epsilonGreedy

After reviewing the apps out there Trello came out top of my list. It does not support a task hierarchy though the features you mention would provide that in effect for a self build project. I am not sure the task whiteboard UI concept, baked into Trello from its initial release, will be as usable on a mobile screen however the big picture review and task list editing would be best done on a desktop computer anyhow. An app called ToodleDo was the closest to what I had in mind with its task outlines feature, this comes at a non trivial annual subscription, Trello is free for how I would use it. I will try Trello once this weather breaks and use my PC to configure tasks and the mobile app as a portable reminder.

There is mood lighting and activity lighting. According to another post above if my shed had a toilet fitted it would need 18watts of LED lighting. B&Q have such low aisle lighting levels these days I should take reading glasses to read product label small print, I reckon in their pursuit of lower co2 production B&Q have fewer luxs than my shed.

A champion tip, the wisdom of this advice would only have occurred to me in a couple of years when a few edging blocks had wobbled loose due to car wheel traction up the approach ramp. A Suds planning stipulation for a permeable drive means the outer boundary support for the edging blocks will only be a hardcore ramp.

While at a builder's merchant the other day I overheard the claim they changed the colour to pink so that inspectors can eyeball roof construction conformance from ground level ?

Although I am a few months away from this job would I be correct in thinking roof grade (pink) battens are recommended?

I need to fill a footing wall cavity that is one block high before laying the curb edging blocks at the car door threshold. Would it be beneficial to mix this as strong concrete rather than typical lean/dry cavity fill?

When laying my garage foundation footing blocks I incorporated a 100mm peninsular at each end of the southern wall as a provision for decorative wood cladding on that wall only. The other 3 walls will be brick faced. The idea of the peninsular is that the cladding will, I hope, tuck neatly up to the protruding brick peninsular and so not require any trim edging pieces at either end of the wall. The cladding will be horizontal overlapping board in a rustic barn style. Before I continue and lay further foundation courses I wanted to check if the combined depth of the cladding and supporting battens will exceed the 100mm peninsular protrusion? The cladding will be 1 story high and hang on a medium weigh block cavity wall with no insulation or membrane. This design exists in my head hence I do not have a technical drawing to refer to and so for example I do not know what batten size is required for this job.

I went ahead and bought a 20mm masonry bit from Screwfix for £13.49, it is an Erbauer which is a brand I now have more respect for having used my Erbauer sliding mitre saw for a couple of months. Anyhow back on subject, I loaded the new bit into the SDS Bosch chuck this evening which was my first encountered an SDS chuck. Am I correct in thinking an SDS chuck is not a finely engineered creation suitable for a NASA mission to repair a wonky satellite? There must be a few mm of wobble at the cutting end of the drill bit and the drill vibrates due to the bit wobble even with hammer mode switched off.

Feedback: I went ahead with a 10W LED strip light and it is fine for finding things in an 8x6 shed at night and operating the washing machine. In the end I thought an under spec light was more suitable on a dark building site with trip hazards between static caravan and shed because eyeballs will be less dazzled after leaving the shed. @Carrerahill's lux calculations are still valid, I notice the shed is dingy on an overcast day with the light on (like a B&Q store), so any more focused work than pressing washing machine buttons requires double or treble the lighting intensity in a shed or workshop. The Luceco light I linked to earlier was a pleasure to fit.

Ah so there is an economic argument in addition to safety, I will remember that.

Point taken, perhaps I have too much faith in the magic powers of RCDs. If anything abnormal happened in the low amp branch and 32amps worth of electrons tried to charge down a shorting 1.5mm cable, would the RCD not trigger faster than even a correctly sized fused spur?

Had it been a long term shed installation I would have followed your advice but planning will demand the removal of the shed within a year. I did the job as a learning experience, the bloke behind the counter even persuaded me to use earth coloured insulator for the exposed T&E earth. I must confess I did not colour code the live return from the light switch down the blue wire. I found the sizing the supplementary earth insulator such a hassle I have already decided for the main house project I will buy proper Brown & Brown T&E for the light switch branches.

