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You could put cross ties higher up, but best not more than 1/3 the height between the wall plate and ridge board. You can't do without something to tie the rafters together (unless you use a ridge beam as per Noseall).

A 50 or 75 mm deep wall plate will not shrink by much, at least in so far as it won't be noticed or have an effect on the structure.

Who said you have to split the wall plate to padstone the bearing - SE or building inspector? If the load is not excessive, its perfectly OK to seat a steel beam direct on the wall plate. The timber design codes give allowable bearing pressures on timber members perpendicular to the grain. A...

Any vapour barrier should be on the warm side of the insulation.

No problem with that as long as they are connected in someway so that rising damp doesn't work around them.

Sounds like there's just insufficient insulation; 15º is not acceptable for a bedroom. If you have a flat-roof dormer, you'd need a total of around 150mm thickness of foil-faced board in the roof (usually 100mm between the joists and 50 mm underneath, with taped joints) going by the regs in...

I've seen this spec advised by several inspectors, yet the Kingspan U-value calculator says you can have a 50mm clear cavity and 75 PIR board against aac block, and you still get 0.18. I'd be very wary of using a 10mm cavity; using partial-fill board in any case requires more care than - say -...

Yes, generally the work has to comply with standards in force at the time the application is registered. But I think there is a rule that if the work commences more than one year after registration, you have to comply with the new requirement? But not sure - I might be wrong?

Gotta make a living somehow....

Why build separate piers, which he seems to be suggesting? Surely you just need to tidy up the existing brickwork where its cut back, and then place the padstones. At 300 long (which personally I think is excessive, unless the masonry is of low compressive strength) there should be no need to...

The SE who designed the steel beam should have advised on this.

damn! beat me to it!

You'd just put a small steel beam across the doorway - something like a 152 x 89 would be fine. Put decent-sized padstones each end.

It won't collapse, but if you want the old fireplace recess opened up, you'll need to block the flue.

(removed).

I know that. (A previous poster had commented that the window frame appeared flush with the brickwork face).

I might be wrong, but it doesn't look as though the window frame is flush with the outer skin?

Stud walls are not normally diaphragmed with boarding each side. If some future owner started taking it apart and noted that it was unusual in its construction and the way it was fixed, that would set alarm bells ringing. But ultimately, not the OP's problem. Future occupiers need to satisfy...

You don't need windposts in that design. Where it shows a problem is the wall on the right-hand side, which is effectively unrestrained by return walls at either end. A possible way around this is to: 1) make the stud wall at the back of the wardrobe into a buttressing wall by diaphragming...

If its like that all round the house, it could be that its built on a raft (?) and that the wall above oversails the lower courses to provide a cavity wall, with a cavity tray dpc. But that's just a guess - maybe others have seen things like this and can explain?