Band of Builders has put the biggest signal on the table this week, and it is aimed at an unusual target: the trade counter. Its new Every Merchant Matters initiative asks builders' merchants across the UK to pledge support for a mental health movement intended to reach every customer of every merchant branch in the country — a recognition that the sole traders hardest to reach through site inductions and HR departments still turn up at the merchant every week. Alongside it, a run of tool and product coverage from Professional Builder: a builder-invented fibre cement cladding tool, Mirka's new sander, and Häfele making the commercial case for understairs joinery.

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Key Stories

Band of Builders launches Every Merchant Matters. Merchants are being asked to pledge support for a new mental health support movement aiming to reach every customer of every branch in the UK, with the BMF among the stakeholders. It is a distribution strategy as much as a campaign — the merchant counter is one of the few regular contact points the industry has with self-employed trades. Full piece: Every Merchant Matters Source: Professional Builders Merchant

A builder-invented tool for fibre cement cladding. James Gibbens — whose CLADMAN tool won Professional Builder's Top Product Award for Innovation in 2015 — has followed it with CLADBROS, aimed at speeding up installation of fibre cement weatherboard such as HardiePlank and Cedral. With A2-rated fibre cement cladding now routinely specified on residential work, tooling built for the material rather than adapted from timber cladding is overdue. Full piece: CLADBROS Source: Professional Builder

Mirka puts the DEROS RS 600 in front of UK trades. Ryan Jones, Business Sector Manager for Consumer Trade at Mirka UK, sets out the case for the brushless random orbital sander alongside the company's Abranet mesh abrasives and DEXOS extraction systems. The interesting part for buyers is the mesh abrasive — extraction pulls through the whole disc face rather than six punched holes, which changes both disc life and dust exposure. Full piece: Mirka DEROS RS 600 Source: Professional Builder

Häfele makes the case for understairs storage. Research from Häfele frames understairs space as an underexploited opportunity for builders, driven by homeowners choosing to make existing floor area work harder rather than extend. It is a genuinely good job category — self-contained, no structural work, priced as joinery. We have written it up as a full build guide covering the geometry, the three layouts that actually work, and the Approved Document B constraint on protected stairways. Full guide: Understairs storage Source: Professional Builder

Tibby Singh reviews OX Tools' Speedframe. Professional Builder carries a hands-on review of the Speedframe system. We covered the product at launch in July — see OX Tools Speedframe launch — so treating this as a review rather than a new product story, worth reading for the on-site verdict rather than the spec sheet. Source: Professional Builder

Milwaukee and Makita brand pages remain active but unchanged. The Milwaukee UK impact driver, impact wrench and battery/charger kit pages, and the Makita workwear and battery transportation pages, continue to surface in the feed. These are evergreen catalogue pages rather than announcements. Our existing coverage stands: Milwaukee impact tools range and the M18 charger guide. Source: Milwaukee Tool UK

ITS Hub buying guides still circulating. The impact driver, angle grinder, drill bit and best-drill guides continue to appear in the pull. All four are already covered in our own guide series: impact drivers, angle grinders, drill bits and choosing a drill. Source: ITS Hub

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Watchlist

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Source List

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*Note: the 20 September research pack was an exact duplicate of the 19 September pull, with no new items. No separate roundup has been written for 20 September.*