Book excerpt: If your'e working alone, this book will be your second set of hands. You won't have to wait for a helper or pass up a job that seems too difficult to do alone. And if youre a homeowner working on your own house, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Written by a builder with 30 years' experience, Working Alone is packed with more than 50 innovative tips and techniques. You'll learn how to handle nearly every aspect of home construction alone, from foundation layout to raising walls to building decks. This book, the only one of its kind, offers a myriad of unique solo solutions. A perfect example is the problem of bringing a large sheet of plywood up a ladder. Even with a helper, this is a difficult and dangerous task. But if a large C-clamp is fastened to one end of the plywood, it's easy to pull the sheet up the ladder from behind. Clever techniques like this will have you solving common problems safely and efficiently.