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The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home: A Step-by-Step Method for Managing Home Construction Kindle Edition

by Kent Lester (Author), Dave McGuerty (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 593 ratings
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Save 30% on home construction!

Whether you want to take on all the responsibility of contracting your home or simply want to intelligently communicate with your homebuilder, The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home can help you save 30% or more on the cost of home construction by teaching you the ins and outs of managing your construction project.

Learn how to get your project off to a solid start. Get financial and legal details in language you can understand. Learn what to consider when selecting a lot and how to deal with suppliers, labor and subcontractors. Gain understanding of building codes and inspections so you can manage with authority, confidence, and efficiency.

This extensive guide walks you through each phase of construction including preconstruction, foundations, framing, roofing, plumbing, electrical, masonry, siding, insulation, drywall, trim, painting, cabinetry, countertops, flooring, tile and landscaping.

Completely revised and updated, this edition includes a new section on sustainable building as well as the most comprehensive building resources section ever compiled. You'll find schedules, order forms, control logs, contracts and checklists to help keep your project on track.
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  1. Print length
    957 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
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  4. Publisher
    Popular Woodworking Books
  5. Publication date
    January 12, 2017
  6. File size
    51777 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kent Lester got his start in construction by designing and building his own home at age 25. In recent years, he has build and remodeled homes professionally, sold accounting and CAD software to builders, and now provides consultation and we development services to businesses and construction firms.

Dave McGuerty built his own custom home and is currently a data processing consultant in California.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01N5F25CS
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Popular Woodworking Books; Fifth edition (January 12, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 12, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 51777 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 957 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 593 ratings

About the author

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Kent Lester

Kent Lester

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Kent Lester was born in 1953 in Moultrie, GA and attended the University of Georgia. He writes both fiction and non-fiction. During his career, Kent has worked in the construction, photography, and computer industries. He has built single family homes, worked in the CAD/CAM construction industry, and consulted with builders on accounting and estimating software.

That expertise is evident in his book, The Complete Guide to Contracting Your Home, which takes the complex process of home building and distills it down into a clear and concise plan of action. Over the years, The Complete Guide to Contracting has been used as the textbook for several construction courses and has sold over 300,000 copies, making it the industry leader.

Kent's new thriller, The Seventh Sun will be published by Forge Books, a division of Macmillan, on April 18, 2017.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
593 global ratings
Great information!
5 Stars
Great information!
This book is very helpful and a great guide when planning a home build.
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Top reviews from the United States

