John Rumm wrote:
I expect one bullet I ought to bite this summer is insulating our
solid walls. Exterior will be the way to go for most of the house -
three sides of it are rendered on 9" solid brick - the front
elevation is more ornate brickwork, but relatively small (the house
is deep rather than wide) and also has a fair glass are with two
large bay windows. So the front I will dry line internally at some
point. The rest I plan to clad in 50mm foil faced pir foam, then a
layer of expanded metal lath, and finally some sort of rendered
finish. A couple of down pipes will need some alteration, and the
outside window boards will need making deeper, but other than that it
looks relatively straight forward.
So two questions spring to mind:

Firstly fixings. I have seen the sort of thing I need - but don't know
of a supplier. Basically I need something that can penetrate say 60mm
of cladding and make a solid fixing into a brick wall. It needs a
large head (say 50mm diameter) that can be rendered over. Other than
retaining the insulation, its main job will be supporting the final
finish - which may be reasonably heavy.

Secondly - final finish. Obviously one option is a traditional scratch
and finish coat render, but what other options would work? I was
wondering if any easy to apply spray on solutions might work - say a
Tyrolean type of finish. (the existing render is a rough cast /
dimpled type of textured finish).

No guarantee of help, but it might be worthwhile looking through pages 18 to
23 of the link for clues.

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=972