Home Maintenance For Dummies

After decades of apartment living, and now having moved into a house, I was embarrassed every time our contractor or a neighbor or a colleague used words I had never heard, like water hammer. This book oriented me to my house and taught me how to take care of it, even though I won’t do most of the jobs myself. It turns out that even if you want to hire people to do handy jobs that I would mess il if I did them myself, you need to know what jobs to hire people to do. The book has the refreshing comforting style of the dummies series: great for people who are expert st some things but entirely ignorant of the topic we buy these books for. A must read if you own a home.

This book is very useful. We just bought our first home and we are excited to get started with the many projects we have under way. This book will be a helpful tool during this process.

This book was given as a gift. Before I gave this book to the person, i perused the pages. The book looks very interesting and I do enjoy listening to hte Carey brothers on the radio. Their simple and easy way to fix things is nice to have on hand when something fails in the house. They always have an ingenious way to fix problems.

This was helpful because I'm a klutz when it comes to home maintenance.

This book is a great overview to help the new homeowner be a little more savvy about maintaining your house. It starts out explaining why home maintenance is important, getting to know the house, and putting together a plan. Sections include - The Energy Envelope (foundation, floors, roofing, siding, windows, doors, insulation) - Key Systems: Plumbing and HVAC - Inside Home Sweet Home (walls, ceilings, floors, cabinets, appliances, fireplaces, home-safety) - Out in the Great Wide Open (walkways, patios/decks, driveways, fences) - The Part of Tens (cleaning solutions, maintenance skills you need) There's even a handy to-do list that breaks down home maintenance into "musts," "shoulds," and "coulds." Plus a schedule of annual, seasonal, or monthly maintenance. The book helps me feel more comfortable knowing the basics of home maintenance. Cleaning, caulking, painting, leaks, cracks. It makes you feel more confident to take care of the little things around the house and avoid costly repairs later on.

I didn't grow up learning how to be handy around the house. I am recently separated and find myself overwhelmed with all the new things to care for that I never before gave any thought to. I recently purchased your book and it has helped me to feel that I've got this! It's clear, fun to read, and has increased my confidence and peace of mind in caring for a house! I love this book and reference it frequently. Thanks Carey Brothers!

This was useless. I used the back page to take important notes. It's good as a one page notebook. Other than that no. I'm a stay at home mom who was a tomboy growing up but didn't get to learn more useful things than how to do the very basics because I live in the south and men won't let pretty women learn construction skills here. Yes that was the exact excuse. I offered to dress down in baggy clothes lol. Anyway that said I'm smart enough to know common sense stuff like this but nothing further. I guess it really is for dummy's. It mentions calling repair people a lot.

Perfect purchase - teaches everything about my house

Given as a present apparently very useful

I got this for my husband for Christmas. He completely admits that if he had a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other he still couldn’t put two boards together! This book is good for letting you know how to do stuff step by step but my husband still can’t figure out how to use a hammer and nail but that’s not the books problem it’s him. For me however it is handy especially if I have to hammer two boards together!

I bought this as a gift and decided not to give it. This is extremely basic and poorly illustrated. The reliance on description rather than diagrams or pictures will have many head-scratching. Many basic household tasks / repairs are not included. I'm returning it ( my first ever Amazon return after many years and hundreds of purchases. )

BOUGHT AS A GIFT - RECIPIENT SEEMED PLEASED TO RECEIVE IT!!!

I absolutely love the For Dummies books because they are written for people like me who know a little bit about the subject matter and want to learn more. I use it when faced with a problem that looks complex but isn't after reading about it in the book. I have also suggested it to my children as a source for homework and curiosity on how repairs are done. Having the physical book for reference is handier than reading online because it also has diagrams on many do it yourself projects. The bonus to this book is the knowledge that I can do things on my own which gives me the pleasure of accomplishment.