Blake Shirley
5.0 out of 5 stars Complete, Easy to Understand Summarization and of How to Contract Your Own Home Sequentially
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2020
Verified Purchase
Fantastic work authored in the 5th Edition book by the experts and professionals, Kent Lester and Dave McGuerty! You both hit the nail on the head! This is exactly what I would expect from a book, particularly a residential contracting book! This book presents very thorough, sequential, orderly, detailed, and easy to understand, step-by-step plans that are beneficial to anyone in the rough, general process of building, but especially helpful to the beginning contractor. I would say this book definitely sums up the most complete, significant basics, at a minimum, that are vital to any home being contracted. The book also shows how to inspect during the process of construction, even if you don't swing a hammer! Resources of where to find information are made apparent along with major building supply companies for each room of the house, masterplan checklist of where to begin, plan checklist, contract, and agreement, are located in the appendix of the book. There are lots of specialty books on the market of how to do certain things in construction, but this book summarizes and compiles it. I'm not a contractor myself and have never contracted any type of structure being built, but I find this field highly interesting and motivating. I enjoy picking out building materials, fixtures, finishes, working with numbers, and estimating costs, etc. The whole nine yards is presented from the building lot, foundation, framing, roofing, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, painting, trimwork, cabinetry, countertops, flooring, landscaping, and decks, etc. Well worth purchasing this book, even if you're only merely thinking about contracting and maybe not yet ready to actually build a home. I highly recommend anyone read this book, particularly if you're curious about the overall, general process of the contracting, building, and construction industry!
23 people found this helpful
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Matt K
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2022
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This book will walk you through the process of building a home with forms, checklists etc. This book will give you confidence to build and manage your own build while saving lots of money. I know how to build a home, yet this book gave me ideas and additional knowledge that I wasn’t thinking about. If I were a beginner, I’d buy this book and read it twice before attempting to build your own home. Think about this, the investment and time putting into this book will payoff huge amount of return on investment. Follow the book and it’s worksheets. There is a lot to read and absorb, but you can do this! Time is your friend. Put the work into this book and reap the rewards of the knowledge you obtain and apply to building your home.
17 people found this helpful
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Zimor
4.0 out of 5 stars Needs Updating, but, otherwise a good book
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2021
Verified Purchase
Bought this book to develop specifications for a new custom built home. The material is laid-out very well and covers most building processes, and, provides some good rules of thumb. The invite to download forms at their website, appears to be dead. The material does need updating, such as, use of WRB, ZIP, is not mentioned. Should had gone into more detail of a smart home, etc. Otherwise, the book allowed me to increase my spec alittle bit more, that will save me money, so, the book price is worth it.
9 people found this helpful
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George
5.0 out of 5 stars Great information!
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book is very helpful and a great guide when planning a home build.
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George
5.0 out of 5 stars Great information!
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2023
This book is very helpful and a great guide when planning a home build.
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Mima
5.0 out of 5 stars Great foundational book!
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2023
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This book has a great overview on each area of the construction process. My husband has a remodeling company and i bought this book for a reference book for the management team to use for photos and check lists. I’m very pleased with the information and depth of the coverage.
3 people found this helpful
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trancose107
3.0 out of 5 stars Building own home
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2024
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Nice check lists
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Brett Kincaid
5.0 out of 5 stars Great choice as an overview of the component parts of homebuilding.
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2017
Verified Purchase
This is a great book offering guidance in most areas of the home building process. Much like planning your wedding, even if you're planning on hiring a planner to oversee and arrange all the different elements it's still important to do your own research both to protect yourself and to be able to properly voice to your coordinator exactly what it is you want. Home building is exactly like that, only with way more steps and areas than a wedding. This book gives a lot of information. Most of all, it gives enough information for those questions you didn't even know you had to take shape.
We also really appreciated the info about green building stuff as well as just the general descriptions of the pros and cons of different building materials or types (ex. Roofing materials, types of concrete, foundation styles). There's also info about dealing with all your various specific contractors if you choose to do that part of the work yourself.
33 people found this helpful
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Jessica
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly useful
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2018
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This book is amazing. I might be building a mother in law flat in the next year and because of budget constraints I'll probably have to be my own GC. I'm a project manager in my professional life so have the organizational skill-set and have been wondering if I am out of my mind--as my friends and family have been telling me--for considering doing the project myself. This book is invaluable for determining how to assess. I honestly think I can do it. It might not be painless but neither is having a house built--I've done that too.

This book would also be useful for people who are having their house built because it describes all the things that the contractor/builder is looking out for in the process. To me knowledge is power so the more you know the better the experience can be. This book can't be anything but useful no matter what role the homeowner decides to play.
68 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Derek Weatherhead
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth every penny
Reviewed in Canada on September 9, 2019
Verified Purchase
This book is really great. Worth every penny. It has tones of useful information and checklists. Even a seasoned pro could take something away from opening this book.
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David Beeby
5.0 out of 5 stars great to do
Reviewed in Canada on May 14, 2017
Verified Purchase
Very helpful book, great to do lists
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Manvir B.
4.0 out of 5 stars Home Building
Reviewed in Canada on April 20, 2022
Verified Purchase
Great book to learn, teaches you the ins and outs of general contracting also the good and the bad. I will be reading this book more than once.
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Timothy D Wellman
1.0 out of 5 stars a lot of useless information and not enough useful information
Reviewed in Canada on September 7, 2017
Verified Purchase
This book is full of repeated useless information and full paragraphs that are respeated word for word. This book does not help you with contacting your own home.
One person found this helpful
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