1 comments about Engineering Materials 2, Third Edition: An Introduction to Microstructures, Processing and Design.

1. This book is recommended for Ph.D. Qualification Exam, MEAM, University of Michigan

No comments about Computational Fluid Dynamics with Moving Boundaries (Dover Books on Engineering).

5 comments about 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation.

1. As a project manager/engineer and aviation enthusiast, I knew I had to read this book. It did not disappoint. Joe Sutter seemed at first like a typical engineer thrust (no pun intended) into a dream job--designing and building a new aircraft that most couldn't even imagine. By the end of this book, however, he'd discussed not only the technical challenges he faced, but the political roadblocks he encountered along the way. The story is compelling and interesting and taught me a few lessons on dealing with angry higher-ups and demanding customers.
   
   I especially liked how Joe weaved in a few details about his personal life and his background, without detracting from the story of designing the 747.
   
   This was a fascinating read and one that I may have to revisit. Thank you, Mr. Sutter, for sharing this story with the newest generation of engineers.



2. History was made in Everett, WA 40 years ago when the "Queen of the Skies" was developed and built. It was Boeing's Jumbo Jet, a double-deck airplane. Everyone has interviewed Joe Sutter, the "father of the 747",Chief Engineer on the project, and now he's written his own account.
   It's his personal story as well as the making of history in aviation. Juan Trippe of Pan Am was a driver behind the development of this airplane.
   The book gives one insight to the struggles of developing a new airplane.
   You can take guided tours of the assembly plant in Everett, where they assemble the twin-aisle airplanes, including 747 and 787.



3. Joe Sutter helped accomplish what was probably the most challenging engineering feat in history prior to 1970 by designing the largest jet aircraft in the world. His book touches briefly on the life journey leading up to his employment at Boeing and taking on some major assignments there, including running the 747 program. Joe's book shows he was an engineer first, and a manager second. While downplaying his own ability to understand company politics and business dealings, you see that Joe really felt a strong sense of importance about each and every engineering assignment he had at Boeing. From the 707 to the 727 to the 747, Joe talks about each Jet as if they were his.
   
   He shows how Boeing bet the whole farm on 747, and how that is typical of Boeing and a key factor to understanding the character of the Boeing Company. He discusses how he played a pivotal role both in the design and risk management process of 747. He shares some of the backroom strategy meetings where he convinced Boeing's top leadership to build a single deck airplane versus the customer proposed double-decker, and offers insights as to why a double-decker is so much more expensive to build than a single deck aircraft. Insisting on a single deck configuration for 747, according to Joe was probably the most valuable contribution he made at Boeing, though he risked loosing his job and Boeing almost lost the support of their biggest Customer, Pan-Am by going with his approach.
   
   Joe shared some other specific job experiences that helped groom him to run the 747 program, the lessons he learned, and the lessons he wish he had learned.
   
   Joe wanted this book to inspire the younger generation of engineers, and he definitely does. Joe is a story teller at heart and his book is easy reading like some of the emails you might get from an 85 year old war veteran with inspiring and straight talk. I couldn't put it down till it was done and recommend all my engineer buddy's to pick up a copy.



4. 747 is simply a must for anyone in the aerospace design industry, or for people who are just interested in how the 747 was built. Joe Sutter, the airplane's director of engineering and the one most responsible for its actual design, has written a trim, quick, and enjoyable to read history of the 747 program encased in a semi-autobiography.
   
   After a few chapters exploring the author's early life, including his college time and Navy life, the book spends its bulk on a 50,000 foot overview of what was going on with the 747 development program from its inception until its most recent incarnation to fly in the form of the 747-400 family of derivatives. The final chapters sweep the remainder of the author's professional career including his service on the Challenger Disaster commission. Joe (and after reading the book you definitely get the feeling he would prefer to be called that then Mr. Sutter) has certainly led a very interesting life, and has had the privilege of experiencing a truly gilded age of aviation from the peaks of its ambitions and the lows of its difficulties and uncertainty. But the star of the book is truly the magnificent 747 aircraft and even his more autobiographical chapters tie into the aircraft and its design.
   
