Tom's House Book - A Plain-spoken Guide for Homeowners

Tom’s House Book: 38 Years of Fixes, Checks, and Phone Calls

Weekend job, or phone call? This book helps you tell the difference before you pick up a tool.

Most of what goes wrong in a house is small. A door sticks. A toilet keeps running. The outdoor faucet drips. A screw won’t hold in the wall. You can fix these yourself, if someone shows you how and tells you why each step matters.

And some problems only look small. A warm outlet, a soft spot in the floor, a stain that keeps spreading on the ceiling. Those aren’t weekend projects. They’re phone calls, and knowing which is which can save you money, time and a lot of worry.

Tom’s House Book puts thirty-eight years of carpentry know-how in one plain-spoken guide. It’s written for homeowners who want to look after their own house, without jargon, hype or talking down.

WHAT’S INSIDE

98 fixes, checks and phone calls in 12 chapters:

• Before You Pick Up a Tool
• Know Your House
• Doors and Windows
• Water Always Wins
• Plumbing Basics
• Walls, Trim, and Hanging Things
• The Right Fastener and the Right Material
• Electrical: What’s Yours, What’s Not
• Outside
• An Easier House as We Get Older
• Hiring Help
• The Toolbox

EVERY ENTRY WORKS THE SAME WAY

• Time, difficulty, tools and parts at a glance, so you know what you’re in for before you start.
• “Look first”: how to be sure this really is the problem.
• Numbered steps, each with the reason behind it.
• “If it went wrong”: what to do when something doesn’t go to plan.
• A red Stop box that says exactly when to put the tools down and call a licensed pro, and which kind of pro.
• Tom’s note: a short story or lesson from the job.

PRINTABLE PAGES

• Seasonal house checklists for spring, summer, fall and winter
• House Information Sheet, so the shutoff valves, filter sizes and phone numbers are all in one place
• Tom’s Three Questions card for any repair
• Hiring Checklist with a side-by-side table for comparing three quotes
• Twenty-Tool Shopping List

There’s also an Index by Symptom. Look up what you’re seeing, like “door rubs at the top” or “water under the sink”, and it sends you to the right page.

WHO IT’S FOR

• Homeowners, especially 55 and up, who’d rather understand their house than guess about it
• Anyone in an older house who keeps meeting the same small problems
• People who want to talk to a contractor with confidence and spot a bad quote
• Grown kids looking after a parent’s house, and parents looking after their own

A whole chapter covers making a house easier and safer as we get older. That means grab bars, lighting, steps, door hardware and fewer trips up a ladder.

FORMAT

• Digital PDF of about 395 pages, available as an instant download
• Easy-to-read type with clear layout, and every entry starts on its own page
• Clickable table of contents and page references
• Print the whole book, or just the checklists you need