Hempcrete And Sustainable Construction With Mattie Meade

Speaker 0 00:00 The ministry of him. Podcast is brought to you by life patent purveyors of high quality CBD products. That just happened to be one of our favorite brands too. They care very deeply about their customers because when it comes down to it, life patent understands their customers are people seeking relief. You can learn more about the entire line of CBD related products at life. patent.com Speaker 1 00:22 <inaudible>. Speaker 2 00:26 Welcome to episode 24 of the ministry of him podcast. My name is Matt balm and I am your host and folks. This is the final show of 2019 today on the show we are going to continue our theme of hemp as an alternative. Last time you might remember I spoke to Morris Beegle from, we need a better alternative about him woods and him plastics. Today we're going to talk with Maddie Mead from MPAA texture and they are working with a very exciting concrete alternative called, you guessed it, hemp hempcrete. We'll get into all of that in just a minute, but first with this being the final show of the year and all, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at hemp the year in review, 2019 Speaker 1 01:10 <inaudible>, Speaker 0 01:21 you've probably heard me talk about it plenty of times on this show, but as I'm sure you know, 2018 we saw the U S farm bill that essentially legalized the growing of hemp in the United States and it made 2019 a very exciting year for him. 2019 marked the first American legal harvest of hemp in the U S and with that came a spike in interest in the plant itself. Not just received BD, but like we've been talking about alternatives in construction alternatives in fabric alternatives. In paper we saw the hemp market hit $1 billion. We saw CEOs of hemp companies popping up on Forbes 30 under 30 list that they put out every year. There's been a lot of new studies released showing that CBD really is helping people with things like pain and anxiety and homeostasis, which we are finding out is more important than ever. And with that we've seen the rise of thousands of new CBD based shops open by small business owners who are doing the hard work and making sure that they are stocking good products that come from good hemp farmers. Speaker 0 02:32 We saw famous sports athletes speaking up and saying they want to make CBD part of their recovery regimen and with that a CBD sponsorship for a major sports women's soccer championship game that was on television. All in all, it was a great year for him, but there's still some problems too though. We saw Washington bring the da and to work with hemp legislation and we've got some fights there that will be fought, but 2020 is looking pretty bright to the hemp industry daily, which is a great website if you haven't checked it out. Dropped an article on December 11th about the five business takeaways from the 2019 hemp industry daily forum where they brought in several huge names in the hemp business and they had a lot of very positive things to say for the market going forward in 2020 obviously there is a huge CBD bubble right now and if it is going to continue to grow, one of the conclusions that they came to is the price is going to have to come down making it more available to everyone and that is going to happen now that we're seeing more hemp in production legally in the States. Speaker 0 03:43 The fiber market for him is showing real potential as well Speaker 0 03:48 as textile producers. Learn more about how hemp can be incorporated into materials they are already working with. That market is going to explode and it looks like some predictions are saying the market next year could grow by as much as 25 to $50 million. Basically. There is no end in sight for the hemp marketplace, but we need to make sure that we are still getting the right messages out there, that we are still doing this the right way and we are educating not just the public but the business sector that is going to go into this because they are the ones that are going to lobby Washington to let them do this the right way. Hemp has made a lot of progress in 2019 more probably than in the last 50 years here in the States anyway, but it's up to us to make 2020 an even better year. So keep preaching the word, get out there and express your interest for him. Products. Look for people that are doing it the right way and you can always do that. And ministry of him.com Speaker 1 04:49 <inaudible> Speaker 0 04:58 now let's get to my interview with Maddie, Mead of hemp, a texture Speaker 1 05:03 <inaudible>. Speaker 0 05:07 Now Matty, one of the things that you guys are famous for is hemp creed, right? And we'll get into that. But first I want to know, how does someone, like you find their way to this kind of company working with hemp in an industrial sense? Where'd you come from? What's your origin story? Speaker 3 05:23 That's a great question and I love telling that story because it's rooted back to my time as an architecture student. Um, in 2012, 2013, I was finishing my architectural studies degree at Hobart and William Smith colleges, which is a liberal arts college in upstate New York, about 2,500 students. So yeah, pretty small, but kind of cool thing about going to <inaudible> a small