Customer comments on this selection.
CM&M We used this book for our construction equipment and methods class along with the CAT performace manual, and together, I thought they complimented each other quite well. This book is great because it touches on the basics of earthwork and excavation and gets you ready for courses in estimating, scheduling and cost control. I enjoyed using this textbook because the questions make you analyze construction problems from many different angles and not just look from a "here's the problem, here's the answer" point-of-view. *All in all, I would have to say that this a very good and useful textbook.* -M.
For Project Mgrs and Supers ? If you are an excavation or foundation SUB this may be quite helpful, particularly for road building. I found much of the info on ability and capacities of equipment:loaders, cranes, scrapers; concrete and aggregate production, paving, interesting but not info I need as a CM PM to build buildings in cities. If you want to know how to plan the construction of tall buildings, foundation planning, scheduling, staging, etc. don't look to this book. "Construction Mgmt.", which touched lightly on my interest, starts on page 479 of a 550 page book. This book is simply inaccurately titled.
Lots of mistakes in this book This book is a basic introductory text to the construction industy, focusing on earth moving operations, water pumping operations, and finally on physical construction methods.
Unfortunately, a lot of the examples in this book contain numerical errors. For example, many of the examples contain references to data tables, and data from those tables is utilised for the analysis. Often, the examples use data entries that are obviously wrong, and thus invalidate the rest of the example, forcing the student to rework the example. This can be found throughout the book, but luckily the examples aren't too hard to rework.
For anyone interested in the construction industry, I don't recommend you buy this book. Getting out on site is the best learning experience. You should only buy this book if you need to (eg, for an undergraduate university subject) and then sell if off at the conclusion of the subject.
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