Masonry Construction Manual

Rating:
Summary: Best quality but refers to European building codes
Review: There's nothing else quite like these construction manuals: highly technical information aimed at architects and engineers, presented very stylishly. Because this one concerns masonry, the most general purpose of building materials, it seems to cover all aspects of building science--energy efficiency, moisture and sound control, fire safety (very briefly) etc. It also gives basic overall structural engineering guidelines, e.g. allowable dimensions for unsupported walls, and more, for the reader who is already conversant with stresses, shear forces, and so on, and who is interested in reading several pages on, say, how to interpret cracks in walls.

Apart from the historical overview which begins it, it is essentially a summary and explanation of the German building codes, and supplies voluminous data from them in the form of tables and graphs. And, of course, it ends with the detailed examples, with meticulous drawings, for which the publisher is famous.