school like that, especially with a liberal arts focus is kinda get to, you know, learn a lot of different subjects and kinda like really a diverse education. And when I went to college, uh, I was not initially intending to go to school for architecture, but my whole life I had, you know, kinda been a creative eye. Kindergarten onward. It was very much so interested in the arts. And, um, my first semester of college, uh, I didn't have any art related courses. And this was after, you know, four years of high school where I was in the advanced placement art program and spent a lot of my time working in different mediums. Speaker 3 06:27 So my first semester of college I didn't have any art courses and I was like, wow, something is really missing for me here. And I became interested in the architecture program there and you know, I kind of viewed architecture as a practical application of art. Absolutely. Yeah. Artists. But, um, I didn't see myself as, you know, being a career artist, um, you know, trying to make it that way and architecture just seemed like something that was kind of an extension of my creative desires. So, um, I enrolled in this architecture program and it truly was life changing for me. I have really Mmm, incredible professors and teachers around me. Um, but really where the HEPA texture story begins, it was while I was studying architecture, I kinda got on a fast track with, with that program, which allowed me to sort of diversify and expand my education. Speaker 3 07:27 And I undertook a, a minor in environmental sciences. And so kind of in, you know, the split education where it's like spending part of my time in environmental sciences, part of my time in architecture and kind of add the sort of light bulb moment where, you know, I, I was thinking about, you know, we consider the natural world, you know, it's like own entity and then in the world of architecture we okay consider the built environment separately. And it's not that common or often that we really think about the relationship between the built environment in the natural world. We kind of do some pose the built environment on the natural world and you know, hope it meets our needs. And, and I suppose that's true if you look at all the glass and steel everywhere. Yeah. We just sort of dropped buildings, right? You need to go not where they should go. Right? Yeah, exactly. And there was a one specific statistic that, I mean I still share to this day, um, and that statistic was that buildings and their operations are responsible for 40% of our domestic carbon footprint and approximately 40% of our domestic energy consumption. That is the way that we design and build, Oh, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do anything. Or we'll do very little about sort of problems with a sustainability in our built environment. Right. 40%. That is a huge chunk too. We're not talking like a little sliver. That's Speaker 4 08:56 massive. Speaker 3 08:57 It actually, yeah, it actually makes up more, uh, of the domestic energy share. Then the transportation industry, um, which was just fascinating. You think about all the planes, trains, uh, cars on the road. The co two footprint from those is less then the operation of our built environment, that CO2 footprint that, that creates. Speaker 4 09:22 So this, so getting into this sort of pushed you into this ecological mindset basically when you started to discover these things. Speaker 3 09:30 Absolutely. It pushed me into this ecological mindset and my senior year I had a little bit of, um, uh, I guess flexibility in, in how I was able to, um, you know, continue my senior year because I'll taking care of a lot of my sort of undergraduate requirements. So I decided to do a thesis, Bobby and that thesis study and I titled the contemporary relevance of earth architecture. So now this time I'd never even heard of him Creek. I had not even, you know, slight bit of awareness of it, but actually what was fascinating to me was, um, uh, vernacular archetypes. So you know, wattle and Daub, cob, rammed earth, straw bale, which, you know, are used in various different parts of the world. Speaker 4 10:18 Okay. Real quick, I don't know what any of that is. Well, what are we talking about there? Speaker 3 10:25 They're all different styles of national building techniques. So ran earth is essentially using, um, you know, a specific kind of clay based soil and compacting it with great pressure and forming walls out of, you know, earth. So, Speaker 4 10:42 okay, sure. Speaker 3 10:43 New Mexico, you know, kind of Speaker 4 10:46 Doby buildings. Speaker 3 10:48 Totally, totally. That kind of archetype. Okay. And in my research I learned about hemp lime hempcrete, uh, being used and France, uh, primarily the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands. And when I discovered that, it was this moment of like, Oh my gosh, this is what this, this is exciting to me. And I want to pursue this <inaudible> cross most importantly, what a mist opportunity for the United States. Speaker 4 11:23 How long ago was this? I'm just curious, how long ago was this when you, when you first discovered it? Speaker 3 11:29 Yeah, so that was 2012 and 2013. Speaker 4 11:34 And how long had they been working with this