   Much of the author's life exerted an inexorable influence on the design philosophy he brought to the plane. As an early child he grew up in Seattle and watched, literally from his neighborhood, as Boeing would roll out new aircraft through the twenties and thirties and try to push aviaiton forward and make the world a smaller place. Caught up in the majesty of flight Joe wanted very badly to design airplanes, but as WWII dawned when he was in college that would have to wait for more important world events to be sorted out. Joining the Navy he became a deck officer on a destroyer escort in the Atlantic, where he had a formative experience. Returning to Boston Harbor his ship started to become glazed with rapidly growing layers of thick ice in the midst of a storm, making the ship dangerously top heavy. With no anti-icing system and no ability to get people out on deck to hack off the ice the crew had to just ride out the storm praying they wouldn't die. From this moment on the author decided safety would be a primary criteria of anything he designed.
   
   The legacy of the 747 is one of carrying on Boeing's legacy of leading the pack in aviation with an unparalleled record of safety, thanks to smart design and brute force quadruple redundancy. (Brute force is by no means meant perjoratively here!) The 747 came about during an amazing time in aviation history. It was the first wide body airliner (against the initial full double decker narrow body wishes of its launch customer), the first turbofan (or fanjet as they are sometimes called) powered airliner, and it was designed by a slimmed down workforce in the shadow of the ill fated 2707 SST, while the 727 and 737 were also absorbing significant company resources, and while Lockheed's L-1011 and Douglas' DC-10 provided competition. The story of how this giant came about and triumphed in spite of the decidely low expectations Boeing clearly had for it at the begining is a truly fascinating one, filled with such aviation luminaries as Juan Trippe, Bill Allen and Charles Lindbergh. Joe's life on the program is also filled with equally amazing events including state department sponsored dinners with the Soviets in Paris at the height of the Cold War (in the spirit of "Detente"), and trips all over the world ranging from the expected places like Japan and New York, to Baghdad.
   
   In addition to being a great story well told, there are real gems here for aviation program managers and aircraft designers about how to make a successful airplane. Absolutely worth reading, and would be something I would like to see as a textbook for aeronautical engineers, perhaps in an aerospace history course, to give them some real world perspective that is so often lacking in modern engineering degrees.
   
   An outstanding book, highly recommended!



5. Joe Sutter rose to lead the 747 program through hard work, preparation, and a little bit of luck. As an aspiring Boeing worker, I hope to do the same one day. All of the lessons learned from decades ago are still relevant today. Joe tells his story from all angles: professionally and personally. This is a highly engaging book, and if you are interested in the aerospace industry it is highly recommended.

5 comments about Computational Methods for Fluid Dynamics.

1. This is a very good book for learning the details of implementing the Finite Volume method in Computational Fluid Dynamics. I view it as very complimentary to S. V. Patankar's book, which is more general in nature. Both books are geared toward people who want to write computer programs to solve fluid transport problems (heat transfer, Navier-Stokes, etc.) Both tend to focus on numerical issues (as opposed to the physics of transport phenomena). But while Pantankar's book provides a very easy, approachable introduction that is thin on the details, Ferziger & Peric have written a book rich in details. For instance, they devote an entire chapter to solving linear systems of equations. They compare all of the commonly used methods and contrast their rates of convergence for various test cases. This level of detail is great if you already understand the big picture. I think it may be somewhat difficult for someone new to CFD to really understand the finite volume method from this book alone. I would recommend Patankar's book for a good intro and this book for the implementation details.



2. I agree with the reviewer that said this book is complimentary to an intro text such as Patankar. This is not a cook book for a first time coder. But it is a really great reference for the Finite Volume dilettante.

   I really appreciate that all numerical results presented are thoroughly documented. That counts.

   Really, really nice chapter on iterative solvers....

   Good overall description on many other topics such as multi-grid methods, turbulence, grid geometry and PV coupling.

   This book really helped me speed up my homegrown quite a bit.

   They also have all kinds of stuff available by ftp....




3. This is the best book on CFD I' ve read. It is more useful to those who want to develop their own codes rather than CFD users: It mostly describes in deep detail (although in a concise manner) a single method used by the authors and developed by themselves and their colleagues. It is not intended to be a list of the vast number of CFD techniques developed so far.

   Their method is state-of-the-art and they provide plenty of results to support it's quality. It is mostly directed towards incompressible flows. They provide a chapter that extends their method to compressible flows but they do not describe any special convection schemes for flows with shock waves. It can be applied to both structured and arbitrarily unstructured grids, although their approach to the discretization of the convection and diffusion terms is particularly useful in the case of arbitrarily unstrucured grids. State of the art subjects such as multigrid and error-driven grid refinement are also covered and integrated into their method.

