Building Stairs (For Pros by Pros) (ISBN 1561586536)

At best, a poor collection of ill-connected articles.:
I have a large amount of admiration for the Taunton Press. Fine Homebuilding is quality magazine and the For Pros books have been worth the money. This book is a poor collection of disjointed FH articles that have no cogent flow to them. I should know better than to buy books by "Editors," but I made a mistake here. William Spence's "Constructing Staircases, Balustrades & Landings," while not a perfect book, is much better than this collection. Taunton's "For Pros" books on Electrical (Caldwell) and Plumbing (Hemp) are well worth the money, particularly Caldwell's offering.

do not buy this book!!:
As an installer by trade, I urge anyone interested in learning the construction of stairs to consult another book. I wish I had read the other readers comments before I wasted my money on this book.

Not enough detail:
So I don't know why I bought this book without reading the previous reviews. I usually check those first and avoid books like this. It had too many types of stairs to be documented and not enough detail for each one. I would have rather had just three basic types of stairs covered in detail than all of the types in here. The writer appeared to be showing off. Still, it did show me what I needed to purchase (bending rail) and had about two pages worth of useful information. I finished my curved baluster, but I see flaws in my work. I am a pretty ambitious DIYer and I would not recommend that anyone try doing this but a professional. This book did not give enough detail or complete instructions to help me through the rough spots.

Why bother:
The book addressed building stair-related structures that were just not relevant to standard stair building needs...

Building stairs is a huge responsibility:
They must work perfectly every time they are used for the life of the house because someone can be horribly injured or worse, including the builder. Not for a DIY project and I was alarmed by what this volume left out. A DIY stairs project would be painting trimming an interior staircase, or tacking down some mats. I do not feel the book is unsafe, just grossly incomplete. Sorry, I have to rate the book at 1 star. Zero wasn't an option. Hire a licensed builder with time in rate.