10/16/2025
“Brrrr! I can’t feel my toes anymore,” I complained to H. H and I had just purchased a 100-year old home and were spending our first night there. I was wearing my warmest winter coat, hat, and gloves but still couldn’t stop shivering.
“All three of the space heaters are at max setting. It should be hot!” H answered.
“It’s 36 degrees in here now.” I said, looking at the thermometer.
“I wonder what the insulation situation is like in this house.” H said, picked up a hammer from his tool box, and walked over to the dining room wall. He punched a hole big enough to see into the wall cavity.
“You won’t believe this.” He stepped back, pointing to the hole, “There’s no insulation here!”
I walked over to inspect the hole. The wall cavity was in fact, completely empty. I could see the back of the exterior siding—not a good sign.
H tried another wall and then another. “There’s not a single piece of insulation in this house!”
“How did anyone manage to survive the winter here?” I wondered. “We have to insulate.”
The next day, we made a trip to Home Depot and Lowes. Both stores sell mainly fiber glass insulation. Chatting with the sales people, we learned that fiber glass, made from plastic and fine glass fibers, works great at insulting. However, it is extremely energy intensive to produce, off-gasses volatile organic compounds during and after production, and is not biodegradable at the end of its life.
Not to mention, if you don’t wear astronaut-like personal protective equipment during the install, you will itch worse than a dog with a major flea infestation. And if you breathe in any of the fiber glass fibers, they’ll lodge in your lungs.
“I really don’t want to work with fiberglass.” I told H.
We went home and started to read about other options. That’s when we came across H**pitecture, a company that makes insulation from h**p plant fibers.
As we read more about this insulation, we were intrigued by the benefits. H**p is a carbon-capturing, soil-regenerating crop. H**p requires little water to grow and does perfectly well without fertilizers or pesticides. H**pitecture makes their h**p insulation without any volatile organic compounds and treats the final product with a natural fire retardant. And unlike fiberglass, h**p is compostable.
H**p’s price was comparable to fiberglass.
R-13 h**p wool insulation costs $1.25/sq. ft.
R-13 faced fiber glass insulation runs about $1.02/sq. ft.
“This seems perfect!” I told H. “I’d much rather do h**p than fiberglass!”
H agreed. We were both excited to try this new insulation though we knew it would likely come with plenty of jokes from friends and family about getting high off our construction materials—an unlikely event since the THC content of h**p is too low to have any sort of effect.
Home Depot and Lowes don’t stock h**p insulation. The only way for us to obtain h**p insulation was to buy directly from H**pitecture. We ordered our insulation online through their website and drove to one of their warehouses to pick it up. After loading up both of our cars we noticed another benefit.
“The minivan smells like fresh hay combined with hot bread just pulled from the oven.” I couldn’t wait for our home to smell the same way.
We had already removed the drywall from our walls, so once home, we got started with filling every open space and cavity of our walls with h**p batts. Unlike with fiberglass or other insulations, we did not have to wear any special protective gear. We simply handled the insulation with our bare hands. Our dogs even turned some of the batts into their personal day beds, all without any sort of itching or irritation.
When we had questions, we called H**pitecture’s customer service for support. Each time I called, I couldn’t believe it. A REAL LIVE PERSON based in the United States actually PICKED UP the phone after two rings and answered my question in under a minute. There were no long menus to listen to or labyrinths of “press this number” to get through.
H**pitecture suggested that before we put the drywall back up, we should wrap our walls with a membrane to make the house air-tight and prevent any drafts. The most commonly available house wrap at the big box stores is Tyvek. However, H**pitecture suggested we use Proclima Intello Plus membrane, made in Germany, and just like their insulation, only available by ordering online through a specialty building supply store.
The Proclima membrane seemed rather expensive-60 cents per square foot compared to Tyvek, at 17 cents per square foot.
“I wonder why there is such a price difference….” I thought.
After doing some reading and watching several videos I learned that both membranes provide air tightness. Both provide v***r variability, allowing moisture to move through the walls, rather than trapping it, so that mold doesn’t develop.
However, Proclima is a “smart” membrane which allows up to 100 times more moisture v***r to pass through when humidity is high to provide industry-leading protection from moisture related structural damage. Tyvek’s humidity openings don’t change as much based on how much humidity is present and at high humidity rates, can get clogged up, putting homes at higher risk of mold.
Being that 1.6 million homes are impacted by mold each year in the US, we decided to splurge and test out Proclima, especially since we planned to use a gas stove for cooking and a gas heater for supplementary winter heat. Gas appliances are known for creating extra moisture in the home, so allowing that v***r to pass through our walls would be essential. We wrapped our walls with Proclima by stapling the membrane to the studs.
That fall, with our new combination of insulation and membrane, our home became a comfortable cocoon. During the first week of fall, when temperatures outside dipped into the 30’s, we simply threw a few logs harvested from our neighbor’s yard in the wood stove each night. The burning logs quickly brought the home’s internal temperature into the high 60’s. Thanks to the insulation, the heat lingered in the home all the way through to the morning, long after the logs had burned out.
The previous year, it had cost us $150 for one week of electricity to try, without much success, to heat our home. (Without insulation, the temperature inside the house was the same as the temperature outside the house.)
This year, it cost us $0 in electricity to heat our home from 36 degrees to 65 degrees, thanks to our insulation. And while fiberglass would have likely done the same for our electricity bill (both fiberglass and h**p have the same R-values), the h**p was much more of a pleasure to use and for me, felt more thoughtful of future generations.
How long will this insulation last before it needs to be changed out? There are way too many factors that could affect this to provide a clear answer, but I expect that if we take good care of our house, this insulation will last us a lifetime and beyond. In the worst-case scenario, if it only lasts for 20-30 years like cellulose insulation, it can be easily pulled from the walls and composted rather than landfilled like fiberglass.
H**p can be used for new builds and to retro fit existing buildings. It is completely DIY friendly, especially for those like myself, who had no experience in insulating prior to this. I highly recommend giving it a try and supporting American companies like H**pitecture that are driven by sustainability rather than profits.
H**pitecture Link: https://www.h**pitecture.com/
Proclima Link: https://475.supply/collections/pro-clima
**pitecture **pinsulation
