Customer Reviews

Dwelling House Construction

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This book is clear, well illustrated, easy to read, complete, and thoughtful. If I were stuck on a desert island and needed to build a house (and, er, had access to a good lumberyard) this would be the book to have. I have been reading through it like a novel, and feel I'm learning something on each page. It is written for thoughtful students or beginners, but is well stocked with tables and charts that give you all the detail you need to select the right size floor joists or concrete foundation walls for a new dwelling.

Note the quaint, outdated "dwelling house" in the title. This book almost describes how to build a 1940's house, with references to plank subfloors, counterweighted sashes, asphalt siding, etc. Even the writing sounds old, as from another era. Newer information is conspicuously tacked on, and an updated chapter by a different author is clumsily written. Too bad. Kind of ruins what was, in its day, probably a pretty good book.

Anyway, the author's clear writing makes it enjoyable to read, so a beginner would probably still learn a lot.