Edward Allen - Fundamentals of Residential Construction

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Cover Images: @ Alexander Schreyer

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Allen, Edward, 1938- author. | Thallon, Rob, author. | Schreyer, Alexander (Alexander C.), author. | Iano, Joseph, illustrator.
Title: Fundamentals of residential construction / Edward Allen, Rob Thallon, Alex Schreyer ; featuring the drawings of Joseph Iano.
Description: Fourth Edition. | Hoboken : John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016033843| ISBN 9781118977996 (cloth) | ISBN 9781118978009 (epub) | 9781118978016 (epdf)
Subjects: LCSH: House construction.
Classification: LCC TH4811 .A463 2017 | DDC 690/.837--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016033843

The book that you hold in your hands is the fourth edition of what has since its first publication in 2002 become the standard textbook on residential construction. When its preceding book, Fundamentals of Building Construction, Materials and Methods, was first published more than 30 years ago, it filled a void and quickly was adopted by hundreds of colleges and universities as a text for general courses in construction technology. It also precipitated immediately the first of a growing stream of requests from teachers for a companion volume that would concentrate on residential construction while retaining the qualities of the parent book. The authors were pleased to respond to those requests with Fundamentals of Residential Construction. This book has since grown steadily over the previous three editions and nowin its fourth editionprovides even more improvements, both in terms of content as well as its delivery. All chapters have been edited to reflect the latest in construction technology and describe traditional but also emerging methods. Content has been reorganized in a more logical fashion and the chapter on multifamily construction has been significantly expanded.

This fourth edition inherits several important traits from its predecessors: It is straightforward and readable, and it contains extensive drawings and photographs. These elements are blended on attractive pages, and, for the reader's convenience, each illustration appears on the same two-page spread as its referencing text. Retained, too, is the concern for both technical and aesthetic matters, because the authors believe that those are important for the quality of buildings and the lives of the people who inhabit them.

New to the fourth edition is a chapter on sustainability aspects of construction. Green building and sustainability have over the past years grown from an add-on to traditional design and construction practices to an integral requirement for good construction. Customers now demand high-performance houses and building codes put more stringent energy-efficiency requirements on every construction project, large and small. The chapter on sustainability provides the reader with a thorough background on the topic, which is strengthened through updated Green building with features in each chapter of the book.

With much of today's construction planning and execution based on the computer, this fourth edition features not only new Web Links sections for each chapter, but also a thorough set of digital 3D exercises. Those exercises allow the reader to virtually practice the presented construction topics and their assemblies without getting their hands too dirty (or wasting material). The exercises, which are linked to many locations in the chapters through sidebar icons, are easy to accomplish practices for individual or classroom use.