   I agree with a previous reviewer that they provide a very good coverage of solution methods for linear equation systems which arise in CFD. Most other books on CFD (all the ones that I have read) have a poor coverage of the subject and describe only old and inneficient methods. However even this book does not sufficiently describe conjugate-gradient type methods or Krylov subspace methods in general, but references are provided.

   In conclusion, this book is not for beginners but for code developers who have some basic knowlwdge of CFD and a relatively good mathematical background.




4. I found this book an excellent support in teaching and invaluable as an occasional reference in my practical work in industry. It is particularly gratifying to see that free surface flows are covered well. Best book I have seen so far in the field.



5. Peric's PhD thesis is one of my most precious possessions. I consider Ferziger to be one of THE greats in Large Eddy Simulation. So I had great hopes for this book. I was warned before I saw it that it contained nothing that I wouldn't already know, but even so it was a big disappointment. I could have written a better book myself and I don't have half the brain of either of the authors. I've looked at it three times and each time turned away in disgust.

   This book will point a novice in the correct direction, unlike Roach's book, and unlike Patankar's in a post Rhie-Chow age, but it avoids like the plague any subject with even the slightest whiff of controversy. As any new technique is always controversial, the book was some 5 to 10 years out of date even before it hit the press. Further, it discusses each subject in a very superficial way. More depth is needed.

   I want a book that will tell me what the advantages are and how to program the conjugate gradient method, algebraic multigrid, superbee, wall reflection terms for Reynolds Stress, multiphase flow, viscoelasticity, coalescence, the axis in cylindrical coordinates, grid generation, surface tension, adaptive grids, spectral elements etc. This book is no help with any of these.

   I frequently get asked "What's a good book for Computational Fluid Dynamics?". I have to admit that there isn't one. The best that I know are the user manuals for the various commercial CFD packages.

   To summarise, if programming CFD is a 100 step journey then this book will only take you the first 3 steps, but at least they're 3 steps in the right direction. After you've been programming CFD for a year you can probably toss the book out without any great loss.

5 comments about Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific.

1. The strengths of the book have been mentioned in other reviews, so I will focus on certain weaknesses not emphasized by others.
   
   The first main weakness is luck of technical understanding of several terms by the author. He seems to confuse the terms, power loading, and wing loading. He failed to recognize that the Japanese fighters' lower wing loading was actually a more significant benefit in terms of maneuverability at higher altitudes where the air density is lower (he supports the opposite, which is not technically reasonable). He also makes the statement many times that the maneuverability advantage of the Japanese fighters at the expense of heavy armor proved not to be the winning advantage. The statement needs to be corrected however, in my opinion. When a very skilful pilot is manning the more maneuverable fighter, the compromise for maneuverability can actually pay off. Early in the war, the Japanese had probably the best pilots in the world, which justifies their choice in the maneuverability/speed/armor compromise. This is well illustrated when Japanese ace pilots, even late in the war, often engaged large numbers of allied fighters sinle-handed, and not only usually survived by using the maneuverability of their "obsolete" fighters, but also gained victories over their multiple opponents. However, as the author properly states, late in the war, the lack of speed and armor was indeed a serious drawback when the majority of the Japanese pilots could not be properly trained, due to the lack of aviation fuel.
   
   The second main weakness is that the book is heavily biased to the American side. It fails to emphasize the important role of serendipity that allowed the Americans to gain significant advantages (i.e., the victory in the Midway battle which was very much determined by luck, or the early discovery of a flyable A6M2 by the allies which allowed the early development of the proper tactics to deal with the Zero). Another example of bias is as follows: In the section where a P-40 pilot (justifiably biased) declared that his side had the speed advantage and therefore could dictate when and where to fight, the author (who should intervene in a more unbiased position) failed to mention that the Zero had almost twice the rate of climb of the P-40, and therefore a far stronger advantage to dictate the terms of the air battle. Finally, and possibly the most significant example of bias is the Author's failure to even mention the Japanese Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) in the Japanese warplane section. The Hayate had completely outclassed the US fighters in almost every respect, and its impact in the air war was reduced only by the relatively small numbers and the lack of experienced pilots and mechanics. However, an experienced pilot in a Hayate was a very serious threat to any allied fighter, even if outnumbered.
   
