Kansas State University and Habitat for Humanity of the Northern Flint Hills are working on an affordable house in Ogden, Kansas, that will use hemp insulation to keep its residents warm in winter and cool in summer.
This is one feature that will help minimize the energy needs of the 864-square-foot home. A relatively small array of solar panels on its roof will then be able to power the household and even feed extra electricity into the power grid.
K-State architecture professor Michael Gibson said the low-energy home will help keep down electricity bills for whoever moves into it. And in just under two decades, the house will do something that a typical home never will — it will become carbon negative.
This means the Ogden home will finish offsetting the emissions that were generated by building it, and it will continue to churn out enough green energy not just for the people living there, but also for others.
Gibson, the faculty lead at K-State’s Net Positive Studio, said the project demonstrates the value of high-performance homes. And it shows that it’s time to take hemp seriously as an insulator.
“ I advocate for not thinking of this material as an exotic, weirdo material,” he said. “We could be using this to build houses right now.”
The federal government legalized hemp cultivation in 2018.
TO K-STATE’S knowledge, the Ogden project is the first time in Kansas that permits have been issued for a house insulated with hemp. The project is also poised to become the first or second Habitat for Humanity hemp-insulated house in the country, Gibson said. (A Colorado affiliate of Habitat also has one in the works.)
The nearly finished two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Ogden, near Manhattan, has hemp-based insulation in the floor, walls and roof.
The substance in the roof and walls looks somewhat similar to batts of fiberglass insulation. The one in the floor is called hempcrete.
Habitat for Humanity of the Northern Flint Hills, with grant funding from K-State, bought hemp grown on the Prairie Band Potawatomi Reservation north of Topeka, where the tribe’s agriculture business first planted the crop in 2020.
So far, Prairie Band Ag is seeing success growing it without irrigation or insecticide, and with minimal fertilizer. The tribe doesn’t till the field, which reduces topsoil loss. It plants winter cover crops to help the soil. When it’s time to make room for the next hemp crop, it uses a method called crimping to kill the winter cover crop with less herbicide than in typical farming.
“We’re trying to make our hemp and get it out into the world,” said Anthony Hale, a production hand at Prairie Band Ag. “Because it’s such a — how do you want to say? — a resilient plant.”
The goal is to develop business opportunities that benefit the environment and the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.
“It’s all tribally grown and tribally worked,” said John Melchior, lead operator at the company.
AT NET POSITIVE Studio, K-State architecture faculty and students work on affordable housing for urban and rural communities. The studio works with nonprofit developers and in areas with a need for quality affordable housing.
