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Limited to the vertical forces really as I thought I would use something like a Simpson String Tie ABR to resist the otherwise unconstrained lateral motion in and out of the U-shaped brickwork. That would be in location B below. In location A I was thinking to have an bolt through an oversized hole and into the brickwork to stablise things during construction. It occurs to me that I could attach a piece of 2x2 to the wall that rides in a slot on the end of the beam. A more modern equivalent would be something like the BTALU90 but not bolted to the beam, just to the wall. That way it wouldn't constrain the beam or posts vertically which I don't want to do due to the shrinkage (admitted small along the grain). It way just be simpler to bolt the end rafters that go along the surface of the wall to the wall and their birds mouths would stop the frame tipping outwards. Some form of slip fixing through the rafter down into the beam could then constrain it from tipping inwards towards the door. Alternatively, I could bolt some wood behind the beam to constrain it, though that would be quite obvious. An advantage of having the final rafters bolted to the brickwork is that they won't move much relative to the brickwork so will limit the movement the lead flashings experience.

Thank you. I thought I probably was but have never fitted a modern stone shower tray before. I have done plenty of old fibreglass ones in the past but they were so cheap I didn't care if I got it wrong. This one, was not.

Yes, you're overthinking it. As long as the ribs are supported, the bit you will be standing on will be plenty strong enough. FYI - one of ours sits on a wooden frame suitably waterproofed

Wouldn't bother with UFH to be honest, insulation will be the biggest gain for comfort. A warm surface covering and you'll be barefoot happy. Based on say 15mm adhesive + tiles I'd imagine about 75mm is your limit for total floor thickness. For me I'd do 3mm LVT 2mm adhesive 11mm OSB 11mm OSB 25mm EPS 200. DPM 25mm EPS 200 Float the OSB on the EPS, glue and screw all sheets with wood glue and 20mm screws. Allow a little bit at the edge for expansion. Sandwich the DPM between the EPS layers to protect it. Stagger all joints in the EPS too. You could use PIR but I don't trust it as much not to crumble after a few years. Espically at the edges of sheets. Use some filler in any small gaps and sand the top layer of OSB if needed to get it perfectly flat. Glue down some LVT tiles. U Value about 0.6W/m2K before you take any of the ground resistance into account which is very worthwhile.

I am a bit confused by the instructions on the resin stone shower tray we have bought. It says to lay a bed of mortar 15mm thick over the entire base, lay the shower tray on top and "manipulate tray a minimum of 5mm into the bed to ensure the underside of the tray is FULLY supported". Emphasis on fully. The tray is a non-slip one, long and has quite a steep angle, with ribs underneath. The ribs are 20mm thick at the "shallow end". If I only manipulate the tray 5mm into the bed, only the ribs are going to be supported, not the entire underside of the tray. Am I overthinking this? Do they just mean that all the ribbed bits need to be bedded in 5mm into the mortar? 75% of the mortar is going to be doing sod all on that basis 😅

Is there a need for one when the drive is slightly running away from the garage door? Although its not much, almost flat

I can imagine how pleased you would be...............

To add a bit. If you use traditional dowels, pegs then there is an old trick that was used in Scotland. We have lots of solid stone walls lined with lathe and plaster on studs on the inside. Timber wedges were driven into the stone work mortar beds. Then they were cut flush using a string line and the studs fixed to them. That is how they got the wall plumb etc. The spelling differs, as a traditional craft, but they are commonly called Dooks. But the secret was that they would dry the Dook's often near a fire thus they had a really low moisture content. Once they were driven into the wall they expanded. A traditional wall never gets below this moisture content and thus the Dooks always hold tight. You can use the same principle if you want to peg / dowel the way you are thinking. The dowels will need to be tapered as standard, but to get them really tight dry them out in an oven first. You could of course use a modern structural glue, but that may be cheating?

From time to time Howdens do a limited offer of 1200 assorted screws for £5. Unfortunately limited to 1 per customer at that price.

Are the posts just there to carry vertical load or is the beam and column acting to resist sideways sway.

But you have just posted one photo! You should know if you want folk to invest their time to help you then you need full inside, outside photos along with a good location of the property. Is it in Fife Scotland on highly mobile soils for example. Is it sitting over a tube line in London, is there vibration from a nearby road etc. Come on, you should know better than to just post so limited info. You have been on BH long enough to know better.

The unfortunate reality is that from time to time companies cease trading during the course of your job. We need to be pragmatic and say. Let's first understand the design intent, where the forces go and then seek an equivalent solution, it happens a lot! To interpret @Square Feet question a little further. If you are a self builder then you need to seek out designers that will explain to you what is normal industry standard liability that they will take on and what is not. Often designers are not as transparent as you may wish. I'm just up front about where my liability starts and ends. Each project is different, particularly on self builds. If a Client wants more cover then I'll phone up my broker and say, how much is it going to be to extend cover, then leave it up to the Client to decide what they want to do, pay the extra or not. One great example here is that one of the warranty providers asked me for contaminated land insurance. Now the fee for a contaminated land design may be less than 1.0k, but the clean up costs could be hundreds of thousands. There is no way I or my insurer's can take on this liability for such a small fee, it's just bonkers!