stuff in Europe at that point? Speaker 3 11:39 Oh gosh. For, for over a decade at least. Um, and there is now evidence of Speaker 3 11:47 a hump based building materials going back, uh, thousands of years. There was a, the Moscow world heritage site discovered, no, I want to say in India. Mmm. That uh, they excavated, they found hemp based building materials used in a temple of sorts. Um, so there might be even a bigger history, um, to, you know, the use of hemp and lime as a building material or hemp in general as a building material. Um, but what really kind of got my gears turning was this sort of like more modern day present use of hemp lime in, uh, these European countries. Speaker 0 12:29 Sure. Okay. And from there, that's what gives you the push to start hemp a texture. Am I saying that right? Speaker 3 12:36 Yup. It's like hemp architecture. Texture. Yeah. So that, that was really the, the crux point of founding and protector. Mmm. And I, I kind of remember Mmm. The day that I, uh, came up with that name, I was in the car with, um, my entrepreneurial mentor. Mmm. Who actually was an alumni alumnus of the college that I went to and I was interning for him one summer, actually my junior year started my senior year interning for him and, uh, I said to him in the car, said, baby, hear me out, hemp architecture <inaudible> texture. And he goes, Oh, <inaudible> that's good. You need to write that down. Write that down. Speaker 0 13:25 Did anybody ask you if you're insane when you were like, when you first started and told people like, this is what I want to do. I want to, I want to go into building buildings or building materials made of hemp. Did anyone say you're crazy? Like Speaker 3 13:39 they said, they said I was beyond crazy to quote your word insane. Yeah. It's, um, I mean early on, uh, there was so much pushback. Also, I think it's important to kind of contextualize where I was. Uh, and it's interesting to consider that now. So at the time I was in upstate New York, um, and you know, East coast, I lived there. I'm born and raised in East coast. I love the East coast, but slightly less progressive than some other places in the United States. So I feel like perhaps had I been in Colorado, if it would have been like right on, Speaker 0 14:15 yeah, Speaker 3 14:18 you're out of your mind. This is never going to happen. Hence net, you're talking about building homes from a substance that is on it's federally illegal, it's on the controlled substances act, right? You're out of your mind Speaker 0 14:32 or at least importing materials that are going to be so expensive that the beginning of your cost starts way higher than someone that's just going to go rip rocks out of the ground and crush them up. Right, Speaker 3 14:44 right, right. And you know, it was, it was tough for me because I was so optimistic and gung ho on making this my reality and it wasn't about me. It was about the, the potential impact that this venture could have from both a, a sustainability standpoint, but also from a societal benefits standpoint. You know, once I learned about the health benefits of it and like how people whom are living in hemp based homes, they feel better, they're healthier, they're exposed to less toxins. I really saw this as an idea that could have, could have been, could've been an impetus for good. So the nay Sayers were, it was disappointing to me, but it never, why determine me enough to totally step away. Although I will say that there was definitely, you know, some times that were, it was questionable whether or not I would move forward. Speaker 0 15:41 So let me ask you, now that hemp is legal and we're growing him in the United States, is it easier? Are people saying, Oh man, that's a great idea. Are they, are they singing a different tune? Do you know, are they still like good luck kid? Speaker 3 15:55 Hmm. Yeah. You know, I think it's been a slow sort of transition and revolution, um, in how people conceptualize and think of industrial hemp. Um, so my senior year of college, I was promoting this con concept and business plan competition. And I was going in front of venture capital judges. I should promote him. Um, a product concept. It wasn't like, Hey, I want to go out there and build buildings. It was a, it was a material concept for creating an interlocking insulating building blocks that could go together. Just like Legos. Speaker 0 16:35 Yeah. Health basically Speaker 3 16:38 out there on the market, you know, early on, grabbed her mind, you're crazy. And then, you know, if you say it's all good adopting industrial hemp regulation and then the chair to become a little bit more normalized and now you flash forward to today where the farm bill was passed 2018 and now New York and the Northeast is a region that's actually leading the industrial hemp bio economy. I mean, they're doing a lot in <inaudible>. Speaker 0 17:06 All of a sudden they're paying attention. <inaudible> huh? Speaker 3 17:11 Yeah, yeah. And, and so it's kinda funny to like look back and see, you know, the same place that I was um, you know, five, six years ago, um, kind of like saying no, this is never going to happen is now like where it actually is happening. But there's still so much further that we have to go four this to