Customer Reviews

The Savvy Woman's Guide to Owning a Home: How to Care for, Improve and Maintain Your Home

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am shocked by the good reviews this book is getting. I made this purchase thinking I'd learn how to "care for, improve and maintain" my home. Instead I found a bunch of non-specific reasons why I need to maintain my home and nothing about how to do so. What exactly are these reviewers referring back to? There is no information here that is complete enough to be useful. I am willing to bet that I never need to open this book again.

Anyone who has ever moved already knows most of the helpful hints contained in the first 1/3 of this book. We're talking about simple things like: change your address with the post office; find out how to get from your new house to your office; call the electric company and get the power turned on...

The real content is in middle third of the book. That's the section that's supposed to be about maintaining your home. Here's the gist: Houses have plumbing systems, call a plumber. Houses have electric systems, call an electrician. (Unless you want to change the color of your light switch, apparently as women we're all supposed to get giddy at the thought of light switches in different colors.) The repairs chapter is concentrated on which professionals to call in. Roof trouble requires a roofer... There are a whopping 2 paragraphs about doing repairs yourself. In these paragraphs Ms. Werner recommends purchasing a book about home maintenance!!! The seasonal and yearly checkup chapters are the only redeeming part of the whole book, although they are still lacking. These consist basically of a list of places to check for structural damage.

The final 1/3 of the book contains more generalized information that about emergency planning, picking schools for your kids and canceling your mail when you go on vacation. Again, this is not really relevant to home improvement, and is mostly targeted at people lacking common sense or people who have made long distance moves. This is followed up by a few pages about remodeling. Guess what: you're supposed to call a contractor to do you're remodeling.

I devoured this book during my first week of home ownership and plan to read it again and again as I go through the first year of being responsible for the safe operation of many new appliances and appurtenances. Kitty Werner has written a comprehensive, easy-to-understand and even entertaining guide to all the things a house has that need to keep running for your comfort and safety. Her recommendations about fire extinguishers, chimneys, escape plans, routine maintenance and such are extremely valuable and eye-opening. She's done her utmost to keep the book relevant and useful whether you live in a city or out in the sticks. Thanks, Kitty!

This book is a godsend for people like me(and my husband)who live in a house, but don't really understand how it works. A house is like a small city. It provides you with water, heat, sewage disposal, shelter, warmth, and all that makes life cozy. But let something go wrong--then you can get desperate. Author Kitty Werner knows just what that's like. She talks about everything from packing up your valuables before you move to insurance (house replacement coverage, etc.), plumbing, electrical systems, repairs, dealing with pesky things, like ants and roaches, and coping with emergencies. She has chapters on such matters as finding a contractor (her father is a retired contractor) and being part of a neighborhood. And she writes about all this in a lively tone--it's as if you are having a personal conversation with the author. I rate this book very highly.

Kitty Werner's The Savvy Woman's Guide To Owning A Home: How To Care For, Improve And Maintain Your Home is a charming, energetic, informative, and extraordinarily practical guide to the hundreds of minor pitfalls and dilemmas that come with being a homeowner. From how to prepare for emergencies, to which tools you should keep on hand, to how to evaluate insurance, The Savvy Woman's Guide To Owning A Home covers it all in clear language easily understandable by the non-specialist reader. The Savvy Woman's Guide To Owning A Home is indeed so straightforward and packed with useful information that by no means should it truly be confined to the female gender - any male homeowner who is inexperienced in matters of upkeep should consider this guide as well. Very highly recommended.

There are a lot of how-to books aimed at inexperienced people in just about any field you can name these days, but author Kitty Werner's "The Savvy Woman's Guide to Owning a Home" is a first for women homeowners. In a light and humorous style, yet clear and detailed enough to be of real help, the book teaches the basics of home care, safety, and fitting into a new community. It covers everything from the move to a new location, to season and yearly "to do" lists, to dealing with a host of repairs.

The book is laid out in a sensible way and contains sidebars with many helpful hints and fun anecdotes. It's something I could easily see becoming a "bible" for the new homeowner, female or male, but is especially excellent for women because it avoids the jargon often used when such information is geared toward men.

Kitty Werner has done something amazing here: she has taken pretty much everything that anyone needs to know before owning or renting a home, and found an easy way to explain fairly technical concepts to people with no technical knowledge. And she manages not to sound patronizing, even when explaining real basic stuff that most of us take for granted--because she doesn't assume you have prior experience.

Her advice on practical matters from insurance to chimney cleaning to what to do in an emergency could save the reader thousands of dollars--and save lives.

The title is really too narrow for this broad and useful book. It's useful to both owners and renters, to both men and women. In fact, it would be the ideal present to buy a graduating college student just going out on his or her own--I sure wish I had such a book when I got my first apartment, and again when I got my first house. Don't let the book's somewhat peculiar layout choices get in the way. This book will benefit anyone who ever has to manage any aspect of finding and maintaining a place to live. Following Kitty's savvy advice will lower your bills, lower your stress level, and improve the quality of your life. I will ask the author if I can excerpt a chapter on my Frugal and Fashionable Living webzine.

Highly recommended.

Shel Horowitz is owner of http://www.frugalfun.com. His latest book is Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. His most relevant book is The Penny-Pinching Hedonist: How to Live Like Royalty with a Peasant's Pocketbook.

This book is for people who think BEFORE they act and like Curious George, like to know a little about how things work with out being overwhelmed with technical details. People who buy this book AFTER they move into a home (for rent or sale) will find that they wished they had bought the book BEFORE the move. The author underestimates both the usefulness of her book and the wide audience (my Dad needed this book as well as myself before my first apartment). I think this would be a good read prior to searching for a home as buyers tend to get caught up in the emotions of the buy. This practical book brings you down to earth and makes you focus on basic items like the safety of home.

The index alone functions as a checklist that is worth the purchase price of the book as it lists the basics to consider in an existing home or apartment. Specific details change too rapidly to rely on absolutes, but this book gives you subjects to begin thinking about. I did find myself wishing the author had placed the 6 major categories (Before you Move, Know Your House, Those Inevitable Repairs, Emergencies, Community, & Growing Your Home) in between the 22 chapters in the index, but that is really picky - i.e. I'm someone who seldom gives a 5 star rating, not even to my own work!

Finally a book that is practical and not overwhelming to the new homeowner or even an experienced home owner. I wish I had had this book when I first became a homeowner. It is the perfect gift for someone just starting out or even someone who has been a homeowner for a long time. The book is so easy to understand and set up in a way that makes it easy to find what you're looking for. Men could use this book as well. My son thought it was great but thought it should have been titled The Savvy Men and Women's Guide to Owning a Home.

...thanks to Kitty Werner, women won't be relegated to the kitchen anymore. Kitty humorously gives the lowdown on everything from steps to take when looking for a home to water heater maintenance after the purchase.

A "must have" for anyone looking to buy a home, SWG is literally filled with well-organized, useful information for every homeowner.

Savvy Woman's Guide is a bargain-priced reference book that is destined for the most accessible spot on the smart homeowner's bookshelf.

This book contains all the basics--the things you need to know if you own a home. It's user-friendly--you don't need to be an experienced do-it-yourselfer. For more details on home repairs and maintenance, you will also want a copy of the book "About the House with Henri de Marne." But the books complement each other well--both should be in every home.