Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.

Thanks to all. That sounds good. The regulations and changes in
heating systems won't matter, as the recipient won't be doing much
more than changing tap washers!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.

According to Amazon, there is anew edition coming out
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-Comp...dp_ob_title_bk
hth

Bob

On Dec 15, 11:40*am, Bob Minchin
wrote:
wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.

According to Amazon, there is anew edition coming outhttp://www.amazon.co..uk/Collins-Complete-Manual-Albert-Jackson/dp/000...
hth

Bob


Yup, Collins is excellent. Easy to dip in and out of and not
difficult to understand if your new to DIY.

There are some minor additions in later editions but the majority of
basic information obviously doesn't change.

The Readers Digest is a good second choice.

If you're not in a desperate hurry, it's worth keeping an eye out in
WHSmith and on Amazon because they pop up on promotion at five or six
quid. Both of them have the Readers Digest at present for just over
£9.

On Dec 15, 11:40*am, Bob Minchin
wrote:
wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.

According to Amazon, there is anew edition coming outhttp://www.amazon.co..uk/Collins-Complete-Manual-Albert-Jackson/dp/000...
hth

Bob

Yup - Collins is the only one I've seen that isn't dire. Rather weak
on building regs, and idealises/oversimplifies some tasks (e.g. the
novice might have trouble detecting that one task is a whole lot more
ambitious than another, because the book presents them equally).

But generally speaking it's good enough that provided you build-up
your skills starting with the more straightforward stuff and don't get
overly-ambitious, the guidance is sound.

wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.


Yup, Collins is excellent. *Easy to dip in and out of and not
difficult to understand if your new to DIY.

There are some minor additions in later editions but the majority of
basic information obviously doesn't change.

The Readers Digest is a good second choice.

My wife got me the Readers Digest one as a present when we moved in.
Whilst it has an excellent subject range and lots of good pictures and
explanations, it very much concentrates on the "ideal world" scenario
where nothing ever goes wrong, all walls are straight and true, you
simply tighten up fittings and they never leak etc etc. So although it
gives you the background knowledge, only experience can prepare you
for what happens in real life. For instance, although it taught me how
to scribe internal corners when fitting new skirting, it still took me
3 attempts to get it right, taking into account the slope of the floor
and the angles of the adjacent boards and walls!

I have been reading this newsgroup for about 8 years and to be honest
it gives you all the help you need! I certainly wouldn't have tackled
the house I'm in now without its help.

Luke

On 12/15/2010 6:56 AM, mike wrote:


Yup, Collins is excellent. Easy to dip in and out of and not
difficult to understand if your new to DIY.

There are some minor additions in later editions but the majority of
basic information obviously doesn't change.

The Readers Digest is a good second choice.


I have both, and find that the Collins is the one most often used.

In article ,
Luke wrote:

My wife got me the Readers Digest one as a present when we moved in.
Whilst it has an excellent subject range and lots of good pictures and
explanations, it very much concentrates on the "ideal world" scenario
where nothing ever goes wrong, all walls are straight and true, you
simply tighten up fittings and they never leak etc etc. ...

Yeah. But, for this purpose, it's streets better. The recipient
has never changed a tap washer or tightened up hinges (that's what
fathers are for). Well, tough. A house of your own means that it's
YOUR problem now :-)

I got really caught when first hanging paper, where the books say
start with a vertical and work round, matching edges. In the
domestics' quarters of a 17th century house? There ain't no planar
surface, let alone a vertical or horizontal ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Dec 15, 10:50*am, wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Get yourself a magazine subscription too.

On 15/12/10 10:50, wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
oxfam bookshops usually have a shelf full.
[g]

On Dec 15, 2:31*pm, harry wrote:

Get yourself a magazine subscription too.

I think flicking through Razzle will be more hinderance than help.

In article , wrote:
In article ,
Bob Minchin wrote:

Something like the Collins DIY manual used to be good.
Not sure if they have kept it revised with developments especially in
heating systems.

Thanks to all. That sounds good. The regulations and changes in
heating systems won't matter, as the recipient won't be doing much
more than changing tap washers!

Boggle. It seems to have changed between my first and second
inspections. Either there are two books, or I picked up an
adjacent one the first time and didn't notice! Not implausible,
as I can't see on the shelf without glasses, and can't read the
index with :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Dec 15, 3:08*pm, "george [dicegeorge]"
wrote:

oxfam bookshops usually have a shelf full.

Yes, and they'll be old ones, full of encouragement to do your own
rewiring!

Our bathroom has a pile of my Dad's ancient copies of Practical
Householder: '50s to '70s. The '50s stuff is excellent: how to take a
bomb site and build your own Modern tower block upon it, from scratch.
Having first built your own concrete mixer, using bearings courtesy of
the RAF surplus and a pre-war Scott motorbike as an engine.

