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HempWood® Flooring Made To Last
Hardwood floors no longer need to be sourced from wood, which takes decades to grow. Engineered flooring made by HempWood® is made from hemp stalks that only take months to grow, dry and compress into rectangular 6-ft. logs. HempWood lumber is 20% harder than hickory, and with soy-based adhesives, it’s healthier for p
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HempWood® Flooring Made To Last
Hardwood floors no longer need to be sourced from wood, which takes decades to grow. Engineered flooring made by HempWood® is made from hemp stalks that only take months to grow, dry and compress into rectangular 6-ft. logs. HempWood lumber is 20% harder than hickory, and with soy-based adhesives, it’s healthier for people and the environment,” says Greg Wilson, founder of HempWood.
He’s been on the ground floor of developing hemp-based products since the 2014 farm bill allowed university hemp research. With experience manufacturing bamboo flooring overseas, Wilson moved to Kentucky, near Murray State University, the first place in the U.S. to grow hemp for research.
“The soil, weather and climate are good for growing hemp,” Wilson says, and it’s a good replacement for land that once grew tobacco. Hemp has become a rotational crop for 19 area farmers who grow between 5 and 80 acres each year.
The 8 to 14-ft. long, woody-core stalks are harvested at about four months and dried like hay to less than 15% moisture content. Foreign material (such as pigweed) is removed, and the hemp dries within a few hours in former tobacco barns equipped with radiators fueled by waste hemp.
Soy adhesive is added to the hemp, which is then pressed and baked into 6 by 6-in. blocks with a Janka Hardness rating of 2,200 lbf.
“It’s hard, stable and has a Class 1 fire rating,” Wilson says. “For flooring, HempWood is glued to a 1/2-in. plywood backer so that it won’t buckle like solid wood flooring. We’re building 100-year floors.”
Wilson adds that by avoiding VOCs and using PureBond® hardwood tongue-and-groove plywood ethically sourced in West Virginia, HempWood is 95% plant-based, making it an eco-friendly, healthy and self-sustaining U.S.-made product.
The cost is comparable to other hardwood floors, and HempWood can be stained and finished similarly to hardwoods. Flooring accounts for about 85% of the company’s sales, but it also makes tables, cabinets, doors and HempWood lumber.
The company won the “2024 Coolest Thing Made in Kentucky” award, and HempWood’s flooring has been installed in commercial and government buildings, especially universities and schools.
HempWood is planning sites in Pennsylvania and Oregon and has made European licensing agreements.
“Using natural materials is the right thing to do,” Wilson says. “It’s getting away from plastics, and natural material improves air quality. It’s the way things are supposed to be, just like knowing where your food is grown. Having transparency in the supply chain is important to us.”
HempWood products are available at more than 100 retail locations, and the company sells directly from its Murray, Ky., facilities.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, HempWood, 301 Rockwood Rd., Murray, Ky. 42071 (ph 888-338-1235; sales@hempwood.com; www.hempwood.com).
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