Customer Reviews

Wiring a House (Best of Fine Homebuilding)

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am a homeowner who has done dozens of minor and major electrical projects over the last 20 years.

This book is full of practical tips and details I have not seen in the basic books. I wish I had read it years ago.

Not the best starter book, it's for those who want to go beyond the starter books.

Cauldwell has and conveys a deep understanding of the electrician's work. His many insights and "Above Code" sidebars help you do a better job than your $90-an-hour electrician would do.

Heavy emphasis on mechanical tips...fishing, drilling, etc. which is usually the most challenging part.

Excellent photos and illustrations.

I don't give it 5 stars because there's too much missing. How many conductors are permitted in size X conduit? What gauge wire do I need for 50 amp service? What if it's a long 100+ ft. run? Can the ground wire be a smaller gauge? The book desparately needs reference tables for this kind of stuff.

There are no tips for pulling wire through conduit, bending PVC conduit, or outdoor wiring in general.

Too bad, because in many respects this a masterpiece.

I've decided to remodel my spare bedroom. It's one of those "furnished closet" type spaces that tends to collect junk at an alarming rate. While it's a lovely little room when it's empty, it disappears in the furniture that gets put into it. Even the sliding glass doors over the small balcony don`t give one an illusion of spaceousness. I had a roommate for a while who used that room, and she had to climb over her bed just to get to her bureau.

The plan is to put up lighted crown molding to add dimension and indirect lighting to the room and to remodel the ample closet space into a bureau cum mini-closet cum desk area. By putting in a full sized futon, I can use the room as a sitting room/spare bedroom, and without the clutter, it'll seem quite spacious.

To accomplish my goal, the project required some rewiring of the room, so I found three books that seemed to have the information I needed: Wiring 1-2-3 by the people at Home Depot, The Complete Guide to Home Wiring by the Black and Decker people, and Wiring a House by Rex Cauldwell. Each is an excellent book with much to offer, but I definitely found that each had a slant that made it specialized in some way.

Of the three books, only the Cauldwell book was written in a person-to-person format. The author is a third generation electrician with years of experience, and as he says quite charmingly, "I have written this book from lifelong experience and knowledge--some of which has been passed down through each generation. However, there is no one within my family to pass the gauntlet to--no fourth generation to pick up the trade. Therefore, by reading this book you will become heir to my knowledge and experience. You, in effect, will become the fourth generation (p. 1)." His style is very much master of the craft to learning apprentice, explaining all facets of his field from how electricity is produced, how it is measured, what types of wires carry it to and into your home, and what tools one needs to do electrical work. He not only provides the information, he tells the reader the "whys" of what is, which I find helpful because it permits one to problem solve and trouble shoot more effectively. Particularly useful are those things that he tells the reader to avoid and what can happen when they aren't! The drawings are very helpful, particularly as they are clearer than photographs can be. Sometimes less is more in this regard. The schematic of the main floor of a house (pp. 22-23) which detailed how wiring is arranged for each room was quite helpful for my project, since it described what I should (and did) find in the walls when locating my power source and routing new wiring. I also found that the information on materials to select was helpful. I was able to go to the store and pick out just what I needed without any trouble at all.

While the Cauldwell book is a good one to read from cover to cover because of it's clear and thorough discussion of electronical wiring and its many helpful hints (which I did), it really did not help with my specific plans. It does cover some types of project, but I found that The Black and Decker book was more useful for my specific wiring goals. It's definitely a "how to do it" book with information on trouble shooting current wiring for potential problems (pp. 122-143), on code requirements (pp. 145-146), on how to calculate electrical loads and when to upgrade. It also includes simple repairs for the home owner, everything from checking which fuse controls which part of the house, to replacing plugs and repairing fluorescent lights. It also provides some advanced projects, like rewiring a kitchen or installing outdoor wiring. Of particular interest to my husband, the computer guru in our household, was the information on the home network wiring systems.