We used AFT for the house slab but made our own former for the garden room which we built prior to the house to prove all the techniques we would need. Cannot see any reason you can't make your own corners but getting the outer render on to match might be a bit tougher.

I always find multi-packs leave me with screw sizes I'll never use - for the number of screws it's good value (compared to normal price) but it's not enough for me to stop buying the brand I always default to, I only buy in boxes of 100 or 200 in the sizes I always use and they all go in a couple of carry cases.

Don't cry and don’t apologise for a long read, you want to see what some of myself and others write when we get keen! As a bit of background I also design rafts, ground bearing slabs and everything in between. I share some of the stuff I do on BH, but also want to see what my competitors are up to. I've had a look at AFT's design details and I can see that they know their stuff, some of their designs are very elegant. Olaf is mentioned. He strikes me as being a very knowledgeable Engineer with excellent creative skills based on first principle design. If you are short on your modules then you can improvise. There are a few key steps to this. 1. When you improvise you have to be very careful you don't change the load path down through the insulation for example. The diagram below is probably more complex than yours. The hatch below the slab shows XPS insulation, the bit up the sides is PIR insulation. The key bit is that I'm stepping the XPS so the load transfer from the concrete goes down to the hardcore below in direct bearing at 45 degrees. The extra rebar you see and the square links are due to the fact that this raft is supporting point loads from an oak frame, and the raft rests on some engineered fill I've designed. The external plinth course, only extends some 5 - 6 courses above ground level and is deliberately decoupled from the main structural frame, partly for thermal performance for example. Now if you can get your head round this then you are well on you way to being able to sort the problem yourself. 2/ Next is to understand what insulation you could use to improvise. You want to get this off the shelf. Insulation is primarily specified with a certain compressive strength at 10% compression. EPS is very squashy, even though it seems initially it has the same strength as other insulations. If it squashes too much before carrying the load then it will compromise the structure, too much deflection for example, which will crack your concrete. Don't get caught out, check to see the insulation you use to fix this is not more squashy than AFD insulation specified. Post the AFD detail you have and let us all have a look. My gut feeling is that there is a simple and justifiable fix available to you without any drama. Keep your head up!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/24/eu-trump-diesel-export-ban-fuel-prices-europe At this rate banning sales of ICE cars from 2030 won't be necessary as nobody will be able to run them....

It's just the type of driver in the head. Cars are full of Torx screw and bolts That's where I ended up on our build once I had brought those, I realised how crap most others were.

I think Torx is a trademarked name and these aren't it. I am not going to say anything disparaging but I buy other brands. They can be very similar prices if shopping around. My preferred BM stocks Timco and Reisser Cutter and sometimes they have similar offers but for these big brands. I've not known any to snap, and the heads don't distort., Nor have I heard anything adverse from our 3 outspoken joiners, even driving 130mm as currently. At home I have a selection pack of Reisser and do like them.

So it isn't a modern or properly installed appliance. The good ones have secondary air flow which burns the carbon remaining in the smoke. The tiny mount of ash provides additional proof of how much has burnt.

Our neighbours have a log burner. They have a tipper truck full of logs delivered once a year. It then belches smoke and crap all winter while they keep windows open day and night. Thankfully our MVHR filters the crap before it enters our place.

Or hunt out ducovent. I’ve got these, as i was a bit late with ergovent hobbies.

Further to my request to the manufacturer about how best to deal with a side gap they said the following: Sounds like it might be better than mortar or roofer's putty which is what I am expecting the roofer to offer up? There are at least other lead flashings already up on the roof at other junctions. In fact, a part of me is even thinking that if they'd done that in the first place I might actually have been impressed that they'd treated the resulting gap and not just left it open like a cowboy would've. I think I'd still want it on the other side of the boundary line though so it's not 'my house' that has to explain what that flashing up there is for (e.g. following a homebuyer's survey).

Way to many variable, we can light ours it will run at min burn on one or two logs for several hours. We would get through one bulk bag a year at most. So depends on is this your prime heating method, heat loss , where you live - is ab12 referring to Aberdeen (shire) etc etc... We are AB32 but well insulated

Honestly it varies wildly. I get through a bulk bag a month at £90, running about four hours daily. Your real cost depends on wood quality and how hard you run the stove.

Screwfix have a Trade pack of Torx screws on offer at 60% discount. 1400 screws for £19.49. https://www.screwfix.com/p/turbo-tx-tx-double-countersunk-multi-purpose-screw-trade-pack-1400-pieces/771vv I think @ToughButterCup is a fan of Torx.