I finally got my hands on a new laser level for a deck job in Asheville, and it showed me something my old string line never could.

I was setting the ledger board and the laser showed a consistent 1/4 inch slope across the entire house wall that my string line had missed. This meant my whole frame would have been off if I hadn't caught it, and now I'm wondering how many other old houses have walls that aren't as true as they look. Has anyone else had a simple new tool completely change their approach to site prep?

3 comments

3 Comments

robinson.leo2mo ago

But what if that slope is actually part of the house's character? I've seen old places where forcing everything perfectly level just makes the next repair harder. Maybe @xena_west43's shed base being off was the ground settling naturally, and fighting it with a laser just creates a different kind of stress on the frame. Sometimes the old way of working with the imperfections is smarter.

xena_west432mo ago

That "walls that aren't as true as they look" thing is so real. I had the same shock with a laser measure on a simple shed base. My tape said the corners were square, but the laser showed one side was a full inch longer than the other over 10 feet. My whole cut list would have been garbage. It's scary how much we trust our old gear.

lily1102mo ago

Yeah, that "scary how much we trust our old gear" line from @xena_west43 hits hard. I've been burned by a worn-out tape measure throwing off a whole project. It makes you double-check everything, which is annoying but smart.