PA-based Americhanvre co-owner Cameron McIntosh will partner to study fire-resistance, thermal performance and life cycle analysis of hempcrete administering a $1.9M US Army SBIR Phase II grant. Photo courtesy of Americhanvre

By Jean Lotus

The US Army awarded a $1.9M grant to a Pennsylvania-based hemp-lime building company to partner with research institutions to study the fire resistance, thermal insulation value and carbon footprint of “hempcrete” in construction.

Allentown, PA-based Americhanvre Cast Hemp announced Wednesday that the company was awarded a Small Business Innovation and Research Phase II award under the Army’s Sustainable Building Materials open-topic solicitation.

The grant will help promote testing that will help all hempcrete builders and to make it easier to build large-scale projects, said co-founder Cameron McIntosh, who, with wife Melissa McIntosh, started Americhanvre in 2018.

“The tests we’re doing with this grant money will be able to be used or cited in the work that is to come to get hempcrete into commercial code applications,” McIntosh told HempBuild Mag.

Dr. Matt Willis, director of the Army Prize Competitions and the Army SBIR Program said in a statement, “The Sustainable Building Materials open-topic solicitation provides a valuable opportunity to connect the Army SBIR Program with firms that do not typically apply for SBIR awards […] this solicitation leverages new developments in the field of low-logistics structural materials to tackle the carbon-intensive aspect of military operations.”

“This is proof positive that the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army have taken their own carbon footprint seriously as the single largest real-estate holder in the DoD,” Americhanvre said in a statement. “The U.S. Army has also acknowledged the role that biogenic insulation materials, such as hempcrete, may have in reducing that carbon footprint.”

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*Hempcrete is sprayed with the Ereasy Spray Applied hempcrete system. Photo courtesy of Americhanvre*

More than 30 Projects in the United States

Since 2021, Americhanvre has applied hempcrete insulation to more than 30 residential and commercial structures using the French Ereasy Spray Applied Hempcrete system, which McIntosh licenses and distributes in the United States. The system was designed by Damien Baumer of the Baumer Ereasy Company in Malbrans, France.

Some of those projects, with the permission of the owners, will become testing grounds for the research Americhanvre will conduct with partners.

In-Field Insulation Thermal Testing

Penn State University’s Pennsylvania Housing Research Center (PHRC) led by Dr. Ali Memari, has been monitoring the temperature, indoor air quality and moisture of a Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture funded low-income housing project in New Castle, PA known as Project PA Hemp Home, insulated with spray-applied Ereasy hempcrete.

New research will expand this in-field monitoring to six other US hempcrete structures insulated by Americhanvre, McIntosh said. The tests will capture long-term moisture and temperature data to measure in-field thermal resistance. These will include hemp-insulated homes built in colder temperature zones, such as the Lower Sioux’s Ereasy-insulated hempcrete houses in Morton, MN.

Americhanvre has already performed the ASTM’s C 518 thermal R-value testing on Ereasy sprayed hempcrete, showing an R-value of 2.2 per inch.

“We are replicating some of the test results approved for building codes in Europe,” McIntosh said.
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*Hemp lime insulation is applied in the Project PA Hemp Home in New Castle, PA. Photo courtesy of DON Services*

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Life Cycle Assessment

Americhanvre will also partner with Hudson, NY-based Hudson Carbon, led by Ben Dobson, to perform life-cycle-assessments on multiple hempcrete-insulated homes. Capturing “robust” data on the carbon footprint of Ereasy spray-applied hempcrete will help Americhanvre establish an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), the company said.

Fire Resistance

Through the grant, Americhanvre will perform the ASTM E-119 fire-resistance tests on multiple examples of hemp-lime wall assembly using the services of international testing company Intertek in York, PA. The material is expected to yield a 1-hour fire rating for various wall assembly details, based on similar tests completed in Europe.

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McIntosh said upcoming grant research has been modeled to test hemp-lime on the four exact wall assemblies described in a new appendix in the International Code Council’s International Residential Code released this year. McIntosh was one of the hempcrete experts who co-wrote the IRC code submitted by the US Hemp Building Association.

“We’re installing the Ereasy hempcrete so each of our research tasks is harmonious with the four proposed wall details in the IRC for installing any kind of hempcrete, whether it’s spray-applied, or cast-in-place or blocks,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh said his goal with the testing is to make results and data sharable so other hempcrete builders in the industry can cite them for hempcrete projects, “just like we have used data from Europe when meeting with building code officials.”

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The company credited the help of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the PA Hemp Industry Council and US Hemp Building Associations (where Cameron served as a former board member) and the Washington DC-based National Hemp Association.

The McIntoshes have made it their goal to “legitimize the material, hempcrete, in such a way that it can take its place as a sustainable, carbon sequestering and, ultimately, viable alternative to toxic and carbon intensive contemporary insulation materials,” the company said.

“This award stands as a testament to the unwavering determination of [Americhanvre] founders Cameron and Melissa McIntosh, who fearlessly embraced the challenge of submitting this complex application,” said NHA Chairman Geoff Whaling in a statement. “Their dedication and ability exemplify the spirit of innovation and resilience that defines the hemp industry.”

This article has been amended to include a quote from National Hemp Association chairman Geoff Whaling.