For my own project, I found the circuit maps for 26 common wiring layouts of greatest help. With the aid of this feature and the Cauldwell book, I was able to draw on paper the likely arrangement of the present wiring in my spare bedroom, and plan in the pathway to and from the projected new outlets. The diagrams on pages 155-167 also gave me a clearer idea of which wires connected to which specific sites on the receptacles, and what the pathway of the current would be. I was thrilled when I turned on the wall switch in the room, and the lighted crown molding actually came on, first try!

Wiring 1-2-3 is another group-effort type book like the Black and Decker. It'd made a splendid gift for the new home owner or prospective buyer. It provides the most extensive information on inspecting the home for electrical problems and providing measures for repairing them. The table of contents highlights almost every conceivable project, and each project has a list of materials, a skill scale that projects the level of difficulty to expect, and the amount of time that would be required by the experienced, the handy and the novice. It also makes some suggestions regarding the selection of a professional electrician for difficult projects, and does not urge the novice to go beyond their comfort level.

Although I didn't use the Home Depot book for actual planning and wiring, I found it was especially helpful with the messy stuff, things like drilling holes through the attic to route wires, the nitty-gritty of fishing for wires, and repairing the damage to walls where holes had to be made to route wires. In general these books are useful all round books.

I'd give all three books a 5, each for its own area of usefulness. If you're a person who likes to have a multi-perspective approach to your projects, then I'd recommend all three. Certainly the Home Depot book would be a very nice house warming gift.

I'm building my own house. I am a former industrial electrical engineer (I've moved on to other things). The problem with being an engineer is that I know the big picture, (I can spec a panel and size the service entrance cables in a heartbeat, I used to know the NEC like the back of my hand). The problem that I run into is figuring out the way the guys who install the stuff I spec make what I spec meet code and do it quickly and easily.

This book will show you how the guys who do installations every day do them.

If you understand basic electricity, this book will be a good guide to help you do an installation that will make your inspector happy.

Cauldwell's book, overall, is an excellent text for those who are building their own homes and doing the bulk of the wiring themselves. The book's strengths are the straightforward explanations and clear exploded wiring diagrams. Cauldwell does a good job pointing out common safety issues and how to avoid getting zapped. However, the book has some weak points. One is that he doesn't acknowledge that master electricians (and utility company engineers) don't agree on many wiring procedures, particularly in the areas of grounding the electrical system and wiring branch circuits. For example, I followed his recommendation of installing two ground rods -- and was ordered by the utility company to remove one of them before they would wire the meter, as their policy was to only have one rod (I found that utility companies have their own policies for grounding residential electric systems that aren't always the same as the 96 NEC). A couple master electricians disagreed with his suggested procedures for wiring receptacles, although their alternate suggestions certainly weren't easier. They also noted that in my county, placement of smoke detectors is governed by the UBC, not the NEC (smoke detectors in every bedroom, outside BR doors, in living and family rooms, and at the bottom of lower floor stairs). Thus, future editions of the book might remind us to check with our electric utility before getting deeply into the wiring job,to obtain their specific policies and local codes rather than relying only on the NEC. Future editions also might give more information on where to find large capacity receptacle boxes; in order to avoid some of the cable fill violations he aptly describes; and more clearly emphasize to us beginners just how much practice it takes to wire receptacles correctly, particularly in parallel. Otherwise, it's a good book written in a pleasant, digestable style.

Rex Cauldwell's book is an excellent text for those with basic electrical knowledge who are looking for guidance on safely performing common wiring tasks in new construction. The text is concise, practical, well-organized, and well-targeted for its audience. The photographs and illustrations are plentiful, clear, and well-coordinated with the text. His explanation of code requirements and recommendations on best practices are valuable, but should be checked against local codes.

This book is not intended for, nor does it serve, people who have absolutely no experience with electricity, nor does it address the many issues associated with updating old wiring or remodeling. For those projects, I'd recommend David Shapiro's book, Your Old Wiring.

This book is user friendly and offers insight to persons with little experience and those who are near masters of the electrical trade. It is recommended to people dealing with housing rehabiltation, and is cited as a reference by the State of Ohio, Dept. of Development in the Standards for Residential Rehabilitation. Chapter that explains GFCI's is best yet. Also the information on testers available and recommended is rarely covered in electric books. I recently lent my copy to a vocational school instructor because it has code information, installation demonstrations, and best of all, the mistakes made. Worth every penny,and handy for beginners too.

