Hemp houses raise high hopes in Hudson Valley

By Brian Nearing
Hempcrete insulation is applied between the joists in Jim Savage's renovated 1850s farmhouse in Stuyvesant, Columbia County.
Hempcrete insulation is applied between the joists in Jim Savage’s renovated 1850s farmhouse in Stuyvesant, Columbia County.
 
As the state takes its first tentative steps to allow growing of hemp, a Hudson Valley entrepreneur is betting that the plant — the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana — will become a cash crop for an ecologically friendly building material.
Jim Savage is a former Wall Street analyst who lives in a 150-year-old farmhouse in Stuyvesant, Columbia County, that he has insulated in part using so-called “hempcrete” — a slurry-like blend of water, lime and the ground-up, balsa-like interior of the hemp plant.
 
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http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-business/article/Hemp-houses-raise-high-hopes-in-Hudson-Valley-6567143.php