This book is an excellent reference tool for people with a modicum of common sense and a bit of experience.

It has enough depth and breadth to cover the majority of things but if you are looking for something that will tell you how to build a block of flats from scratch using only lolly sticks then you will be dissappointed.

It kind of gives you the confidence to do what you knew you wanted to do but didn't know the detail (like using 10mm cable for a shower installation)

I'm a miserable wotsit and I bought another copy for my son

Buy it. If you save one tradesman coming in to do a job then it'll have paid for itself.

This book is fairly useless, for several reasons:

1. It's impossible to find what you're looking for, and the index is hopeless. The only way I managed to find anything was by flicking randomly until I found what I was looking for.

2. Sometimes it is hopelessly patronising, but then most of the time it assumes you know much more than you would as an amateur DIYer. For example, we wanted to know how to put in a loft door, and it said 'shore up the size of the hatch to fit the door you've bought'. How do you do that? If it was covered elsewhere in the book, it was hopeless trying to find it. This is just one example from six months of frustration with this book.

3. It is rubbish at telling you exactly what you need to ask for when you go to hardware stores. Often B&Q had no idea what the thing was the book said I needed. (OK B&Q are also a bit rubbish)

We've just bought our first flat, and are fairly competent at DIY, but having lived with this book for six months, we ended up buying the Readers Digest one, which is infinitely better. We're not even going to bother keeping the Collins for a second opinion, it's that rubbish.

Title sums it up really. Bought as I was starting to renovate an old house. It's got damp, needs bathrooms, kitchens, exterior problems etc.... This book helps a lot to indentify and solve these, at a minimum you know what you can do and when to call in the professionals!

There is no denying the scope of this book is, to say the least, comprehensive. It covers almost every topic imaginable in DIY from dry lining your basement to capping the chimney and covers it at every range whether you just want to change a fuse or rewire the entire building.

That scope though is both its virtue and its problem. Yes I can pick this up and be fairly confident that it will tell me how to go about building a stud wall but I know that it is also likely to be something of an overview of the subject rattled off in a few paragraphs. Often that is enough. There are a lot of jobs where a grasp of the basics and a willingness to have a go are good enough and if I'm laying new paving slabs I'll read this and go for it. Alternatively there are some jobs where I'd like a little more expertise than this can provide. Yes this book will tell me how to change the main fuse box but I'm not going to do that when it means working on the live side of a 100 amp line! In those cases though at least it lets me know roughly how difficult the job is so that I don't sound like a complete numpty when I call an electrician and ask if they could replace the 'thingummy by the front door with the fuses in it'.

I'd say to anyone that they should buy this book even if you don't ever intend to do the DIY yourself. If you do the DIY this is a good first reference to find out what to do. If it's not comprehensive enough then it will give enough of an overview that you will know what to look for when searching for more detail and if you do get someone else to do the job you've a better chance of knowing if they're doing the right thing.

This book is truly a jack of all trades and master of none.

There is no denying the scope of the book as it covers every DIY subject possible but as a result can only afford a paragraph on each. It lists some very heavy-duty projects that you would not want to tackle having read only a brief overview as offered here.

The book also frequently uses technical jargon, which is left unexplained and which if you did understand, you would not need to be reading the book in the first place. As a quick reference guide and refresher for seasoned DIY'ers I'm sure it works very well but for beginners it is of less use.