On Dec 15, 2:31*pm, harry wrote:

Get yourself a magazine subscription too.

To which magazine?

On Dec 15, 5:34*pm, Andy Dingley wrote:
On Dec 15, 3:08*pm, "george [dicegeorge]"
wrote:

oxfam bookshops usually have a shelf full.

Yes, and they'll be old ones, full of encouragement to do your own
rewiring!

If you're lucky you might get one explaining that you should fill your
tobacco tin junction boxes with tar after just twisting the wires
together.


Our bathroom has a pile of my Dad's ancient copies of Practical
Householder: '50s to '70s. The '50s stuff is excellent: how to take a
bomb site and build your own Modern tower block upon it, from scratch.
Having first built your own concrete mixer, using bearings courtesy of
the RAF surplus and a pre-war Scott motorbike as an engine.




NT

On Dec 15, 10:50*am, wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Seems to me these books are all obsolete. You can get far better
advice on uk.d-i-y, anything unclear can be explained, links to
suppliers, any problems with your ideas pointed out, you name it. Also
wiki articles that although not perfect beat any house maintenance
book I've seen,


NT

On Dec 16, 2:00*am, Tabby wrote:

Seems to me these books are all obsolete. You can get far better
advice on uk.d-i-y, anything unclear can be explained, links to
suppliers, any problems with your ideas pointed out, you name it. Also
wiki articles that although not perfect beat any house maintenance
book I've seen,

I disagree. As good as uk.d-i-y is at providing answers to questions,
and the archives a valuable resource too, I don't think you can beat
one of these books for the DIY beginner where subjects are discussed
in a concise manner with pictures too. Even when not needing a
specific question answering they are extremely useful to just browse
through and pick up on things that may one day be useful.

For what it's worth to the OP, I cut my teeth on the Collins manual
however having occasionnally flicked through my friend's Reader's
Digest I suspect their may be value in having both. I also second the
Construction of Houses recommendation if you want to know some of the
details of what's going on 'under the skin' which you might not
otherwise get to appreciate.

Mathew

On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:00:56 -0800 (PST), Tabby
wrote:

On Dec 15, 10:50*am, wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? *Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Seems to me these books are all obsolete. You can get far better
advice on uk.d-i-y, anything unclear can be explained, links to
suppliers, any problems with your ideas pointed out, you name it. Also
wiki articles that although not perfect beat any house maintenance
book I've seen,

Indeed. It's been a little while since I last looked but none of the
books I read even covered sealed heating systems, assuming that all
systems are still vented.
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

On 16/12/10 09:47, Mark wrote:
On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:00:56 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Dec 15, 10:50 am, wrote:
Can anyone recommend a reasonable book on maintenance, for
someone with minimal experience who is buying a house for the
first time? Thanks for any suggestions.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Seems to me these books are all obsolete. You can get far better
advice on uk.d-i-y, anything unclear can be explained, links to
suppliers, any problems with your ideas pointed out, you name it. Also
wiki articles that although not perfect beat any house maintenance
book I've seen,

Indeed. It's been a little while since I last looked but none of the
books I read even covered sealed heating systems, assuming that all
systems are still vented.

I do find the old DIY books are still fun to browse - especially for
unfamiliar things, like fiddly joinery in my case(!)

Yes - I noticed the lack of modern heating systems too. Fortunatunatly,
I like open vented systems for their simplicity and will eventually
install one anyway and I don't care how "old fashioned" that makes me look!

--
Tim Watts

On Dec 16, 10:09*am, Tim Watts wrote:

I do find the old DIY books are still fun to browse - especially for
unfamiliar things, like fiddly joinery in my case(!)

It's quite hard to find good older books on joinery. There was a huge
drought in cabinetmaking post-war, that lasted into the '80s. Although
people like the ubiquitous Charles Hayward were publishing plenty, the
work in there is really rather poor and usually plug-ugly '50s
Modernist pastiche, compared to the content of similar books from the
'20s and '30s.

On Dec 16, 9:47*am, Mark
wrote:

Indeed. *It's been a little while since I last looked but none of the
books I read even covered sealed heating systems, assuming that all
systems are still vented.

DIY goes in cycles (piece on radio4 last night about a DIY heyday in
the '80s, following the council house sell-offs) and the last one that
seems to have encompassed "heavyweight" work like new CH systems or
rewiring would have been in the '70s. Since then, many of the guides
have all gone a bit Dennis and reckon you need to get someone in
instead.

So I'd not expect coverage of systems developed after this date, and
that would include unvented systems, to really make it into the DIY
guides.

OTOH, Treloar's NVQ plumbing book covers them, and is a good read.