   Finally, the superior fighting spirit of the Japanese was only barely touched by this book. Even though it is not fair to compare aircrew individually due to the different cultures, the Japanese had a considerable advantage in this respect. At the end, quantity overwhelmed quality, as far as the fighting spirit was concerned. In my opinion, this is a serious deficiency of a historical book, that by definition should at least try to be unbiased. A more in depth understanding of the unusual Japanese culture would have helped the author develop a better picture of the cultural disconnect, and how the allied leadership took advantage of the cultural difference to motivate the aircrews, and minimize potential ethical doubts when the latter were employed in the extermination of tens of thousands of Japanese troops (and later hundreds of thousands of civilians). The author states that racism had little part in the war ethics, but that is a serious historical error. In my opinion, we have to say history as it was, in order to avoid similar mistakes in the future.



2. The author writes a mult-dimension book about an unusual war where an entire theater of operations was depend on capturing, and defending an airfield and then the next military objective was another airfield. I agreed that author failed to talk about the K-84 Hayate (Frank), but he forgot that the Japanese also produce the Shiden N1K2 (George) Navy fighter plane. The author also seems to forget that American pilots had to fly for 8 to 14 hours from England and Italy to escort the bombers and then fight the Luftwaffe pilots just like the Japanese pilots had to do from Rabual. The only differences was that we had more fighter planes and pilots than the Japanese, and our planes could absorb much damage from enemy fire and bring our pilots back home.
   
   The author seems to forget that much of the American population was also unskilled labor when it came to maintaining planes that were designed by Americans who were college graduates. We had no nationwide apprenticeship program system like they have in Europe when it comes to producing a skill technical labor force. Nowadays, we have been getting rid of such a technical skilled labor force for the last 27 years. The Japanese at least gave their enlisted soldiers and sailors a chance to become pilots since 1928 and continue it until the end of World War II. On the other hand, the US Navy, Marines and Army did not try to expand their enlisted pilots during the war.
   
   I did not realizes how easy it was to be hit by the variety of diseases and illness in the tropics. Amazing how the tropics can be so beautiful in the photographs of the tourist industries' bochures and at the same time be so deadly. Of course, those people who fought in Burma from 1941-1945 could emphasize those who were expose to the diseases in the South Pacific and dealing with the jungle.
   
   The way they said that it rain so much in the South Pacific, you wonder how both the Allies and the Japanses ever manage to fight such a war in a place like that. If it rain so much, there would have been no war at all because all sea and air operations could not operate in an environment at all.
   
   The author should also have talk to members of the U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 5 and 17 since they fought in that area. Furthermore, he should also have talk to members of the U. S. Army fighter groups that operate from Guadalcanel.
   
   I hope the author writes two books about the air war over the Philippines in 1944. The first book would be from October 1944 to December 1944 with regards to Leyte Island. The second book should be about air war over the Philippines from January 1945 to the end of Japanese air resistance.
   
   Overall, an excellent book given the complexity blending in so many subject matters and how each one play a part in the overall campaign.



3. This'll keep you off amazon for a week or so if you're a slow reader [like me] i often mark up a book for errors or questionable statements, this one has only a few exclamation marks. combining personal accounts of US Army and Marine/Navy to Aussie and Japanese make for a better view than i've seen before. He certainly brings out how hard it is to understand what was actually going on, certainly no one participating could have known. My only suggestion for another edition would be better/more maps and pictures but that's only a quibble. damn fine book



4. If WWII interests you, Eric Bergerud shines a light into the dark corners of of the Pacific theater and illuminates actions and activities forgotten and neglected for years.
   
   Ever wonder why vain, proud Douglas MacArthur was left in a position commanding a major front and leading the defense of Australia in the Pacific war? Can't figure out why he lead the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on the deck of the USS Missouri, and not Nimitz or King?
   
   Wonder how Japanese air power was destroyed after Midway? If you read Shattered Sword you understand despite the propaganda provided by both Japanese and US sources, Japanese Naval air power wasn't all sunk at Midway - that was a couple of hundred planes at most. And what about the Japanese Army's Air force? How did they disappear? How did Japanese Air Power get from Midway in 1942 - capable of sinking the US fleet - to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot in 1944 - utterly prostrate and immediately afterward turning to Kamikaze attacks - hopeless of striking US forces and surviving.
   
   Eric Bergerud explains all this and much more.



5. I have read a lot of history regarding World War Two and Fire In The Sky is one of the better efforts. Its a good overview of the relatively
   unexplored South Pacific campaign. Its not a detailed history of single
   squadrons or units, but it contains a wealth of information not normally
   contemplated from both the Allied and Japanese perspectives. So, why
   is all this relevant? Its relevant because if a society doesn't know
   where its been, how can it know where its going?

2 comments about The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (California Studies in the History of Science, Vol 1).

