Old buildings in Portugal were designed to breath. The humidity that's cold in winter and warm in summer either finds a way out of the buildings or causes mould and dampness and eventually erodes the building. The traditional building materials of dirt and stone with lime render and lime whitewash allowed the buildings "to breath" (ie: humidity to escape). The introducing of concrete as render had lots of benefits but it doesn't allow a wall to breath. A lot of repaired or re-rendered building have serious damp and mould issues due to this.
Hemp is an organic building material has only recently become available in Portugal. Having looked up the Irish companies supplying it and with the barns to be renovated I decided to remove the bulk of the concrete, strip the building walls back to the adobe structure (stone & mud), earthquake proof the building with new foundations, pillars and ring beams (concrete re enforced with steel) and build back the removed material the orginal size with breathable hemp.
After searching the internet we found a Portugese suppler (Canhamor) and also a friend nearby who had build a whole house from hemp from the same supplier.
In July we took delivery of the hemp brick and by mid September we were ready to start installing them.
We are also putting cork panel insulation into the building (floor and roof) to help with temperature management.
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