really become a United States industry and we're, we're really still just at the start, especially with the farm bill passing, you know, in 2018 Speaker 0 17:46 we'll be right back with more of my interview with Maddie Mead from hemp texture but first word from our sponsor. Before we move along, I am super excited to introduce you to our first sponsor for the ministry of him podcast life patents, the full line of high quality and responsibly source CBD products. Life patent offers relief from pain, anxiety, and even some help getting to sleep. They even offer a CBD tincture for dogs. And personally I have a pug with a nerve issue that was causing pain and she was shaking like crazy and I found giving her a CBD tincture with her meals has helped her stop shaking and reduced her pain quite a bit. 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Let's talk about how do you make hempcrete, I mean, obviously you're not just pulling a plant out of the ground, grinding it up. I mean, what, what goes into it, what part of the plant will using, how do you guys do this? Speaker 3 19:44 Okay. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so hempcrete is a bio composite. Um, that's a fancy word for saying <inaudible>. Uh, more than one natural based <inaudible> that are combined together. So we're using the wooden core, the industrial hemp stock, which that wouldn't core, you know, you grow fiber variety industrial hump. There was a lot of steps before you can get that wooden core that meat, the, the needs of the building grade product. So it goes through a decortication process, which that concept there is important decortication. Um, it's so essential to this industry as a whole because without decortication you don't have a way of separating different plant constituents into their valuable end uses. So with the, with the plant itself, primarily what we're concerned with, um, initially at least was just the core, you know, we want clean, we want to treat that long fiber. I also like to explain the headstock stock is, you know, there's sort of a vertical mass that's wearing a jacket before you can get into what's inside the jacket. You have to take the jacket off and that's it. You know, that process really requires her specific machinery. Okay. Um, but once that jacket's taken off, you're left with something that looks identical. The wood chips. Speaker 4 21:12 Okay. So we're basically taking it apart and putting it back together at this point. Speaker 3 21:16 Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're taking it apart. You're, you're getting your <inaudible> different parts that you need in this case, the core. And then that core is what is mixed with your binder. Okay. So the binder is the other very crucial and critical element. And it's often the, um, last talked about, I'm part of the hemp treat bio composite. Mmm. It's slightly less sexy. Speaker 4 21:47 Fair enough. Speaker 3 21:47 In my opinion, just as important, if not even more important. Speaker 4 21:52 Let me ask you before you go any further Speaker 3 21:54 created Speaker 4 21:55 before you go any further before you go any further. Let me ask you if someone, if I'm a farmer, right and I'm growing him, and this might be a silly question I if it is, I apologize, but I'm a farmer and I am growing him for CBD and I am going to sell the flower basically for CBD. Can I use that same plant to sell it to someone like you who's going to use it to make hempcrete but perhaps the stocks, Speaker 3 22:21 that is not a stupid question and there are many bright minds that are working on that exact question right now because that's a huge problem with the CBD industry, right? What do you do with your leftover bio-mass that is lot less valuable than the flowers themselves? Speaker 4 22:39 And if you can make it more valuable, farmers are going to grow more of it too. If we can say, well, Hey, I'm not just selling the flour. I can also sell the pulp or the internal, you know, parts to the hemp texture guys. And they can make that. And now you have a value added crop. Right? Speaker 3 22:56 Absolutely. And that is right there. You're, you're like getting up the heart of the goal of, you know, full spectrum utilization of the plant. You want to utilize all components of it. Nothing goes to waste. Cool. Um, so there's a challenge with, uh, and that challenge is, uh, fiber variety. Industrial hemp has grown different. I run a medical practices CBD Hampton's grown. Um, there are a lot of similarities, but, um, and this was kind of putting it in layman's terms and, um, there are people who could do much better than I could elaborating on, on the subtle nuances and differences. But I'm early CBD is cultivated, uh, very similarly to cannabis. Um, you, it's very manicured. It's got, you know, spacing, um, that allows the plant to kind of become more bushy. Mmm. You know, and, and it's often has more flower and cops than say a fiber variety that grows. Speaker 3 24:02 Some of them are similarly too. No other bass style crops, blacks canal shoot. Um, and so one of the problems is that because of just some of the ways that CBD hemp is grown, it's more difficult to process. Um, but I, I'm hopeful and I know that there are people out there and hopefully people that