Rating: 
Summary: Easy to understand terminology and illustrations
Review: "The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home" is written very straightforward and is well organized. It covers not only the building process, but the planning aspect, as well tips on dealing with local building authorities. There are Internet addresses for information, cost estimate forms, and much more. The project schedule lays out the sequence of events of the house building process. This book is well worth the price and I plan to buy some of the other books in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to understand terminology and illustrations
Review: "The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home" is written very straightforward and is well organized. It covers not only the building process, but the planning aspect, as well tips on dealing with local building authorities. There are Internet addresses for information, cost estimate forms, and much more. The project schedule lays out the sequence of events of the house building process. This book is well worth the price and I plan to buy some of the other books in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Awsome book for Novices!
Review: After reading this book I feel extremely confident in being my own contractor. It lays out all the details that are important in the construction process - especially usefull is the project scheduler. The auhors include great tips and advice on how to handle subs along with indepth discussions of each part of the process (pictures were great). Now all I have to do is convince my wife that we need a larger home!
Rating: 
Summary: save your money
Review: as professional contractor, I can tell you that if you're looking for a book to provide the latest building techniques using the latest materials, look elsewhere. It does provide management info, but in a word:lame.
Rating:
Summary: Get this book and get started
Review: Building our first house, we bought several books, luckily this was one of them. It's really the one we use. Gives a wonderful overview, excellent ideas for saving bucks while improving the home, then neat checklists for each section. Also explains the order in which building is accomplished. Assumes you are not doing a majority of the work, and are hiring subcontractors. Includes good forms for contracting subs, etc. Buy it!!
Rating:
Summary: Get this book and get started
Review: Building our first house, we bought several books, luckily this was one of them. It's really the one we use. Gives a wonderful overview, excellent ideas for saving bucks while improving the home, then neat checklists for each section. Also explains the order in which building is accomplished. Assumes you are not doing a majority of the work, and are hiring subcontractors. Includes good forms for contracting subs, etc. Buy it!!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK FOR THE FIRST TIME BUILDERS
Review: Even if you aren't sub-contracting your own home, this is a great book. The diagrams of the foundation to the plumbing was easy enough for the novice to understand. There are checklist included for every stage to make sure that things are being done right the first time. This helps save lots of money on costly and time consuming mistakes. You might not be planning on doing most of the work yourself, but you have the tools in one book to help you make sure that the sub contractors are doing it right. It is your house and your money, with your new found knowledge you will have the upper hand thanks to this book. No one will be the wiser after you read this book that you aren't a contractor yourself. There are also project schedules, reference sheets, plan analysis checklist, item estimate worksheets, subcontractor agreements, affidavits and more in the book to help you get started. You can use the ones in the book or use them as a starting point to make your own. There is a glossary in the back to help with those words that salesmen, subs, or bankers may throw at you. You will be armed and ready. The price is great for a book packed with such helpfull information.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, informative book
Review: Highly recommended. This book is well organized, with detailed descriptions of each phase of residential construction. Perhaps most helpful for the owner-builder are the "inspection" sections, which explain how to tell if subcontractors did a good job on their work. A word of advice to prospective owner-builders: don't let general contractors scare you away from building your own home. They have a strong financial incentive to tell you that you shouldn't/can't do it yourself. Investigate this option for yourself. Remember that supervising the building of a house requires more management skill than technical construction knowledge. You can do it, and it will save you money if you do it right. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, informative book
Review: Highly recommended. This book is well organized, with detailed descriptions of each phase of residential construction. Perhaps most helpful for the owner-builder are the "inspection" sections, which explain how to tell if subcontractors did a good job on their work. A word of advice to prospective owner-builders: don't let general contractors scare you away from building your own home. They have a strong financial incentive to tell you that you shouldn't/can't do it yourself. Investigate this option for yourself. Remember that supervising the building of a house requires more management skill than technical construction knowledge. You can do it, and it will save you money if you do it right. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: A very useful book for first-timers
Review: I bought a number of books on construction contracting prior to having a new home built. This was one of two that I found very useful, and I would recommend it as a reference for folks building a home, especially if you've never done it before. The book includes basic construction techniques and terminology that I found helpful in communicating with my builder; a rough timetable for steps in the construction process; and a wealth of sample documents that helped me think about how to manage my paperwork, especially the change order process. Glad I bought it!
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