Stacking Up with Renewabuild Great Plains

About this episode

The episode features an interview with Ken Meyer discussing the innovation of structural hempcrete blocks and their manufacturing in the U.S.

This week on the show we talk with Ken Meyer of Complete Hemp Processing in Winfred, South Dakota. As of last week, Meyer is also a co-founder of Renewabuild Great Plains — the first U.S.-licensed manufacturer of structural hempcrete blocks. We've been telling the story of these structural blocks for a long time on the podcast. We first encountered them back in 2019 — they look like giant Lego blocks and work much the same way — at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, where the Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council had them on display. Back then, the blocks were made by a Canadian company called Just BioFiber in Alberta. Today, the technology is licensed and administered by another Canadian company, Renewabuild Field to Form, which has made improvements to the original design of the block. The structural hemp blocks differ from traditional hempcrete construction because their internal frame makes them load-bearing in a way that spray-applied or cast-in-place hempcrete cannot offer. "It has a frame inside it. It's a glass-filled biocarbonate frame ... and then the hempcrete is pressed around it," Meyer said. "And that frame provides a structure in the wall. So that makes the block a…

People in this episode

Host: Eric Hurlock

Guest: Ken Meyer

Topics covered

• hemp processing
• sustainable construction
• hempcrete technology
• renewable materials
• manufacturing innovation

Keywords

• hempcrete
• sustainable building
• structural blocks
• renewable materials
• Complete Hemp Processing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Complete Hemp Processing, Renewabuild Great Plains, Renewabuild Field to Form, Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council

Products: structural hempcrete blocks, hempcrete

Places: Winfred, South Dakota, Rock Valley, Iowa, Alberta

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