are listening to this that are, are working to tackle that issue of how do we divert this waste from the CBD CBD industry and turn it into something valuable. And I'm hopeful that, and we'll, we'll start seeing that coming online very, very soon. Speaker 4 24:41 But the plant that you're looking for is basically more of a beefy, fibrous plant that has grown for that fiber <inaudible>. Speaker 3 24:50 Correct. Um, there, there are, um, you know, we could really get into the weeds here, no pun intended. Speaker 4 24:56 No, no, we don't want to get too scientific here. This is, I mean, I'm not a scientist, so you know, we won't be able to enjoy this show. That's <inaudible> Speaker 3 25:05 yeah, yeah. There's those dual crop varieties which she needs and got a little bit of CBD seeds. You can end up fiber. You can get hurt. But primarily from what I've seen, a lot of the agronomical products just surrounding industrial hand bar, Hey, we're growing this for CBD or Hey, we're growing this for fiber. Um, and it, it's very specifically purposed. Speaker 4 25:28 So after you guys get the fiber, it's decorticate did you take jacket off as you said and you've got those woodchips then what happens to it? Speaker 3 25:36 So we send those to a project site at the project site. Mmm. Where the building is already structurally framed out because him hempcrete is a non load bearing material. It's not, you know, <inaudible> Creek is um, a bit of a misnomer to a certain extent just in that people think it's a, a concrete replacement. Um, it is not, Speaker 4 26:00 that was my next question actually. So Speaker 3 26:03 yeah, there's a bit of a movement right now that I really respect and appreciate people, you know, starting to label hempcrete as hemp lime, you know, Hey, call it what it is because the hempcrete is, as I said before about a composite derived from, of course in line. So you have it on site there, you have your building framed out. We need to combine it with the binder before it can really do anything. Binder and water. Okay. So the binder is like the magic glue that Tetes off. Uh, this reaction. Why limestone, limestone, calcium carbonate, uh, a calcification reaction occurs when you mix. Speaker 4 26:49 That's a savings concrete based on it, right? Speaker 3 26:53 It's a little, little different than concrete. Um, in the sense that the reaction, uh, the calcification reaction, it's actually spurred on by freely available carbon dioxide. So this is where the really sort of exciting sustainability impacts come in with him. Create, well, there's numerous sustainability impacts, but the material itself, uh, yup. Interacts apartment I oxide freely available in the atmosphere within this calcification process, returning to a solid state calcium carbonate with the hemp core embedded in this binding matrix. So essentially if you can imagine it's like taking a white powder, mix it with water and you add in the, the hemp core, that is the essence of hempcrete. Speaker 4 27:45 Okay. All right. I see you working now and now. So we've got it there and it can be poured. Like there's, from what I understand this three different ways, you can pour it in a form or you can make it into bricks and then you can also like spray it, right? Like an insulation. Speaker 3 28:02 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, <inaudible> now that the, the first style we call tasks in place, so that's tamping it into form boards and calf and place has, it's truly an artismal beautiful, uh, approach. However, very labor intensive. The second approach that you named there blocks, um, blocks are great. Um, they're a nominal building material. Most people know how to work with CMU or other styles of block. And there's some challenges though with, with blocks, you know, how does the block integrate into a structural frame? Mmm. If you're making blocks, you know, not that likely that you'll be making blocks on site. Um, just because if you were making them on site, why wouldn't you just take them, create and put it and foreign boards and they're subject to sort of environmental conditions, you know, the weather, uh, temperature, humidity, so on, so forth. Speaker 4 29:06 Blocks would be something perhaps they would order and didn't say, we need this side blocks. And they come in and then you just throw them together basically Lego style, right? Speaker 3 29:15 Yup. Yeah. And, and so there are a few companies out there, I'm just bio fiber and Canada that is making sort of an interlocking building block, really similar to the design concept that I had for interlocking building blocks when I was an undergraduate student in 2012. Um, we are now making small batch order of blocks within our new, uh, space that calling the HEPA texture innovation lab. We now have a brick and mortar space where we're, you know, doing experimentation, innovating new products and creating small blocks orders, um, for specific projects in mind. So for instance, if abuse had a tiny house you wanted to build and you'd said, Hey, I want to, you know, uh, build, uh, 400 square foot. How, um, yeah, how many blocks? Well, you need once we can make those in our new lab now and send them out after they're cured. Know, after being climate controlled. But the third option