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No 1 sounds like the village idiot!

There is in fact a technique for testing foundations with a hammer, but it relates to cast in situ piles and it's a rather speciial hammer. Depth is the only issue that really matters with conventional strip footings: they need to be deep enough to be on stable soil accounting for trees and...

7lb is a good everyday weight but you'll do more good with 14 on heavy jobs. A heavy hammer moves things where a light one will tend to mushroom steel components Keep an eye on Lidl/Aldi, thats where mine came from. As Noseall composite stale.

That went in very wet and has bled badly. Very doubtful if any attempt was made to cure. Typical of DGAS builders I fear. The concrete will be a bit weaker than it should be because it has less cement remaining in the matrix. Nothing you can do about it now but for a shed it's not likely to be...

But we frequently full fill cavities!

2 and counting!

I'll bet the grey stuff is the best of the lot: it's got sticks between the boards indicating its been properly seasoned. C16 is perfectly fine where it's man enough for the job ( eg a 7x2 C24 won't work but 8x2 can work as C16 without needing C24) Danage is another thing entirely: I would be...

Friend or not it's up to him to do the job properly: I'd like to think I'd try harder for friends. I suppose the surest way would be to take down the outer skin, remove the insulation and clean back any snots of mortar (which are likey if the board was floating about). Then replace the...

What insulation are you using? Why are you worrying: this iis up to your builder to sort to BCO's satisfaction

Yikes a thin slab got 30mm thinner. I think I'd be starting to get a bit concerned if t'was mine now. Does anything bear on the wall? How about building it from timber to reduce the load? Difficult to see what else might help at this point in the build. The beams I'm still not fussed about...

Fair point, but sometimes the wheat and chaff look an awful lot alike! I'm glad the welding advice worked, but surprised they couldn't make lowH rods work: maybe something as simple as too big a rod for the machine they had. I don't recall us having any issues with the rods. I can maybe set...

Brick on edge coping with creasing tiles. We used blue tiles on our (red brick) wall a couple of years ago with blue bricks over: that looked grand.

You've got an SE: ask him not a bunch of random "experts on a forum in another country". It'll be his PI on the line if it fails.

100

All the beam needs to do is extend the full width of the padstone no overhang required.

That's another issue. It would have to be a very high load from the beam for the 100mm leaf width to be insufficient. (FWIW that's where you might need a steel spreader)

Racing certainty the fitter wouldn't like you!

I think a small sledge hammer would do the job on that one

Not sure how a steel plate is going to address a potential eccentric loading from the padsteone onto the masonry?

That's what I suggested at post 3. It will work provided you have enough fall. I did something worse some years ago as we had turn the line out from the back of the house to clear an existing conservatory (built over the chamber) and then come back on ourselves as the new extension was on the...