Redbeard

How are your lungs? I would not like the idea of 'boxing up' that much mould. As I said before I don't like the other alternative (treating with effectively chlorine bleach) much more. Get shot of anything with a hint of mould on it and splice in new.

The mould-ridden plasterboard we can see - Is that the back of the wardrobe? The last 2 pics suggest that the wardrobe has its own (hardboard?) back. So has the wet got through that plasterboard and then hit the integral back of the wardrobe? Is there any space between the 2? I'd like to understand the 'mechanism'. You can either jettison the mould-affected timber or treat it with fungicide - possibly based on chlorine bleach. With that as my option I'd choose replacing the timber.

OK, I'll chip in in the light of the above. Obviously none of us (except the OP) has seen or felt the surfaces but, as it's lime, you could consider something like Baumit RK70 - maybe with mesh; it's early and I have not thought that through enough yet. First stab is yes, rather than no, to mesh. And if you want a really smooth finish (think silk gloves) use Baumit Kalkin Glatt - goes on extremely thin, almost like a polish, so the RK70 has to be good. I'm not advertising for B----t, I just used the stuff for 10+ years with great success and I am not a plasterer. Other companies do lime products that do a similar job but I have not used them enough to be used to them. I note that you refer to Blue Grit and PVA. If the existing surface is very friable then no amount of nice lime plaster is going to hold onto the wall, necessarily. If it's sound but pitted, perhaps do something like I have suggested, without 'artificial aids'. You could do a 'test piece' of both... These lime products are not generally available at mainstream merchants, but they are available easily from specialist merchants.

If you do have bigger gaps cut down each side of the joint to the base of the PIR, so you have an open V with the wide (not that wide!) part on the top of the PIR, facing you. Then it is quite an easy job to start foaming at the bottom of the V and slowly bring the nozzle up till you have filled to the top. Of course you can stop before you reach the top as each squirt expands, but knowing when to stop takes a bit of experimentation. The tape over as VCL. I prefer to use air-tightness tape rather than foil tape.

I have never used them but I believe others on here have used: https://www.daemmstoffhandel.de/de/luftdichtigkeit-dampfbremsen/feuchtevariable-dampfbremsen-73/. I don't know the practicalities, but someone who has used them may chip in.

I'm not quibbling with that as a general principle, but it was my N-facing one which 'died', not the W-facing one installed at the same time which gets extremely hot in the afternoon sun (even as I type, in early March).

Oww! Yes, definitely failed unit. I'm gloomy enough about one of mine failing in year 11 of a 10-year warranty 😞, but yes, you should be covered without question. Who installed them - you or the supplier?

Any metal fabricator should be able to make you what you need. Try EWIStore: https://ewistore.co.uk/shop/external-wall-insulation/cms-810-120/

Definitely sounds like it!! What 'mechanism' are they invoking to claim that interaction/result? Sounds like a possible boat-lifting/dropping device in an area of London in the Tower Hamlets area.

Thinks... Or are the tiles on counter-battens and battens so that the vent path is from eaves to top of wall?

But the dwg shows a ventilated void. One assumes that is to keep the timber frame 'happy'. You have not got that, it would appear, and the architect, not having seen the builder achieve what the dwg says they should achieve (a ventilated void), as far as I can see, is of the view that it's to a 'satisfactory standard'. I can accept that a cut-in flashing can be OK (though see my earlier comment re render-board and the likely depth of the 'chase') but it neither satisfies you aesthetically nor provides the ventilated void (AFAICS) which the architect specified. The 'finish' may be to a satisfactory standard (to the architect, but not to you, the client) but the 'middle' -the provision of a ventilated void - isn't there, as far as I can see from a none-too-close-up pic. Please correct me if there is some other sort of vent provision in what has been provided. Oh, and almost as an aside, out of interest, what happens at the other end(s) of the 'continuous vent' marked on the detail? To explain, while it appears that you may not have the 'in', do you have the 'out' at the top? The pic does not go high enough for us to see.

... or is it just out of sight? There appears to be a slight 'shadow', which might be a flashing, but the camera angle is not quite right to see. Is your architect engaged to draw and specify only, or to have a supervisory role? If the latter then the arch't should be able to tell you what has been built and what should have been built. How was the contractor engaged? If it was effectively 'build this (house) according to these (plans)' then you can reasonably argue that they haven't.

I may have misread the dwg. It seems like, as drawn, there's a ventilated void, meaning that the render must be on a renderboard on battens. If a typical renderboard is no more than 15mm thick (and often less) then there's precious little to grind into. Or was the detail changed and the EWI was rendered directly onto the insulant, in which case it is not built as drawn and cannot function (in a 'vented fashion') as intended. Or have I read it all wrong? Is the answer to the mystery in 'E.W.3'?