that you talked about there, it was really exciting and it's something that's kind of new. Um, or at least it's new in the United States. And that is the spray applied method spray applied is, you know, it's very different than that cast in place artismal approach. Right? And it's much more, in my opinion, sort of in line with how we build conventionally here in the United States. Um, oftentimes with insulation products, dense pack cellulose or spray foam, it's sprayed into a wall cavity, right? Speaker 5 30:48 They cut a hole, squirt it in there more or less, Speaker 3 30:52 pretty much. And, and you know, speaking simply, it's kinda similar to that. You know, you could have a, a house brand out pretty conventionally, you know, you have to make some substitutions to make him create work. But right now we're able to spray, apply and create a, and you know, we can cut off 50% of the installation time. I'm from a cast in place approach with our system that we're distributing here in the United States called the air easy, um, which was invented in France. And, and so we're now using that system on a lot of projects. We're looking to get that system in the hands of more American builders. Um, shout out to Amera Shondra company from Pennsylvania who is soon to be a new owner of this. And we're excited about this because this really democratizes the, uh, ability to effectively install hempcrete <inaudible>. What that does is it brings the cost down and it takes it last out of this sort of like artismal cast in place world <inaudible> and democratize it to something that more people can use. Speaker 5 32:03 Yeah, I can pull up a hose and you can turn on the machine. You can spray it, right? Speaker 3 32:09 Yeah. I mean I w I wish it was exactly that easy, Speaker 5 32:13 but it is, I might be reducing it. I apologize. Speaker 3 32:19 It's kind of like standing next to, um, an airplane jet when this thing is on. It is like a powerful, powerful, loud system. Um, but that forest there, uh, and the system as a whole allows you to install this material just so much more quickly than the can place. Speaker 4 32:39 So what is the benefit of that? Let me, let me ask you, because I know none of this is load bearing. What is the benefit? Is this acting as insulation or is it a, is it forming the walls? W what is it doing? Speaker 3 32:51 Yeah, create takes the place of multiple months cereal. So primarily by function it's an insulation material, but it does so much more because the material itself is able to regulate moisture, humidity. Um, it's a vapor open material, which, um, it's very contrary to the, the building science <inaudible> uh, popularly except here in the United States where we and I do this thing. Where are we? Well, buildings, when we wrap it in plastic, you know, we wonder why there's mold problems. Speaker 4 33:27 Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 3 33:29 And so, so it, it takes the place of your insulation, but it's also, it's a monolithic material, meaning it's continuous. There's, there's no grades in it. It, uh, there's no thermal bridging. It can buried your structural frame, um, which often times structural frames are made out of wood and you're burying or structural frame in the material fireproof. That's another benefit of it. It's completely fireproof. Um, so, you know, especially now as you know, conversations become more sensitive regarding wildfire and resiliency and the risks that, um, we're now facing as a result of perceivably climate change. Um, ham CRE is a solution for that. Speaker 4 34:15 That's amazing. So can I ask, is is load-bearing hempcrete in the future? Is that coming? Speaker 3 34:21 I would say yes, but I think there have been successful attempts, load-bearing creeps, uh, in the past, however, um, my inclination is to say, but when you bring home Creek two load bearing capacities, it often has a density that's much different than conventional hem Creek, which therefore makes it act much less, uh, professionally as an insulator than it would with a lighter, sort of more airy mix. Um, and so you would be substituting about structural capacity for the queue, the capacity of the material being <inaudible>. Speaker 4 35:04 Oh, okay. Okay. I see. So yes, it's coming, but we've got to do some work first to make it not only efficient, but as efficient as the stuff we're using now, basically. Speaker 3 35:17 Yes. Yes, exactly. Speaker 4 35:19 So I live in Omaha, Nebraska, and I decide, you know what, I'm building a new house. I'm going to call the hemp a texture guys, can I call you and say I want to use hempcrete in my house that I'm building next week or am I going to run into a bunch of problems with the city and with building permits and whatnot. Speaker 3 35:41 So that's a really good question. Not, um, uh, I would say if you called me and said you need an <inaudible> next week, we might be able to help you out, but it might be tough. Um, generally working hemp lime into your construction program requires it being considered from the onset of your project and it really does require a full design program. Um, which means from day one or pretty early on in design development, the architect is considering the use of hempcrete. Um, and you know, because of that, I