Old timer in Phoenix told me to stop leveling with my eyes

I used to just eyeball everything on floor leveling jobs, thinking my eye was good enough after 5 years. Then a guy named Hank on a job in Phoenix pointed out how I had a 3/8 inch dip in a 12 foot span I totally missed. Now I use a 6 foot level on every single run before I start, and it's cut my callbacks way down. Anyone else get humbled by a simple tool like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

zarat3710h ago

Trusting my eye too much" - that's exactly what got me too man. I thought I had it dialed in after a few years, but one bad floor had me redoing a whole living room and I learned my lesson quick.

rosepark10h ago

Aw man, I actually gotta respectfully disagree here. I've been doing floors for 15 years and if anything, trusting my eye too much on a laser level made me slower. Still use a 4 foot level for the final check (you know, for peace of mind) but I can read a floor pretty well by now.

iris_barnes875h ago

How do you know when you're actually reading the floor right versus just getting lucky for a while? Because I feel like that's the tricky part, you can have a good streak for years and then bam, one weird subfloor or a house that settled funny throws everything off. Tbh, that's why I still check with a level even on stuff I'm dead sure about, not because I don't trust my eye but because I don't trust the floor itself. Ngl, I've seen too many guys get burned thinking they had the magic touch and then having to tear up a whole row because the error crept up on em. Like, is there a specific way you double check yourself when you're working by eye, or do you just go with the feel until something feels off? Honestly curious because I wanna get faster but not at the cost of headaches later.