Home Maintenance for Dummies by James Carey, Morris Carey
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Book Reviews of Home Maintenance for Dummies
Book Review: Home Maintenance for dummies
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a gift for my son who was just married and bought a house. I am sure he will learn a lot from this book!Book Review: Somewhat helpful, yet still disappointing
Summary: 3 Stars
Having purchased my first house last year, I thought this book would be great with dealing with the problems that arise when living in a house. I'm very disappointed with it though.Some examples:
It has a whole section on plumbing fixtures, going in to detail about how to clean a faucet. But it doesn't mention a word about how to deal with a dripping faucet! I'd think this would be a pretty basic thing to add to a book... you can't expect that people buying this book would automatically know how to replace a washer.
It goes into detail about fireplaces and how to maintain a fireplace. Except it fails to mention gas fireplaces at all. As far as the book is concerned, they don't even exist. Am I supposed to clean it the same way as a normal fireplace? Do I have to worry about cleaning the chimney if its a vented fireplace? What yearly maintainance and safety precautions must I consider? Help me out a bit here people...
Yet the book seems to have plenty of time to go over landscape irrigation and swimming pool maintainance, which, although perhaps useful, seem to be more appropriate in one of their other books; e.g. "Landscaping for Dummies".
Overall, the book could be considered "a good start". But given what the book is lacking, I think most customers would be better off borrowing it from the library for free...
Book Review: I think I must be too dumb.
Summary: 3 Stars
The authors assume way too much reader knowledge for this to be a true guide for dummies. Also, the For Dummies format does not allow for much illustration. So a lot of what they describe goes way over my head. It does help me understand what I need to say when I call a pro. That's actually a big help for one as home-maintenance-challenged as I. Don Aslett's excellent books are more my speed, though he does tend to write the same book over and over again.Book Review: Good but not great
Summary: 3 Stars
My husband and I got this book when we bought our first house. We thought it would give detailed instructions on how to do things around the house. It has some good information, but it's not very detailed. Someone gave us a copy of Home Depot's Home Improvement 1-2-3, and it's much more of what we were looking for.Book Review: Generally, too general
Summary: 2 Stars
This book tries to cover everything on home maintenance and ultimately fails to adequately explain in detail the things you might really use.
Take, for example, insulating an attic space. It's covered, but only very briefly. I ended up using various websites that had more detail and were more helpful when I took up that project.
There's an entire chapter on pools and spas, an entire chapter on decks, and several others that seem to be a bit more specialized. That's not a problem; the problem is that the general home stuff that almost any homeowner would need (e.g. plumming or HVAC or normal repairs) get less treatment.
I have no doubt the authors would be able to repair just about anything in most houses. But their book, supposedly for idiots, glazes over far too many normal repairs without enough detail for us idiots to actually be able to use this book.
There are some helpful tidbits in here, and if you already have a collection of DIY type home repair books, this might make a good addition. But if you're looking for a good general home repair book to help you with most normal home repair projects - this isn't it.