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c/drywall-installers•mark436mark436•1mo ago

Drove 80 miles for a job before realizing my levels were off

Spent 20 minutes fighting a crooked wall. My partner checked my level and it was bent, had been dropped the day before. Anyone else ever get burned by a bad tool?
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3 Comments
evan_green52
and what kills me is nobody ever checks if the level itself is straight before they start. you just grab it off the shelf or out of the truck and assume it works. i had a 4 foot level that was off by a quarter inch over its length because it got tossed around in the bed of my truck for a month. cost me a whole day of shimming cabinets before i figured out it was the level, not the floor. you'd think something called a level would stay level, but nope.
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laura_schmidt82
You said "you'd think something called a level would stay level" and that's exactly what gets me. Did you check that level against a known straight edge or just toss it and buy a new one after that nightmare? I've always wondered how many people are unknowingly working with a crooked level and just blaming their materials.
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laura_schmidt82
no way @evan_green52 i can't believe you went a whole month with a bent level. that's brutal. i would have lost my mind after the first couple days of redoing work. i bet you were cursing out the cabinets and the floor and everything else before you figured it out. those aluminum levels just get tweaked so easy in a truck bed, it's ridiculous. a quarter inch over 4 feet is huge, that's enough to mess up anything you're trying to do. i'm honestly surprised you didn't throw the level across the room when you finally checked it.
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