Book review

Cover of Sheds & Garages (Outdoor Buildings)

1. Barbers Turn of the Century Houses by George F Barber and Co.  (2 stars **)

I love victorian era houses and this was where I began in researching house designs that I liked. This book has many crude drawings of houses George F Barber designed and built.

2. Sheds & Garages by Sunset Media (1 star *)

This is a picture book of sheds and garages. It teaches you some basics but is really not a serious building book.

3. Ultimate Guide to Ceramic Tile and Stone by  Creative Homeowner (1 star *)

Another picture book. It gives good ideas about design especially with tiling the range hood. There are also some tricks in the book about tiling.

4. Get your house right by Marianne Cusato & Ben Pentreath (5 stars *****)

Cover of Get Your House Right  via Amazon

In my opinion, this is a must read book for anyone considering how to build a house. There is information in this book that will open your eyes up to the world of design and make you realize how ugly some houses are from the word ‘dog nosed houses’ to ‘mcmansion houses’. There is amazing detail on the size and proportion of windows, frieze, moldings, massing et et.This book goes a long way in teaching regular people and designers how not to design an ugly house

5. Building Construction illustrated by Francis DK Ching (4 starts ****)

I read a lot of books about construction details and this is a good one to start with. It has excellent illustrations and is thorough.

6. Designing your perfect house by William J Hirsch Jr (3 stars ***)

I came across few design architect books I could read but this is a simple book that illustrates basic ideas that should be incorporated in your planning. From choosing the correct location to considering flow through your house. Some of the house examples unfortunately are for the super rich and may not apply to people building a modest home

7. Smart Womans Guide to Homebuilding by Dori Howard (4 starts ****)Cover of “Building Construction Illustrat…

Cover of Building Construction Illustrated

A lot of the basic questions you need to ask about your contractor, architect, banker are in this book. It is a good start to organizing your questions once you have agreed to do it but need to find people to help you.

8. Carpentry & Construction by Mark R Miller and Rex Miller (4 stars ****)

This is an excellent book on how to build a house and goes into some of the nitty gritty like how to use a framing square to build a roof. All the calculations to cut rafters for hip. It is supposed to be a carpenter book but in truth this and many of the books are jack of all trade books that includes stuff on drywalling, plumbing, kitchen installation et et. It has good illustrations

9. Canadian Wood-Frame House Construction by CMHC (4 stars ****)

This is another good construction book that gives you a lot of basics about building a house. It is similar and redundant to some of the other building books. It has good explanations on Heat recovery ventilators and framing of floor penetrations that require double/ triple headers and trimmers that I haven’t seen much of in other books. Its based on the 2005 Canadian National Building Code as well so I thought it was quite reliable.

Cover of Carpentry & Construction

10. 2005 Canadian National Building Code by Commission on Building and Fire Codes National Research Council (2 star **)

Ok I didn’t read this entire thing. There is now an updated version but each version is 300$ and is a 4? volume tome of 1500 pages. It is essentially un readable because it has lots of technical jargon but for very precise information ie for limiting distance you can use the index to just get the information you want. Some of the other books may disagree on construction methods and basically this book (or now the 2010 version) is the standard. It should be clear as well that some of the building instructions are specific and some just mandate an end goal leaving the method of construction up to the builder.

11. Complete Building Construction 5th ed by Rex Miller & Eugene Leger (4 star ****)

This is another good construction book. I liked this book because it included rudimentary engineering calculations for allowable girder spans, post spacings, tributary areas, bearing load and heat flow. It also includes some scientific evidence to challenge building methods ie wire mesh in floor slab is not better than a thicker slab or is an air barrier necessary? I think it is a bit out of date but generally a good book.

12. The Complete Guide to Contracting your Home by Kent Lester and Dave McHuerty (3 star ***)

I found this difficult to read because it assumes a basic construction vocabulary from the beginning (they tell you to read the glossary but this is difficult) and it has lots of pages of dense information. After reading some of the other books it can become easier to understand. It has lots of good check lists to go through when talking to a contractor and organizing yourself but even that I found too thorough to be practical. When the checklist is 100 items long than it’s easy to get lost along the way. Construction checklists should be computerized to keep easier track of events and planning using a Gantt chart or a Project Management software. Lists of checklists are difficult to read. It otherwise gives a thorough and detailed analysis of step by step management of how to construct your own home from beginning to end.

13. Building an Affordable House by Fernando Pages Ruiz (4 star ****)

This was one book that really helped my understanding of factors during the house building project that actually reduced the cost or where more cost effective. It is an easy to read book and has numerous hints. Some of them will not apply to your situation but some will.

14. New Old House by Ed Knapp (2 star **)

This is a picture book which is just useful to give some ideas about design. Unfortunately, most custom builders will not consider the ideas in this book because they ironically are too ‘custom’ using antique and reclaimed materials. The ironic thing I found about custom builders is that although your house is truly custom, it is still made with stock materials and standard sizes/ layouts.

15. Measuring, Marking & Layout by John Carroll

I didnt read this book yet but I hoped to soon.