1. When I browsed through Amazon.com, I was amazed that after all of these years there was not a single review on this book. I wanted to write a review to let people know what this book is about. Basically Finocchiaro has made an excellent compilation of all documents pertaining the famous "Galileo Affair", of what happened in the Inquisition's case against Galileo.
   
   But more than that, Finocchiaro in his "Introduction" to the book, deals with both sides of the affair, of those against Galileo, and of those in his favor. He then tries to make a very accurate interpretation about what really happened them, and pointing to both groups' flaws about their interpretation of history. Certainly the Galileo Affair was not just a case where the Inquisition was absolutely right, but also it is far beyond the statement that the Inquisition wanted him silenced to prevent the advance of science. The Galileo Affair is much more complex than that, and Finnochiaro takes into account the scientific, philosophical, theological and political realities of the time.
   
   The documents in the book include correspondence, Inquisition documents, fragments of Galileo's writings, among others. You MUST have this book if you want to understand more accurately the Galileo Affair.



2. Not exactly what I was looking for. Aside from the 43-page introduction, this book is a primary source of documentation (letters to and from Galileo) surrounding Galileo and his two trials, and devoid of commentary or narrative.

1 comments about Electric Machinery and Transformers (The Oxford Series in Electrical and Computer Engineering).

1. This review applies to the 2nd edition.
   
   I'm not an electrical engineer; I bought this book to get a better understanding of how electromagnetic equipment operates. The book is very approachable in that it does not utilize advanced mathematics (understanding basic algebra, trig, and some calculus is sufficient to understand most of the book). A reader with a good understanding of electricity (including impedance in AC circuits) and magnetism can learn quite a bit about motors, generators, and transformers from this book. Don't know how a professional engineer/educator would rate this book. If your main goal is better understandng of these types of devices, I'd highly recommend this book in used form - new is very expensive.

5 comments about Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program.

1. Final Countdown is an excellent book for Baby Boomers who grew up watching the massive Saturn 5 rockets of the Apollo program lumber off the launch pad and dreamed, one day, of drinking Tang on the Moon or taking a Space vacation. Final Countdown is an excellent book for anyone, regardless of generation, interested in politics, science and man's future in Space.
   
   The book is a well researched history of how America's shining achievement in Space technology was a mistake, a design of political compromise, constrained federal spending and promised secret military payloads. Frank Lloyd Wright would have told NASA that form must follow function, but in the case of the Shuttle, Wright would have learned that function had not been fully defined.
   
   Final Countdown also gives the reader a look at Space exploration beyond the Shuttle program and how NASA has returned to mission-based designs for selecting the vehicle that will likely carry man back to the Moon and possibly on to Mars.
   
   Beyond the well documented history of the Shuttle itself, author Pat Duggins introduces readers to the personalities and individual career turns that ultimately gave life to the Space Shuttle program. He tells the unlikely story of how the demise of plans for a spy agency's secret space program helped shape the Shuttle. Along with the Shuttle's achievements, the book takes readers through the pain and lessons learned from the disasters of Challenger and Columbia.
   
   In the end, the book serves as a wonderful "Program Guide" to the Final Countdown of the Space Shuttle Program and gives readers a reason to anticipate with excitement the next chapter in the story of manned space flight.



2. Final Countdown is a great book about NASA's plans for the future of space travel and their intentions of ending the Space Shuttle program. This book explains how the Space Shuttle program evolved along with it's success and tragedies. Author Pat Duggins wrote this book in a way to where it is not only entertaining but educational as well. A nice addition to a space travel book collection!



3. This is one of the finest books I have read in a while on the space shuttle. With a comprehensive look at how we got into the shuttle, remained there for close to thirty years and now are finally in the process of getting out of. If you don't have acopy of thie book...go out and get one.



4. I discovered this book while doing research on Kennedy Space Center and found it really helpful. As someone who was "there" during much of the story covered by Duggins, I found his information to be accurate and enlightening. It was also a lot less dry than most of the other related books I was reading on this topic. In particular, I was impressed by his candid narrative. Many of the books I reviewed on KSC and NASA seemed to gloss over issues that may have put the agencies in a bad light, but Duggins was able to tell the truth about what happened using an unbiased voice.



5. Just read this, and thoroughly enjoyed it- I particularly liked the honesty throughout re. the state of Nasa and some of the decisions made over the years. Flaws from the earliest to the current days of the Shuttle program are explored, but this is no witch-hunt- just an honest appraisal of things that went wrong with the Shuttle- but not forgetting, all the great, great things that went right, right too. Wets your appetite for the forthcoming new launch system, too! Recommended.