I read this book from cover to cover then I used it as a guide to completely wire a new 5 room house. I had a master eletrician inspect my work and he found everything was according to code. I have recommended this book to other people and will continue to do so.

I would not consider this a beginner's book at all, although, a do-it-yourselfer with some inclination towards electricity could and would definitely benefit from having this book as a reference. I enjoyed reading this book because I didn't have to wade through the waters of electrical theory just to pick up tips of the trade from another pro. It's enjoyable and pleasant reading and someone who has worked with electricity (I am a licensed electrian) can enjoy Mr. Cauldwell's "electrical humor" while maintaining respect for electricity. I believe this book is "for pros by a pro, and, in reading it, you might be abe to obtain an overall, different perspective in which to execute electrical installations beginning with choice of tools, color-coding wire, selection of products, or, simply toting your tools around in a little red wagon vs. carrying them on your hip. I also appreciate his "theme" of safety throughout the entire book.
There is nothing I didn't like about this book and I received a "red wagon" full of ideas and tips for a more than reasonable fee. Thank you Mr. Cauldwell!

After thirty years of buying, remodeling, renovating and selling homes, I have found the book I really needed to understand and effectively perform home electrical wiring and to identify and fix problems. "Wiring a House" takes the reader from the power company to each of the home¹s significant electrical usage points. The book addresses not only the "how to" but the "why". Rex covers efficient techniques, cost aspects and safety - for the installer as well as the actual system. I use this book regularly and recommend it to home buyers, homeowners and anyone in the electrical trades. Fred Leake, PE -- Owner, Treetop Inn Historic Bed & Breakfast, Key West, Florida

When we decided to build a new house, we were looking for any way we could to save money. I'd wired some fans, garage door openers, some outside outlets, and stuff like that, but I'd never done anything like wiring my own house. But my overconfidence in myself got the better of me and I volunteered to my builder that I wanted to do the electrical work myself. The electrical bid was for $9300, and the builder thought we could do it ourselves for around $3000. I wanted to add in central vac and some structured wiring, so we decided to make the bid $5500.

Then I had a few months to study this book, and yes, this book is the only one I studied. I read it just about every day, going to the home improvement stores to look at the stuff I was reading about and tried to get a feel for how things worked and were put together.

When it came time to wire, I was excited. I dug right in, started on the service entrance, continued on with installing boxes and then pulling wire. Rex says if you know what you're doing, you can pull a whole house yourself in about a week. I obviously didn't know what I was doing, and I finished in about a month. That was one week of time off my regular job working about 10 hours a day on the house, and 3 weeks of working a couple hours a night on odds and ends finishing it up.

So that was the first thing I was disappointed with--his time estimate was far from how it turned out for me. The second thing I was disappointed with was that it didn't say anywhere in the book anything about where I could or couldn't put the meter. I guess the problem is that the national code doesn't specify anything about it, but it is specified by my local electrical company. So about 3 weeks after I had installed it, I had to move it.

The only other things I got wrong from reading his book were how much wire to get and where to put staples. He says for a 2,000 square foot house, you'll need 10 rolls of 12-2, 2 rolls of 14-2, and 2 rolls of 14-3. My house is 2,200 square feet and I needed 15 rolls 12-2, 5 rolls of 14-2, and 3 rolls of 14-3. But maybe I got a little fancier than the standard.

And then with the staples, I'm pretty sure I read that he said to staple wire within 8-12 inches of where it enters the box. But my inspector said it has to be less than 8 inches. So that's the one thing I failed inspection on. THAT'S IT! Can you believe it? My first attempt at completely wiring a house, and I got it almost all right!

I'm in between rough-in and finish right now, while I wait for the sheetrockers and painters and all those other guys. But the hard part is over. This book is definitely a keeper!

Oh, and if you're curious, I came in quite a bit over budget at about $7,700, but that's WITH tools, central vac, a very cool structured wiring system (telephone, cable, intercom, and network), some low-voltage lighting for some decorative architectural stuff our builder threw in, and even some in-ceiling speakers for one of my rooms.