Customer Reviews

Foundations & Concrete Work (For Pros by Pros)

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

 

 

I have a couple of other books in the "for pros by pros" series and they are great. I was disappointed in this one, however.

Rather than a guide that started at the beginning and followed a logical progression, it was merely a compilation of articles from Fine Homebuilding. They were each good, but several mentioned that "space limitation prevent me from expounding on..." While this is true in a magazine, it shouldn't be the case in the book.

Also, with so many authors, there was a lot of contradictory information. In one "chapter" the author showed exactly how to (and how not to) use rebar. In a subsequent "chapter" another author was shown using rebar in precisely the way the first author said was incorrect. This went on throughout the book. How do you know who is right?

And while the book was published in 2003, some of the articles were from the early 80's. I was hoping for a chapter on laser layout, but there was no mention of a laser anywhere in the book. (But plenty of instructions to use water levels and transits.) It wasn't a bad book, just not what I was expecting after the Plumbing and Electrical books were so good. A better use of money would be to purchase a one year subscription to the Fine Homebuilding online archives - it's a great resource. It has everything in this book, along with thousands of other articles.

This book lacks the details for someone who is looking to actually do the work themselves. As mentioned in one of the other reviews - this book is just a composite of magazine article. Typical of magazine articles - shallow with little substance.

I have a couple of other books in the "for pros by pros" series and they are great. I was disappointed in this one, however.

Rather than a guide that started at the beginning and followed a logical progression, it was merely a compilation of articles from Fine Homebuilding. They were each good, but several mentioned that "space limitation prevent me from expounding on..." While this is true in a magazine, it shouldn't be the case in the book.

Also, with so many authors, there was a lot of contradictory information. In one "chapter" the author showed exactly how to (and how not to) use rebar. In a subsequent "chapter" another author was shown using rebar in precisely the way the first author said was incorrect. This went on throughout the book. How do you know who is right?

And while the book was published in 2003, some of the articles were from the early 80's. I was hoping for a chapter on laser layout, but there was no mention of a laser anywhere in the book. (But plenty of instructions to use water levels and transits.) It wasn't a bad book, just not what I was expecting after the Plumbing and Electrical books were so good. A better use of money would be to purchase a one year subscription to the Fine Homebuilding online archives - it's a great resource. It has everything in this book, along with thousands of other articles.

I bought this without reading the reviews, it was a mistake. I am designing an addition and need a clear guide from forms to finishing. This isn't it. As meantioned, it is a collection of articles. While informative, there are major gaps in coverage and I am no more ready to design my foundation than before. There is more useful info on foundations in the framing books I purchased.

This is one of two books I purchased with the expectation of finding some detail on rebar design for monolithic slabs. Both books fall short in writing or displaying even the most basic design for rebar in a slab (see my other review on a similar book on working with concrete). This book does a little better job in showing how to make and use concrete forms.

Great basic book for those doing concrete for first time. Also has good tip for those of us that do concrete now and than. Great book!

[...]

This forum has better information then the book. That's sad.

For anyone looking for help with concrete pours, this isn't the book.

Nothing at all on bracing or forming. Especially if you're forming a slab, instead of the basement walls they show.

It's an overview, and doesn't even have beater boards.

I was looking for more on bracing my forms, this book fails.

This book is full of common sense things that everyone already knows.

I thought I wrote another review giving how terrible the book is, but I don't see it.

It misses on so many items.

For instance [...](same company) has more on their online database. This book doesn't even cover "Beater boards" which comes up in [...]from like 1985, you'd think they'd include it in the book.

Terrible, don't buy it unless you want a general overview.

This book is really only good if you're doing a basement foundation. If you're doing a slab foundation on grade it's really not very useful. I was hoping for it to tell me step by step how to do the slab foundation for our addition but in Texas very few people have or build basements and that's all that it really talked about.

There is still some useful information in here and it's a good book, just not comprehensive.

This book has helped to teach me the fundamental facts about foundations, which is the first thing in home-building. However, I believe it omits certain types of foundations which are just as necessary to know about, namely, the frost protected shallow foundation and the floating slab foundation.

This is good for even advanced people as it gives little trade sercerts for stronger walls. Its a good book and a must if you are doing concrete work yourself.