A plumber in Spokane told me his tape measure trick and I've used it on 4 jobs since

He said to mark the 19 3/16 inch spot on your tape with a sharpie so you never have to do the math on stud spacing again, and that one tip cut my framing layout time by about 30 minutes on a garage build this Tuesday, has anyone else got a dumb-simple shortcut like that from a trade you never expected to learn from?

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the_wren8d agoMost Upvoted

Dig into that idea a little deeper and you'll notice most pros have some weird little hack like this. The older I get the more I realize trades are basically just a bunch of secret knowledge passed around by word of mouth, nobody writes this stuff down. I had an electrician show me how to use a dollar bill to check if a stud is straight, sounds stupid but it works every time. It's funny how the best tips always come from someone in a completely different field who just happened to figure out a faster way. Makes me wonder what other 30 minute savings are hiding out there in some guy's work truck.