I have a very old house and find myself crossing over all areas of maintenance. I am not a professional electrician, plumber or contractor; but I am confident in my skills and comfortable with taking on most tasks. Having a multi-subject guidebook to check the codes and proper configurations is indispensable. Swapping out a 40-60 year old 3-way light outlet, and all the switches, to a 4-way configuration is not something I do every day. This book provides great guidance and excellent drawings of every configuration I needed in my home. Black & Decker Codes for Homeowners: Electrical Codes, Mechanical Codes, Plumbing Codes, Building Codes
this is a very informative book that will keep the handyman out of trouble, it quickley skims over the most commen codes that a homeowner would run into. It is not very complete but that is to be expected. if it were an in depth book of all the codes it would need to be 100 times the size. I am a contractor and refur back to this book all the times on areas I dont normaly deal with.
this is a great book to keep you out of trouble with the local community and the inspectors, it is fairly up to date but will tell you what is necessary to pass inspections on work that you do. great book
I'm a homeowner and an engineer... I do work around my house (wiring, electrical, woodworking, etc) and consider myself fairly knowledgeable as a handyman. I'm confident that I do things safely, but what I don't always know are the standards... how high should this plug be mounted? What is the proper railing height for a stairwell?
Another tip I found - you can replace an ungrounded outlet with a GFCI in order to get some protection against shorts. Never knew that.
There is a ton of good information here. I'd recommend any homeowner that does projects around the house pick one of these up.
Or even if you don't do projects yourself... this is a good reference book so you can check the work of contractors you hire. YOU need to be knowledgeable to make sure they don't screw up your house.
I found this book actually more helpful than the Stanley line of books. I think the Stanley Electrical and Plumbing books cover more, in more detail, but this book has page after of page of what is safe/code, and what isn't. It doesn't have every single Code listed out of the IBC/IEBC,IEC...but it does list a large amount and the important ones for most all DIY's and even the homeowner who doesn't DIY, but has a contractor do their work, this will give them some knowledge when they do talk to their contractor.
The onlything i have to complain about, as with B&D Home repair book is the lack of depth they go into on Home HVAC systems, They go into installing all new electrical, Plumbing, but kinda skimp on the HVAC system of a home, they don't tell you how to even figure out if your current HVAC system can actually support the square footage of your home. It does cover basic maint, and some minor repair, but i would've liked to seen more as in how to properly size ducting, proper venting/air intake requirements..etc
But all in all it's a great book, quick and easy to look up spec for something you may be doing and need to now the min requirements, or how you should go about something. perfect for a DIY'er - Architectural Standards - Home Plumbing - Home Improvement - Electrical'
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