20
Stopped using a level on my deck rails and just eyeballed them - came out straighter than ever
After spending 3 hours trying to get my deck railing posts perfectly level with a 4-foot level in Denver last summer, I said screw it and lined them up with the house trim line instead and every single one came out dead straight, has anyone else ditched a tool for just using your eyes on something?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
jamiew5318d ago
That's fair and you're not wrong at all, but here's my take. I've been doing trim and decks for a while and I'll tell you that most of the time the house trim is gonna be closer to level than what you can get with a 4-foot level on uneven ground anyway. A lot of guys will fight with a level on a post that's sitting on a slope or a pad that settled a tiny bit and end up chasing their tail for an hour. If you set your post to the house line and it looks right to your eye, it usually is right. I've seen too many deck rails that are technically level by the tool but look totally off because the house itself has a slight bow or the ground threw the level off.
7
keith_rivera1918d ago
Heads up that house trim lines aren't always perfectly level either...
2
@jamiew53 makes a good point about trusting your eye, but keith's warning is spot on too. Have you ever tried holding a level to the trim on an older house? I've seen cases where that "level" line was off over a quarter inch from one end to the other, so if you're using it as your reference, you're just inheriting someone else's mistake.
6
hunt.nora14d ago
Funny you mention that, I used to work with a guy who always said the house trim was "close enough" until we built a deck onto a 100-year-old house and found out the hard way that "close enough" was off by nearly an inch over a 12-foot span.
1