mean, we've been doing this now for about six years and we've had conversations with thousands of people over the years. However, we built, uh, fewer than a dozen a crew project. So, so where's that number disconnect? What's that know hempcrete for some reason or another, depending on the project, it can be difficult to implement, to be honest. It's easy to work with, but it can be difficult to implement. And so that's why recently we've expanded our focus. I'd have the texture to have another product line. Um, so we're now offering a new product that we call Hempel, which is a fiber batt insulation replacement. So if you <inaudible> I've got a building project, I need an insulated next week. They would tell you, you know, I think you're a little late in the game for hempcrete, but here's a product alternative that it's still hemp-derived and it meets probably 60 to 75% of the benefits that hempcrete has. Speaker 4 37:13 That is a, that's awesome. And it's the kind of thing where this can be implemented anywhere in the United States. Now you're not going to run into permit problems and whatnot. Speaker 3 37:22 No, no permit problems. It can be implemented anywhere in the United States. It can be implemented by any person who's ever installed installation before. Mmm. Which is a huge benefit because hemp creep is a bit of a trade knowledge, a bit of a crash to it. Whereas with hemp wool, um, you could, you know, substitute, Hey, I decided I don't want to, I live in a toxic box that's still the spray foam I want to live in. Philomena was gonna nurture my health temple. The answer for you then when you've already gone down sort of a conventional design program. Speaker 4 37:56 So it sounds like the future of hempcrete, and correct me if I'm wrong, but hempcrete is the future. It's great and it works really well, but the future of him create is making it easier to use and easier to implement. Speaker 3 38:11 Very much so, and that's something that we've been working on from the start is how do we make this more approachable, more accessible, diversifying our product line so that, you know, if, if him Creek doesn't work for you, how can you still incorporate healthy, sustainable material into your home? Um, one thing that I, I would just throw out there is, um, as a company, we're really looking to cultivate a community of people across the United States and internationally that are, uh, like-minded and sharing the same goals that we have. And so we're always open for collaboration. If people ever have questions for us, they can feel free to reach out. We're expanding our team so we can serve us more projects so we can have more impact because at the end of the day, what this is about for us is, uh, cultivating that community and creating positive change in the world and impacting our environment in a positive way, Speaker 2 39:05 man. And we love to hear that stuff here at ministry of hemp. That's exactly what we're looking for and that's why I'm talking to you today. Maddie. Thank you so much for your time, man. This was great. Thanks for the opportunity to be on air, Matt. Much appreciate it. Speaker 1 39:18 Yeah. <inaudible> Speaker 2 39:26 thanks again to Maddie Mead for coming on the show and for a great interview and of course you'll be able to find all about what they do over at Tempa texture in the show notes of this very episode Speaker 1 39:38 <inaudible> <inaudible> Speaker 2 39:53 that about does it for episode number 24 the final episode of 2019 and I want to thank everybody that supported this show all year long. We don't have a show without you guys and the easiest way to support the ministry of hemp podcast is to go to iTunes and submit a star rating or even a written review. If you have a little bit of time, it doesn't even have to be long and it really, really helps get us out in front of people that are searching for this information and spread the good word of hemp education. As always, you will find a full written transcript of this show to make it accessible for everybody. He's a ministry of hemp. We believe that an accessible world is just a better world for everyone. If you've got some time off during your holiday break, be sure to jump over to the ministry of hemp.com kit has a fantastic article about the hemp and the FDA and while you're there, sign up for our newsletter so you can get hit with the latest in hemp stories and hemp education every week. Speaker 2 40:55 We don't bother you too much and the stuff we do send you, it's good stuff. Trust me. Be sure to follow us on social media at ministry of hemp, on Twitter, backslash ministry of him on Facebook. And feel free to shoot me an email, [email protected] with your hemp related questions or you can call me two (402) 819-6417 leave a message and kit who I mentioned earlier, the editor in chief of ministry of hump.com and I my answer your questions on one of our Q and a shows. And these can be questions about any part of the hemp business and we love to hear from them. So send us your questions for now. This is Matt <inaudible> with the ministry of hemp podcast, reminding you to take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions. Will ya? This is the ministry of hemp wishing you a happy new year. Speaker 6 41:46 <inaudible>.