5 comments about Effective Cycling: 6th Edition.

1. If you ride a bike, you must read this book!
   
   Yes, it's in some ways old, but much of the info, and advice from this outspoken cycling advocate is timeless and life saving.
   
   The number of subjects covered and the detail is amazing.



2. This book was recommended by the cycling club I recently joined. Being fairly new to cycling as an adult, I found this book contains a great deal of practical information and tips for cycling skills suitable for beginners and more experienced cyclists. An example is the books instruction for riding on the road in traffic. The book has very good tips for how to deal with all kinds of traffic situations and stresses how much safer it is for a cyclist to ride on the road where motorists expect them to be rather than on sidewalks or multi-use paths that run along streets. It's not a book intended to be read cover to cover but used more as a reference book. The only negative thing I can say about the book is the authors focus on politics as it pertains to bicycle laws. This information is important for all cyclist to understand so it should be mentioned in the book but I felt that too much of the book dealt with the topic. All in all I'd definitely recommend this book to any one interested in improving their cycling skills



3. Effective Cycling contains a lot of very valuable information. Unfortunately, half of the book is mostly repetitive axe-grinding and random opinions. I would have given the book a higher rating if these necessary half were not thoroughly interwoven with the unnecessary half.
   
   It bothers me that Forester complains about others using unsubstantiated, anecdotal evidence, because he uses plenty himself. For one example, his brief discussion of recumbent bicycles is so absurd that it should have been left out. His double-standards regarding fact vs. opinion and logic vs. emotion greatly undermine his arguments.
   
   That said, a reader with a critical eye and a tolerance for hot air can separate the wheat from the chaff.



4. This is an excellent book, which used to be the basis for the League of American Wheelmen (now the League of American Bicyclist's) safe cycling class (at the time known as Effective cycling. Learn all the critical skills for riding safely in traffic, including such things as emergency stops and emergency turns (i.e. when a car "hooks" you by making a right turn in front of you).
   
   This book has been around for a long time, restructured and revised in this 6th edition, it's a much better read -- I just wish John could give up on his political ranting (correct as much of it is) and spend some time on riding safely in the world of bike lanes, etc. rather than wishing they didn't exist -- sadly, given legislative ignorance such things are here to stay and every cyclist should know how to use them safely!



5. Cancel your subscription to _Bicycling_ magazine. Read this instead. Ride and learn. Learn to ride with confidence. Sure, the equipment advice is hopelessly obsolte. Who cares? Five speed freewheels, drill holes in your hubs for oil ports? Forget about it. Doesn't talk about LED headlights or blinking taillights? You already know about those.
   
   He invented the priciples that are described here, coined the term vehicular cycling, and pretty much wrote the bible for on-road cyclists. Take it out of your library if you are skeptical, but this really should be on the bookshelf on every cyclist.

5 comments about Radiant Floor Heating.

1. McGraw-Hill should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this book to be published! It meets none of the advertized criteria, and you couldn't begin to attempt a design or purchase after having read this thinly disguised manufacturer's sales pitch. There's better information available on the web for free. What's more the writing style is extremely superficial and repetitive, with identical illustrations used in numerous places simply as fillers. The author (if really an actual person) should go into hiding immediately.
   The publisher's "text book" reputation really deserves to be tarnished if this is the best they can come up with.
   Do not buy this book!



2. most complete i have ever read on radiant heat simple enough for someone like me new to radiant floor heat.but very complete has info for figuring size of pumps needed and number of loops etc



3. Really not much info in this for it's size. It's the type of book
   someone would get if they wanted to get radiant heating, didn't
   know anything about it, and were going to hire a contractor to
   put it in. This way, they could at least use the right words
   describing things.
   
   Surprisingly, it's the only book 2 local bookstores had in
   stock on radiant heating.
   
   Modern Hydronic Heating by Siegenthaler had much more info, background,
   designs, etc.



4. The author has a wealth of practical knowledge from years of experience in the field. I picked up much useful information from reading the text, but I also found myself reading the same information over and over again in different parts of the book! What I learned out weighed the annoyance of redundancies.



5. This book is very comprehensive. The author explains just about everything you would need to know. However I would have enjoyed reading about solar applications in combination with what the author had to offer. Still, I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to install radiant floor heating. Book on solar heating do not provide the necessary details found here.