Customer Reviews

The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This book was the best bargain I made while building my house. It saved me thousands of dollars in materials savings, increased productivity, and unforeseen expenses. The schedule and checklists were particularly helpful. I knew exactly what to look for in workmanship at every stage of the project. I contracted the house myself and the subcontractors were amazed that I knew so much about construction. If they only knew...

I've read all the other contracting books. This one is the best hands down. The computer section and suppliers lists were really helpful too. I find it highly amusing that the only negative review of this book came from a professional contractor from Canada. He should be worried! With this book you will be empowered to contract your own home, or at least know what to expect when hiring someone else for the job.

This book starts out by suggesting that the reader obtain a pair of work boots and a flannel shirt and go hang out at construction sites so that you can act like a builder and impress your subs. Not to get construction experience, but to know when to spit and how to yell at people properly. What a joke.

The authors' approach to building is very much in that vein. Cut corners in foolish places and cover it all up with drywall later. He advocates things like single-headers on loadbearing walls and butting up 2 sections of joist sistered with plywood (!) over an open span - not on top of the beam. Whatever pocket change is saved by stunts like this is not worth it in light of the structural and code deficiencies you'd be left with.

If you have read a few other books about frame construction, you can spot the patently crazy ideas among the other bits of very sound advice in this book. But if you are starting from scratch, run away from it. You may not spot the difference between the smart and the stupid here. I get the impression that the authors are coming from the perspective of a penny-conscious builder of tract houses who is just trying to move as many Mchouses as fast as possible without much care for quality. Fine from a business point of view, but it is exactly the kind of mindset that most owner-builders are trying to avoid.

Rather than this book, I would suggest picking up 'Build Your Dream Home for Less,' by R. Dodge Woodson. Woodson's book gives you the perspective of a professional builder who has also built homes for himself and walks a fine line between the perspective of the businessman who needs to maintain a healthy margin and a homeowner who doesn't want ot get stuck with a lousy house. The two books are priced about the same and Woodson's is the one you won't regret.

"The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home" is written very straightforward and is well organized. It covers not only the building process, but the planning aspect, as well tips on dealing with local building authorities. There are Internet addresses for information, cost estimate forms, and much more. The project schedule lays out the sequence of events of the house building process. This book is well worth the price and I plan to buy some of the other books in the series.

Highly recommended. This book is well organized, with detailed descriptions of each phase of residential construction. Perhaps most helpful for the owner-builder are the "inspection" sections, which explain how to tell if subcontractors did a good job on their work. A word of advice to prospective owner-builders: don't let general contractors scare you away from building your own home. They have a strong financial incentive to tell you that you shouldn't/can't do it yourself. Investigate this option for yourself. Remember that supervising the building of a house requires more management skill than technical construction knowledge. You can do it, and it will save you money if you do it right. Good luck!

Even if you aren't sub-contracting your own home, this is a great book. The diagrams of the foundation to the plumbing was easy enough for the novice to understand. There are checklist included for every stage to make sure that things are being done right the first time. This helps save lots of money on costly and time consuming mistakes. You might not be planning on doing most of the work yourself, but you have the tools in one book to help you make sure that the sub contractors are doing it right. It is your house and your money, with your new found knowledge you will have the upper hand thanks to this book. No one will be the wiser after you read this book that you aren't a contractor yourself. There are also project schedules, reference sheets, plan analysis checklist, item estimate worksheets, subcontractor agreements, affidavits and more in the book to help you get started. You can use the ones in the book or use them as a starting point to make your own. There is a glossary in the back to help with those words that salesmen, subs, or bankers may throw at you. You will be armed and ready. The price is great for a book packed with such helpfull information.

I bought a number of books on construction contracting prior to having a new home built. This was one of two that I found very useful, and I would recommend it as a reference for folks building a home, especially if you've never done it before. The book includes basic construction techniques and terminology that I found helpful in communicating with my builder; a rough timetable for steps in the construction process; and a wealth of sample documents that helped me think about how to manage my paperwork, especially the change order process. Glad I bought it!

We had never built a home and was very anxious in doing so. This complete guide allowed us to proceed without trepidation. The results were remarkable! The checklists were especially helpful.

I just finished doing a major remodel. I'm not a contractor so I bought a few books on the subject - this being one of them. I knew I'd be working with experienced tradespeople, but I wanted to know enough to make sure they were doing things right. The information in this book was too basic and incomplete. It might be more appropriate for someone who has a contractor building their home and wants to understand the scope of their work rather than as a guide for doing it yourself.

I found this book to be what I was looking for, unlike some other books, this one gives you facts and information that I could use. We are currently under construction and I use the check list, the time lines, and the sample sheets to help me stay organized. This is a meat and potatoes type of book for the person that is serious about building. I higly recommend this book.

Building our first house, we bought several books, luckily this was one of them. It's really the one we use. Gives a wonderful overview, excellent ideas for saving bucks while improving the home, then neat checklists for each section. Also explains the order in which building is accomplished. Assumes you are not doing a majority of the work, and are hiring subcontractors. Includes good forms for contracting subs, etc. Buy it!!