Building a Hempcrete Home in Vermont: Lessons Learned and Rewards Reaped

I’ve thought many times that a self build is as much about personal development as it is house construction. We owner builders have to learn to adapt, deal with frustration, and reframe mishap. The reward of course, is a beautiful original natural home. The following story is a super example of a couple who did all this and finally reaped the reward.

The Natural Home Dream
Susan and David decided to build a new house on the 275-acre Vermont farm Susan grew up on. They didn’t want a classic box home. The house was to reflect the way they'd always lived: close to the land, organically, with as light a footprint as possible. What they got was all of that, as well as a crash course in the importance of timing, trust, and the right people. Welcome to the world of the owner builder, he he he.

Susan and David's hempcrete home

Choosing the Right Materials
Susan had dreamed of a cob house since her twenties, but Vermont's climate (temperatures swinging from the mid-30s Celsius in summer to -26 degrees in winter, with five months of hard frost and relentless freeze-thaw cycles) rendered that particular dream impractical.

I love how Susan and David carefully considered each alternative material: straw bale (rot and rodent risk), stone (too cold), cordwood (too rustic), Earthships (too dark), and aircrete (better suited to warmer, drier climates). Finally one day, Susan read a book about hemp. One chapter on hempcrete clinched it:

"It's natural, earth-based, has an R-value of 0.18 per centimetre, and provides thermal mass," Susan explains. "It's fireproof, insect-proof, waterproof, rodent-proof, and rot-proof." For a couple already maintaining six other dwellings and a large historic barn complex, low maintenance wasn't a luxury. It was a necessity.

This is a timber frame structure encased in hempcrete.

The Structure
The house is at its core a timber frame structure. That frame is encased in hempcrete (which was cast in forms). The finished walls are 30cm thick.

The interior is finished in lime plaster painted with Keim mineral paint. Outside, wood clapboards have been treated with pine tar and raw linseed oil. The roof is shingled with Euroshield tiles made from 98% recycled tyres creating a lifetime roof with a 50-year warranty that keeps an estimated 300 to 600 tyres out of landfill per house.

This is a very considered and beautiful project, and the result is stunning.

Choosing the Right Builders
This is where the story gets complicated... and instructive. The project began with a friend who had built his own hempcrete house and initially agreed to build theirs. When the friend moved on to other work, Susan turned to two brothers who'd worked on their farm for years. The brothers attended a hempcrete workshop and dived into the project with enthusiasm. Unfortunately the motivation didn't last. After a year of stop-and-go progress and mounting frustration, it became clear they were in over their heads.

In the end, Susan called in Jeff Joslin, an experienced contractor known for restoring traditional New England farmhouses. His assessment was swift: he found so many serious problems that he fired the brothers on the spot, took over the project, and transformed what could have been a catastrophe into a beautiful home. It cost a significant sum to put right, but the house stands as proof of what the right person, at the right moment, can salvage.

"Find a good, trustworthy builder," Susan says simply. "Take the time to do that. Good, trustworthy help will save countless time, tears, and money."
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Very good advice. Here’s my take on this: With some building techniques (earthbag or cob) you can feasibly do what I did, and build without experience. But when a timber frame and a lot of size is involved, just surfing Google and hoping for the best is asking for trouble.

Right Timing
Every seed has a time to flower. Most people miss the boat in life because they procrastinate to death, refuse to leap and their seed rots in the ground for want of a push. For Susan it was the opposite. It wasn’t the unconventional nature of Susan’s project that was an issue. The build coincided with the Covid years. Contractors were nearly impossible to find, supplies were scarce, prices were inflated. I hear ya Susan. I was in the same boat, and the endless stops and starts were excruciating.

"Had we waited until building contractors were more available and supplies easier to get, everything probably would have been far easier."

Stunning interior features

The Best Features?
I love asking people what their favourite feature of their self built/designed house is, because you get some very interesting answers.
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Ask Susan what she loves most about the finished house and the answer comes quickly: the light.

Every room is lit by large windows on at least two sides, and two hallways are illuminated by solar tubes pulling daylight down from the roof. Artificial lighting is rarely needed before dark. The mineral paint shifts in tone through the hours and seasons: pale and cool in morning, warm and golden by afternoon.
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Beyond the light, she loves the quiet those thick walls provide, and the clean, earthy smell of the house itself. And on a January morning when it's -10°C outside, she loves most of all the views through those big windows.

Susan loves the light

​What we can learn from this project:
1. Timing is everything. Too slow? You miss the boat. Too impatient? Things get bodged and you reap masses of frustration.
2. When it comes to timber frame structures and larger roofs, unless you are already pretty practical/experienced you’d be well advised to hire a competent professional. Not all builders in the trade are competent (as is true for any profession out there).
3. There is a big difference between a handy man/woman and a specialist. Electricians, roofers, carpenters and joiners are specialists in what they do.
4. No matter how long it takes, what method is used, or how much frustration experienced, everyone who builds their own home loves their creation.

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