AROUND HOME : Repair Manuals

THERE ARE TIMES when the general home-repair manual the in-laws gave as a house-warming gift just doesn’t cut it. Your home-repair skills have advanced beyond the leaky-faucet fix-it stage and the time has come to tackle larger projects, perhaps remodel a kitchen or add on an extra bedroom.

But a trip to the local chain bookstore offers little in the way of serious construction or architecture books. What to do? Head to a technical bookstore that carries a full line of tomes for the professional.

Though geared to civil engineers, contractors and the like, many technical bookstores offer materials--ranging from cost estimators and tables to works on specific topics such as masonry and electrical--that aren’t over the head of the average homeowner.

“Some technical books are very useful for the layperson as well as for professionals,” says Pat Hruska, assistant manager at Technical Book Co. in Los Angeles. “One example is ‘Means Repair and Remodeling Cost Data,’ an estimating guide that can be used to price a project--or to keep tabs on a contractor.”

Though all are, in varying degree, weighted heavily toward technical material, these bookstores are still bookstores to the bone--and are fun places to browse, to do a little daydreaming on a Saturday morning.

Technical bookstores are located at Building News Bookstore, 3055 Overland Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 202-7775; Contractors Book Store, 22102 Clarendon, Woodland Hills, (800) 367-8378; Pasadena Scientific & Technical Books, 1388 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena, (818) 794-4499; San Diego Technical Books, 4698 Convoy St., Kearny Mesa, (619) 279-4990; Technical Book Co., 2056 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles, (800) 233-5150, and Opamp Technical Books, 1033 N. Sycamore Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 464-4322.