I cannot write a review for how someone who is a professional electrician would look at this book; I am a fairly decent handiman, but know very little about electrical wiring. I own a home that is in desperate need of electrical updating - the existing wiring dates back to the 1920s. After having an electrician appraise the job at $7500, I thought I'd look into seeing how much of it I could do myself, and so in order to learn about what I can and what I cannot do, I decided to buy this book and educate myself.
I didn't want a book that had a couple of little tricks here and there. I wanted a book that sat me down and explained all the way from the beginning just what electrical wiring is all about. I didn't want a professional electrician's manual, either.
And so, to those ends, this book is absolutely on target! I have already learned a huge amount of stuff in just the first two chapters, which I'll probably have to go back and re-read because there's just so much there. But it is presented so well, and although it talks about very basic stuff, it doesn't treat the reader like a dummy.
The color photographs and diagrams are fantastic, too.
After the first sections that take up about 1/3 to 1/2 of the book, then it gets into specific tasks, such as pulling electrical cable, how to do wiring diagrams, step-by-step instructions for wiring boxes, wall sockets, light switches, etc. It even gets into some advanced stuff at the end.
So far I'm very well pleased with this book. If I can get a lot of this work done - such as pulling the cables through the house - I will be able to then get the professional electrician to come in to finish off the job with the real hard and tricky stuff. I hope that this will end up saving me thousands of dollars. Very sweet!