markc

If you are putting in a beam to replace the wall then not much else needed. Timber joining plates are often called mending placing plates similar to this that you screw or bolt across a joint, hedgehog plates aren’t practical with the timbers in situ.

Yep, looks like a scarf joint sitting on the wall, don’t take the wall down!

How wide are the existing footings? Let’s say 500mm as mentioned above, you need space to do the digging, at 1m deep you will need around 500mm to work in order to dig under the existing so each pour will be 1/2 cube (500x500x1000) under the existing plus the hole you need to dig for access. Yes you can shutter and save a bit of concrete but it’s so much easier to fill the hole to above the bottom of the existing. After doing the digging you knock rebar starters into the existing soil either side, tie these in with your cage then when you excavate the next section your starter bars are already there.

Underpinning is donkey work, the digging alone will push you to breaking point. Micro digger with bucket turned wrong way will make life a lot easier scooping under the existing, then get volumetric or mini ready mix but as previous posts the volumetric will be your friend, go down well with BCO and you will be using more than you expect.

For internal it’s worth buying a decent tower/s. If being used by subbies just make sure it’s put together as the instructions with handrails and toe boards and you will be fine. title change threw me ! no limit on height (other than the tower manufacturers specification). If it’s a decent size room and tall I would be using a scissor lift assuming the floor is up to the weight.

Interesting point, the guy did say he gets some stoves from UK, majority from across Europe and a few from NewZealand

Just had a guy in our place who sells and installs wood burning stoves, I mentioned the article and he said it’s burning wet, painted or treated wood they want to control. Apparently timber with a high moisture content burns much cooler and creates a lot of tar that gets ejected or blocks the liner reducing draw and further lowering combustion efficiency. No fears of banning wood burning stoves as they are much more common across Europe and he has a warehouse with 2000 stoves in stock for the increased demand . just realised the banning wood burning stoves article must be in a different thread or conversation I had with someone

Unless it’s a structural wall then cutting the header and footer is frowned upon but not a problem. If the wall is structural then you shouldn’t do it.

You say a commercial premises, will you be walling off the staircase for fire protection?

Mate of mine got sacked for being 2 thou out … banks work to ridiculous tolerances.

It’s called ducting, certainly nothing new.

Very easy to knock up something similar to the post puller using 2 bits of timber and a piece of rope or small chain for wrapping around saplings.

As you don’t have a lot of window frame to play with how about PB onto adhesive foam on the masonry to give you more support, or even something like aqua panel instead of PB to minimise moisture creep from the solid wall

Great advert .. 2400x1200 (8’x2’) 🤯

Hi, yes that will be great, the T&G adds rigidity and 600mm wide pieces are much easier to handle than full sheets

Thickness depends on support spacing, and what you want to use it for but if for walking on and storage I would be using caberdeck or OSB.

Last couple of trays I fitted were the cast ‘stone’ ones, very heavy and flat bottomed so I dot and dabbed heaps of cheap silicon all over the area and dropped them in place.

A few acros and jack the whole thing up. Get your perimeter done and then drop it back down and lay the inside. Any joints and overlaps need to be taped so doing in sections will be a PITA. make overlaps at least 300mm but very difficult to check after taping so the more the better … and easier

Mounting on long span unistrut or similar you could find the unit starts to oscillate and jump around like a bucking bronco, also any balustrade provided for maintenance will need to conform to load and deflection specs (you only need one savvy blame and claim merchant).

It will be fine, if chimney isn’t capped it will be venting anyway. Capped chimneys “suck in”/moisture and this then sinks to the bottom. If your old fireplace is dry and dusty in this weather you won’t have any problems

Yes it would reduce maximum brightness but it’s either that, add additional switching (relay or similar) or have the fan on a separate switch.

Nope, OSB is dimensionally stable so almost no movement in any direction

Will the timbers be visible? Or are you boarding over?

As above, a lintel is not the answer, a beam yes, no idea why the SE is saying it must be aligned with above. The existing wall has obviously worked for many years. Keeping some of the existing wall is easier but you then increase the load locally on the foundations which can cause the clay the be compressed - hence the goal post on new pads. Had this been a bungalow then no problem but the floors above make getting this right very important

Turf cutters do cut an even depth but only because they are running on very flat level ground.