TheScullster wrote:
Can anyone comment on the above please?

I recently put in a steel beam when slapping through a load brearing
wall, the resulting gap was 2500mm. One end was bolted to a vertical
standard but the other end rested on a padstone.

We were quite careful to level the padstone with the top of the
steelwork so that no packing would be necessary under the beam - I
think you want the beam right onto the padstone. In you case, plant one
and level the other from that. You want to bed the padstones on to the
existing brickwork and leave for a day before putting the load on.

You don't say whether you're 'landing' perpendicular or parallel to the
wall which might make a difference, but in general I don't think you
need any more 'bricking up' than simply reinstating the surrounding
brickwork. If the top of the beam would just be sitting free then I'd
suggest two resin anchors (or rawlbolts, but I'm a convert to resin
anchors) into the padstone.

In our case we landed at a 90 degree bend in the wall and had the wall
above the steelwork so it was easy.

Also, what form do the padstones take? I anticipate a concrete block maybe
18" long to shed the beam end load into the brick/block work beneath.

The pastone specified in my case was a 300x100 (x wall width) concrete.
The actual minimum bearing of specified by the architect was only
100mm, we added another 50mm for good measure so you don't need a huge
overlap. This was for a 178x102x19UB (I profile beam)

Don't forget fire protection - that's a bu**er!