Took me three days to realize I was leveling my fence posts wrong because the bubble level was off by a quarter inch

I kept checking the level and thinking the ground was just uneven, but after re-digging the same hole four times I finally grabbed a different level from the garage and sure enough the old one was the problem the whole time - has anyone else had a simple tool screw up a whole weekend project like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

derek_bell1mo ago

Buddy of mine spent an entire weekend trying to figure out why his new deck was leaning to one side. He kept shimming the posts and adjusting the frame and nothing worked. Turns out his tape measure was stretched out from being dropped so many times on the job site. He measured the same board three times and got three different lengths before he finally grabbed my tape measure and realized his was toast. He had to tear apart half the deck and redo it. Now he buys a new tape measure every spring whether he thinks he needs one or not. That old saying about trust but verify really applies to tools I guess.

fisher.charlie25d ago

I gotta disagree a little with the "trust but verify" idea here, that's more about people than tools. A tape measure doesn't need verification, it needs to be replaced when it's obviously junk. Your buddy should've caught that problem the first time he got three different numbers from the same board, that's a clear sign something is wrong. If you drop your tape measure enough to stretch it out, you're probably already ignoring other warning signs too.