Shoutout to the guy who told me to use a string line for every single post

I thought it was a slow way to work, just eyeballing them was fine for years. Then I did a 200 foot run in Spokane last fall and the whole thing looked like a wave. Had to pull three posts and reset them. Now I run a line for every job, no matter what. Anyone else have a simple tip they fought against that turned out to be gold?

3 comments

3 Comments

martinez.kim2mo ago

Remember when I thought marking studs was a waste of time? I missed one in a closet and put a screw right into a pipe. Now I have a little stud finder on my keychain and use it every single time.

clark.morgan2mo ago

Watched a buddy build a whole deck without checking for level, swore his "calibrated eyeball" was good enough. He had to shim like half the ledger board where it met the house, took him twice as long to fix it. Now he breaks out the level before he even unpacks his bags. Some lessons you just gotta learn the hard way.

barbarah192mo ago

Oh man, that's so true. I read this article once about how our brains are actually terrible at judging level and plumb over any real distance. It said something like, your eyes can trick you into thinking a line is straight because of the way the ground slopes or the house settles. That's why even pro framers still use a level on every single stud and plate. They said the "calibrated eyeball" is basically a myth for anything bigger than a picture frame.