Plumber's Reference Plumbers Handbook, by Howard Massey; Craftsman Book Co., Carlsbad, Calif,; 1985; $16.75, paperback. A handbook should be concise, portable, and focused. Although the Plumbers Handbook is quite portable— weighing a mere 1 1/4 pounds—it's too big to tuck into your breast pocket while working. It's also concise—too concise in most cases to make it very useful as an everyday trade reference. There is a great deal of useful information packed into this "handbook's" pages but it suffers from poor organization, sloppy editing, lack of photos, and failure to adequately cover the basics. Plumbers Handbook does offer tables of trap/drain sizes, recommended fall per foot, maximum fixture sizes, vent sizes and lengths, and instructions on properly backfilling under cast iron hubs. There's
