Lou Manfredini's House Smarts: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Buying, Maintaining, and Living Comfortably in Your Home

His books are serious, straight-forward, and offer tons of tid-bits of information, most of which wasn't over my head. Even if you aren't able to do some of the projects you want to, you will understand what is going on and get some money saving tips throughout. I have the entire series and it's well worth it, though I got all mine used, so it was only about $20 and worth it!

After just purchasing a house and finding some things that needed fixed, I went to the library to borrow some books on home repair. Most of the books concentrate on how to fix specific things like unclogging a sink or installing light fixture wiring. House Smarts gives much more broad lessons, rather than specifics. This is the first book to read, even before buying a house. I have bought the book for myself as well as two of my buddies. Lou educates the reader in a casual, funny and relatable way.

After we bought our first home, I bought a whole bunch of books so I could tackle various projects. There are books from Readers Digest, Home Depot and Black & Decker and others on my shelf now. They are all wonderful, but I wish I had bought this book first. You'll find a great introduction of the various parts and workings of your home, and how to best use and maintain them. This book helps you decide which project makes sense and which one to do first. Then when it comes to do the work, you may need a more detailed book specific to your project, or perhaps you decide to hire a contractor. Either way, this is a great book to start, and each time I am thinking about a project I turn to this book first. One word of caution: There is another book available from the same author ("Mr. Fixit introduces you to your home") that appears to be identical to this one, at least judging from the table of contents. So if you already own one, you may not need the other. I bought this one, since it was published more recently.