Gone West

If it was all kept by France and not exported, then used solely for electricity generation it would surely make a useful dent in reducing France's CO2 production.

I hadn't heard about this before but it was apparently reported last year as a possiblity, and has now been confirmed. How long it takes to naturally produce 250m tonnes of hydrogen I do not know. Hydrogen has long been seen as a wonder fuel that does not give off greenhouse gases when used, and which could help replace fossil fuels. But there is at least one major drawback to this idea because the production of hydrogen largely uses fossil fuels and so making clean hydrogen from the process of splitting water needs renewable sources of electricity. Lots of power is required and it is expensive. Less well known are deposits of natural hydrogen buried underground. Scientists at the University of Lorraine were searching for methane in north-east France, when they unexpectedly discovered a large deposit of natural hydrogen more than 1,000 metres deep underground. This hydrogen is produced by groundwater reacting with iron-rich minerals, splitting the water into hydrogen, possibly renewing itself almost indefinitely. Natural hydrogen deposits have been found before and there is already a small well in western Mali. Larger deposits are thought to exist elsewhere, such as the US, Australia and some European countries. But the discovery in France could be the largest naturally occurring deposit of the gas ever found, possibly 250m tonnes of hydrogen, enough to meet current global demand for more than two years. The challenge is how to transport that gas to where it is needed.

Does it run in the family? 😉

Lucky I didn't get a taste for Icynene.

IIRC Icynene is made from oil from the castor oil plant.

You'll get supporters for both types of insulation. I built a PH and used Icynene sprayed foam which gave me an airtightness of 0.47ACH without using any membrames or tapes. The reason I didn't use blown cellulose was because a friend had used it in her house and after a year it had slumped and she used an airtightness membrane but couldn't get below 1.0ACH. There is also blown mineral fibre, which was second on my list.

We moved into an old stone bungalow, with 600mm thick walls, which had been empty for a year. It is in Cornwall and we found, after we moved in, that it took months for the fabric of the building to dry out. We moved from a lightweight timber frame, timber clad Passivhaus in East Kent which, excluding the concrete slab, only took a week to dry, which was for the plaster skim and that was it.

Strewth, that's not cheap. Will you actually be using it, I'd be scared stiff about damaging it. Respect.

Yeah, if possible.

@Pocster I like that, if you don't mind me asking, what's the name of the material?

Thanks for the offer, but I have just looked at the data sheet for ecoCORK and it says shelf-life is 12 months.

I agree, but without cooling the house down in the evenings, it would have just got hotter day by day. We like a warm house and I don't feel comfortable sitting down, unless the temperature is at least 23C.

There was no active cooling and in the summer with long sunny days the inside temperature went up to 26C IIRC. Cooling took place in the evening by opening an outside door and the roof window in the bathroom.

It was a timber I-beam portal frame with 350mm Icynene insulation between the I-beams and 50mm Rockwool outside of the 15mm OSB3 racking, so walls and roof were the same except for the rain screen, U 0.095 W/m2K. Floor was 200mm concrete on 300mm EPS with 200mm upstand, overall U=0.1W/m2K.

As I said, we moved from a Passivhaus, so we were used to very little temperature or humidity variation. It is not that simple though, as we thought the reason it felt uncomfortable was because the temperature, and possibly humidity, changed as you moved closer to the wall, even though the room temperature away from the wall was as expected. After months of heat being pumped into the house the walls warmed up and it felt more comfortable. At the time @SteamyTea explained about the large amount of energy required to remove water from the wall.

There has never been any visual indication that the wall is damp in the three years we have lived here, and as far as we have been able to find out, the wall structure has not changed in the last 50 years. When we moved in, the house had been empty for a year and felt damp. As humidity is generally quite high around here we assumed the structure had just absorbed moisture from the air. Our solution was to heat the building to 23C and ventilate in the summer. It took the best part of a year before we felt the house was ok. We had moved from a Passivhaus where the humidity and temperature was more or less constant all the time, so we may have been more sensitive to the situation here. As I said previously, the wall is hard plastered, which was done in the 1970s. From what has been said it seems that removing the hard plaster and replastering with Hempcrete may be the best solution for increased insulation without greatly affecting 'thermal mass' and the feeling of comfort.

Which is exactly why I started this thread. To find out as much as I can. There is no discernable damp in the wall, which has been the same for the last 50 years. Although I would like to insulate it I don't want to end up with a wall that deteriorates as a result.

So presumably an insulated lime based plaster should be ok, such as hempcrete? Would there be a difference in the effects on the wall, of different types of insulating materials in the plaster, such as hemp or expanded glass beads.

Friends of ours had rain chains. Unfortunately they lived in a windy area and most of the rain was blown off the chains. At least they had large overhangs so the walls didn't suffer.

Many thanks, hempcrete is something I shall be looking into. I have seen it used on buildings featured on TV programmes but I had forgotten about it, old age 😟.

I think it is also linked to age and fitness/health.

Many thanks to all the contributors. This is what makes this forum so useful, a lot of varied information from knowledgeable people. I have decided not to insulate the wall and risk any deterioration. There is no sign of damp or mould, even near the bottom of the wall, so I shall keep it as it has been for the last fifty years even though I shall lose the advantage of having insulation.

I'll think about that. It needs to be big enough that the surrounding area doesn't have an effect.

We get a lot of driving rain but we don't get many freezing nights here. The render is well painted and is at least fifty years old. I am reluctant to alter anything that has worked for fifty years, so covering the inside of the old walls with insulation requires a lot of thought.

I would be very suprised if the old parts of the house have a DPC. The whole house, original 1840s and 'modern' 1970s is cement rendered and there is no visible damp on the inside walls. That's why I was carefully considering whether to cover the inside of the old walls with insulation, in case that takes heat away which is helping to keep the walls dry and therefore the room comfortable.