What a great book! If you need a guide to maintaining your home, this is the book for you. Especially good for first-time homeowners or renters. Gives suggestions for routine maintenance and cleaning and also provides specifics for basic repairs. Indicates when you should call a professional and alerts you to maintenance problems that you ignore at your peril (as in, a big mess if you don't fix it soon). I've scanned through a lot of home maintenance books over the past couple of years, and this was the only one that gave me specific instructions on how to take apart and clean a hard-to-open casement window hand crank. A maintenance schedule is included in the back of the book.