How thin is thin? My 'go-to overlay' used to be 25mm PIR and T&G OSB floating (not fixed) on top, but I always used 18mm. 9mm might just be OK (I don't know - I have never tried, and of course you don't get the T&G) but I think 6mm over PIR might feel a bit like walking on a blancmange.

Exactly. One more trade to find and wrangle (and worry about if their credentials are not tip-top). Find a good slate roofer and stick to slate. It'll look lovely! (But please don't quote me on that if it doesn't!! 😉). Much more chance of finding a local slater whose work you can look at than a local standing-seam contractor ready to do a small one-off, I would guess.

Judging (only) by a few posts on here re difficulties with quality on standing seam roofs I wonder if you might have things against you - not least a roofer wanting to 'get out of bed' for 20m2, when there are full houses to be done. Or I may be too pessimistic - 20m2 may be just enough to fill that small gap left after the last job...

That sounds OK, then. How about all the other 'potentially weak' areas (junctions, intersections and so on)? If you've been taping and sealing with a vengeance then you may be OK. I am not sure what you mean by: I think of dry-lining as a whole-wall treatment. Can you elaborate? You say the cavity wall is rendered. What is the internal wall 'treatment' - hard plaster, or dot-and-dab plasterboard? If the latter, is it 'true dot-and-dab', or full perimeter beads and cross-hatchings?

If that means you can feel 'something of a draught' (at atmospheric pressure) from the sockets I think I'd be a bit worried about other areas. Who has it been built by? Yourself with a concentration on air-tightness, or a general builder with no specific air-tightness 'leanings'?

I realise you will probably be there for life, but just in case you ever need to sell, might I suggest that you try to 'buy' that 50mm? A client of mine did exactly that, though they at least knew who owned the land. In the case of a 'shared road' it may not be so straightforward to find the 'owner' to buy from.

I was typing while @JohnMo was posting. His points are very valid. Why rip out if you cannot afford to re-do? If the potential cost is completely unaffordable why not ask for a staged plan?

Welcome. What's the orientation? Is it conducive to solar? Do you have plans for PV? I assume the house is of cavity construction. is the cavity insulated? If money is tight I am not sure how keen you'll be to completely remove the bays and 'plant' new bays on top of EWI. EWI also needs care to avoid the risk of thermal by-pass via the cavities. If you were to go for internal insulation (IWI) you'd be limited as to what U value you could achieve, due to the risk of interstitial condensation. Detailing can also be tricky depending on the internal layout. On the other hand, assuming you do not own the land to the right, I'm not sure how practical EWI would be, either. Ideally you need to find a way to use one or the other, or a mixture of both. If perchance, there are 'viable' (50mm+ and 'clean') cavities and they are uninsulated, start with that, with EPS beads (not mineral wool, in my view).

The same could apply with a double-skin timber frame with much more choice of insulant and a more 'permanent' 'feel' (both of those 2 words pretty vague in meaning in this context, but clear to my old brain).

why ply? Why not plasterboard? Some of my sloping soffits have thin wood-fibre (40-50 year-old), plastered over, and almost certainly as an underdrawing to knackered lath and plaster (This year's job to remove and insulate with 260mm wood-fibre and lime plaster over (yes, had the structural calcs done!). The plaster on the aforementioned thin WF causes it to sag, so it looks cr*p.

What you describe is a hybrid Warm roof - some on top of the rafters and some between. In some circumstances there is a risk of the dew-point occurring at the interface. A condensation risk analysis (CRA) can guide you, but a colleague had a good rule of thumb: If you have two-thirds of the R value above the rafters and one-third below, the interface is unlikely to get cold enough to reach the dew-point. If I remember correctly the lambda of cellulose is (or was when I used it) 0.036W/mK, and PIR is 0.022W/mK. So for 125 cellulose it's 3.47m2K/W (actually less, as that does not take into account the 'intrusion' of the rafters) and for 100 PIR it's 4.54m2K/W, so not too far off but probably not two-thirds/one-third. A CRA (particularly if done in the WUFI software) will be more accurate. Edit: A thought: If noise is an issue why not consider rigid wood-fibre on top? 140-180kg/m3 as against about 32kg/m3 (IIRC) for PIR)?

I would not advise skimming over paper, however well-bonded it appears to be. Borrow a steamer and steam it off. 24hrs seems a v short time to leave a deeper base-coat before skimming. I'd just say leave it longer. If you can get hold of a small amount of lime putty (which lasts forever when kept under water) you can just mix it as required with plastering sand. There are specialist lime etc. suppliers not so far from Oxford.