacklisted hemp. Marijuana has psychoactive properties due to its
high THC or tetrahydrocannabinol content. However, hemp has none of those properties
since its THC content is less than 0.3%. After 1937, hemp sales were heavily taxed
which led to the decline of the hemp industry. The timing of the Tax bill is very suspicious, because
it directly helped the emerging plastic and nylon industries gain significant market share. I’ll
save those conspiracy theories for a different video.
Anyway, the Farm Bill of 2018, finally legalized hemp and all its derivatives. This has led to the
creation of exciting new products like HempWood, or as people like to call it, WeedWood.
Full length fiber hemp stalks arrive from farmers in bales or rolls. The bales are separated and
crushed to make them more flexible. Next they are spread evenly on a mesh. The roll of hemp
stalks is submerged in a proprietary, all-natural soy-based adhesive. After saturation, the hemp
stalks are spread on racks and placed into a dryer to lower the moisture content. After drying, the
stalks are weighed into portions. and compressed under 3,000 tons of pressure into 5.5 x 5.5 x
72” steel molds. These blocks are baked in an oven until the catalyst in the glue is activated,
which makes the blocks solid. Now that's a good use of a shipping container.
Hempwood can be turned into lumber, woodturning blanks, 4x8 panels, picture frames, guitars,
and furniture like lamps, tables and cabinets. One of the most popular HempWood
products is tongue and groove flooring. The blocks are sliced down to 1/8” thick hemp veneer
and then pressed on a ½” plywood. The result is a very stable 5/8” thick engineered tongue and
groove flooring in 3 options: unfinished, natural, and bourbon. Hempwood can either be rift sawn,
which has a vertical linear pattern that resembles traditional lumber or plain sawn, which has a more
sporadic pattern. Because plain sawn is along the grain, it is harder than rift sawn hempwood.
Hempwood must be treated like high quality, solid hardwood floors. Vapor barriers are
essential because it is susceptible to moisture. This flooring can be installed on plywood or OSB
subfloors with a standard nail gun. You can also install this as a floating floor
as long as you use waterproof wood glue on all four sides. Gluing them down to a concrete slab
is tricker for 3 reasons. First, the lack of a vapor barrier under a concrete slab
will draw moisture from the ground and ruin these planks. Secondly, if a new concrete floor isn’t
fully cured it can have residual moisture that causes adhesives to fail. Thirdly,
adding a toxic adhesive to a non-toxic hemp floor defeats the purpose of investing
in a healthier, more sustainable option. If you plan on gluing these, you might want to
look into zero VOC floor adhesives. There are so many things to love about
this product. It is an excellent alternative to hardwood because it grows faster, it is denser
and harder. Oak trees take 50-100 years to mature while hemp is transformed from seed to lumber in
just 150 days, 100 times faster. Oak also has a density of 40-50 lbs/ft3 while hempwood has
a density of 60 lbs/ft3. Janka hardness test measures the resistance of a sample of wood to
denting and wear. Oak has a Janka hardness of 1300 lbf while Hempwood has a janka hardness of
2000 lbf, almost as hard as Brazilian cherry wood. It is 25% harder than hickory, oak, or maple.
Hempwood is a very versatile and durable material that can easily replace furniture
grade lumber. It doesn’t scratch easily and it can be sanded and refinished.
Hemp is considered to be an eco-friendly material because it sequesters more
carbon than trees do. A hemp plot absorbs 4 times more carbon than a forest of the same
size. By the time it’s harvested, a hectare of hemp will have taken in about 22 tons of
carbon. While
hemp stalks are naturally flammable, hempwood flooring is so densely compressed,
it has a low, class B fire rating. It is much more resistant to fire than softwood pine.
Most importantly, it is free of formaldehyde and VOCs. I spoke to Greg Wilson, founder of HempWood,
who used his knowledge from the bamboo and flooring industry to create this sustainable
hardwood alternative. Greg said that the flooring industry has conveniently stopped using
“formaldehyde” in their marketing and switched to “phenolic resin” even though they are the same
thing. Cheap, water-proof vinyl products are made from a variety of chemicals that off-gas. The VOCs
or volatile organic compounds they emit can cause headaches, nausea, nose and throat irritation,
etc. In large quantities, they can have more serious health effects like damage to our
kidneys, liver or central nervous system. Of course, using healthy materials comes
at a cost which is why large flooring manufacturers choose cheap alternatives.
Hempwood uses PureBond plywood for their flooring, which is 20% more expensive
than imported plywood. They also use a soy based adhesive that costs $.2.60 a pound,
compared to phenolic formaldehyde that costs 17 cent a pound. Their unfinished flooring costs $8
per sq ft while the finished versions are $10 per sq ft. A 4x8 sheet of hempwood is $240.
Hey guys, just a quick interruption. This is an unpaid and unbiased review but in the process
of making this video, I got so excited about this product and company that I asked them if I could
be a part of their affiliate program. So, I’ll provide an affiliate link in the description to
their website. If you have any questions about pricing or ordering materials, just leave me a
comment below and send me an email. It’s a little expensive, but the quality of the wood is so much
better than the cheap alternatives that off-gas. Also, this is a new business. As they scale up and
automate the production process, their prices willaud come down. Ok, back to the video.
Hempwood is susceptible to water and moisture, so it’s a higher maintenance product than vinyl
flooring. Humidity must be in the range of 35-55% at all times in a room. You should never steam mop
or wet mop the floor surface. You cannot use wax, oil, soap only hardwood floor cleaners. Also, you
must use an oil based stain, not water based because it can cause the hempwood to swell.
It is not a DIY friendly product like other click-lock flooring. You can’t cut this with
a box cutter or even an ordinary blade because it is so dense. The manufacturers go through 2
carbide tipped saw blades a day because the material is so strong.
The company seems to hire very resourceful people if they can’t find a machine,
they simply repurpose existing machines, or build it themselves. They converted old
tobacco drying machines into hemp drying ones. They converted a shipping container into a
kiln. They built a bioburner that burns all the waste hemp and heats up glycol or antifreeze.
This burners feeds the ovens, dryers and kilns, so they are essentially running a
zero carbon operation. Also, they sell hemp saw dust to the HempPlastic company.
I am so inspired by this product and this company. It’s truly made in America. They source all their
materials from within a 100 mile radius of their factory in Murray, Kentucky. This is not a Silicon
Valley company that makes false claims. They don’t call this the Tesla Roadster of building materials
that’s going to solve homelessness.They have a realistic, long term vision. I asked Greg WIlson
what the future of hempwood is, and he said that this is a specialty product,
not a staple product. It will always be a single percentage entity
and will never replace pine wood. Building a house purely out of hempwood is not cost-effective,
nor does it make sense. Driving nails into this dense, hard material is daunting.
RIght now, HempWood is not intended for structural use.This
is just an eco-friendly, sustainably sourced, American-made flooring and furniture alternative
for both commercial and residential applications.
Let me know if you’re as excited as I am to see hemp products like these hit the market after
decades of suppression. I’ll link my Patreon page in the description. If you can support me,
I’d really appreciate it. A big thank you to everyone already supporting me. Don’t
forget to hit the like button and subscribe to my channel. Thanks for watching. See ya.