MortarThePoint

All sounds like fair game for studding on the log burner. I'll look out for screws and nails. There's a 20t machine here with selector grab which has loaded one wood skip with wood from an old barn I wouldn't want to burn already. I'm paying a flat rate for the 40yd bin and suspect I over estimated the weight it will be when full.

If I were you I would ask by email rather than over the phone. The emailed response is handy to file away.

Would you have any reservations (treatment?) on an open fireplace as a friend has one and I could offer him some?

It's what I figured. May take me a while to separate it from the OSB etc, but should keep me warm.

I have already made a 'shed' out of ply and studding 😁 Overflow can go raised off the ground under a tarp.

I've told the guys doing the demolition that I'd like to keep the timber from a barn which consists of studding, plywood and cladding. Plywood is always useful and they are soft stripping that so easy decision. The cladding is a bore and will get burnt (modern so I presume no nasty treatments). I think there may be OSB between the cladding and studding which will get trashed by the Selector grab and so useless. I was thinking I could keep the studding to burn on the log burner. Is this a folly, or can someone say they've burnt such on their log burner and it's a good idea? I'm wondering about a 40 yd RoRo for wood to take the studding, OSB and cladding as it could save a lot of hassle and keep the place tidier. It's difficult to know how much the skip will pack and so what weight to expect in a 40yd bin. Any thoughts?

Pretty small trees. NHBC considers the zone of influence for high water demand trees to be 1.25 times mature height so you can be surprised how far away tress can have an affect. Makes sense, I wouldn't either. The NHBC guidelines will be cautious and you're not building multiple storey habitable space.

PLOP may be a better option than GRUB: https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagers.html A video that talks about it:

Are you installing ubuntu on a HDD in the laptop then? If booting from an HDD is an option then it's the way to go.

A left field thought could be to have a CD or DVD with GRUB on it that then supports (i.e. set to default to) USB boot. That way you can install the OS on a cheap writable USB FLASH drive. You can get some nice low profile USB sticks (64GB SanDisk Ultra Fit £8) that mean it's almost unnoticeable.

Actually, I just checked an old quote and I'm wrong. The plant insurance is owned or hired in. I would still guess it to be an expensive way to go to cover plant only though, but if you expect to get underway quickly it could well make sense.

I haven't looked at this side of things for a while, but I think most site insurance policies cover hired in plant but have a pretty small allowance for your own tools and therefore plant too. The site insurance policies are also very expensive as they cover some greater risks that probably make it a more expensive way to go.

You could build an insulated envelope inside the steel frame using cold store panels. Just a thought.

You have a double whammy as the geology is likely high volume change potential (VCP) and the trees removed are high water demand so that will maximise any resulting heave. How high were the Leylandi? If over 9m or 10m (I think) then they would be classed as mature and their full height (>=18m) would be used for any foundation calculations. What are the different strata? Don't forget to consider other nearby trees. NHBC have a foundations mobile app but I don't know if it covers raft. Chapter 4.2 of their guidelines has useful information (NHBC 2020 Chapter 4.2). I have some experience in this area as we are to build a large(ish) garage with high VCP geology (alluvium over gault clay). We can't bear on the alluvium so need to do bulk soil replacement down to 1.25m with MOT Type 1. Thankfully we should be yielding some concrete from demolition. There are some sizable trees and ex-trees near by so a raft was the best bet. Thankfully this isn't the case for the house, but the trench foundations need to be pretty deep there. I'd expect the dimensions of your workshop are consistent with a less fussy approach, but you will certainly need reinforcement and +1 for the thickening round the edges. You could (some might say should) spend a lot on geotec and structural engineering, but that's your call and I don't think I would for the likely cost of what you are proposing. Be careful of building regulations (Outbuildings vs Building Regs) but the size you are proposing (26m2) will be OK if you are >1m from the boundary or substantially non-combustible (i.e. no timber cladding). I'm no expert on any of these areas so don't take the above as gospel.

I like QCAD for doing drawings like this. You should be able to find a DXF or DWG with the symbols in that you can copy out and then it is easy to measure everything out. I you're only creating a sketch, on top of an image file then an image editor (or even PowerPoint) could work, but QCAD does allow image import as a base layer. QCAD has a freemium price model so if you are doing basic stuff it's free (or more advanced stuff before the 10 minutes after opening the software hasn't expired). I spent a while opening and closing QCAD to make use of the advanced features until I bought it for about £30.