Does 8 months of sunlight exposure weaken blue MDPE pipe? I assume not because builders often leave a few meters exposed above ground for yonks as a provision for a pending building project but thought I should ask. My self build neighbour donated 14m of 25mm MDPE pipe as he was tidying up his site and this section would be just right for the main feed into my house.

I was ordering the bits for my shed wiring mini project and the knowledgeable bloke behind the counter said "and of course you will be wanting a 5amp fused switch as you step down from 2.5 mm2 cable to 1.5 mm2 for the lighting branch". I frowned and he clarified "to protect the wiring". During the drive home I was pondering this advice and concluded RCDs protect humans and fuses protect cables, have I got this right?

Lubricate with the occasional squirt of water?

Ah ha, I had got lost in the drill-bit sets portion of the Screwfix catelogue, I gave up searching because I recalled seeing 20 something mm core drills. I bet that 25mm drill bit jobbie has some kick.

SDS. It is a new Bosch SDS Plus drill I have not got around to using yet.

Would I be correct in thinking 15mm is the cross over point between drill bits and core drilling? I ask because the largest masonry drill I can find at Screwfix is 14mm as part of a set from Makita and today's job is to thread some armoured swa cable through the footing blockwork of my garage for a temporary (6 month) supply. The 2.5 mm2 cable has a 14.5mm diameter according to the manufacturer. https://www.screwfix.com/p/makita-sds-plus-shank-drill-bit-chisel-set-17-pcs/5145r#product_additional_details_container The blocks are heavy concrete or alternatively there are lighter 300m wide trench blocks one course lower.

A belief I have harboured for a year but never been brave enough to post in this place.

It pays to think ahead and plan for intermediate stages during the build. Mine was a complicated case: Builder stand pipe fitted on post 2 meters inside the boundary fence. Removed standpipe and routed 22m of MDPE through house foundation tench to static caravan. Spliced into the static caravan feed to create another temp branch for laundry in garden shed and also an outside water tap on the shed wall for building activities. Spliced again into the static caravan branch to route another temp branch off to feed the garage before the house is built. When the house is weather tight and needs water for plumbing testing, while we still live in the static caravan, I will be able to pressurise the house from the garage.

Anglian Water were OK with my builder's standpipe being commissioned without insulation below ground ground, the surveyor was more concerned about the absence of an above ground insulated box to protect things up to the tap. I never bothered and it survived the winter in Lincolnshire with just regular pipe insulation above ground. Various seasoned builders and also @JSHarrishere said MDPE pipe is not prone to freezing, worry more about the metal fittings. p.s. I won't be cutting corners with the insulation of the permanent mains feed into the house.

Have you considered disconnecting at the heat exchanger and blocking the ducts there?

Do you have MVHR? If not be prepared to create some extra holes. I visited another self builder now on his second house. His previous house was trad brick & block without MVHR. He had not paid much attention to air tightness with his diyMax build beyond just wanting a decent tidy standard and was surprised to get an air test result of 2.9 which was too airtight without MVHR. In order to avoid later building control hassles he and his air tester had to introduce some holes to get a final result above 3.0

That means I will end up at my local ironmonger asking for "big" wood screws either because I have forgotten to measure the wood batten depth before going shopping or that I wrote 5" wood screw on the office whiteboard and forgot the number. I thought your previous mission was to revolutionize education though IT adoption ?

I am looking for a micro project management app for short term task management during my self build. There are loads of to-do type apps out there which fall short of my requirement. So far I have opened up a notepad document on my PC for each objective that I need to action during the next 4 weeks. These objectives are more structured than a single to-do list sequence, for example most notepad tasks are grouped under a subset of the following headings Plan, Measure, Find, Buy, Tools, Trial, Build. Does anyone know of a task management app that supports to-do lists within a custom structure? I am not looking for classic project management software that supports budgeting, task duration or team member allocation.