Can’t afford an pro laser level, so…
Houghton123
| Posted in Tools for Home Building on
Kitchen remodel, perhaps one or two other projects; can’t afford the $300-400 for a pro level. Our house is 110 years old, so I don’t figure I can rely on a level floor.
Looking at a Johnson Level Co. that comes with its own tripod and purports to be accurate within 3/8″ at 100 feet for $70. I don’t think it’s self-leveling.
Does this mean that it will be accurate to 1/8 of that for the 12 foot run of our kitchen counters?
Is the self-leveling a big deal?
Should I just rely on my 6 foot Stabila stick level?
Replies
Self leveling is really just a convenience feature and a time saver. Obviously, it allows for quickers set-up time and it also makes a bumped tripod a little less aggravating.
See if we can't get Mike Smith over to this thread.... IIRC he has had a great experience with an inexpensive Stanley Fat Max laser and also has the experience to compare it to some of the higher end models he's had in the past.
You around?View Image
i've used levels, transits, water levels & lasers
still use our transit for some work.. but 99% of the time i use the laser... and so do my guys
i've had 5 lasers.. one cost $600.. one was a level with a laser in it ( kind of useless )
one is a rotating laser.... good for some applications
and two were the $49 stanley Fat Max
the first one we used for a year and it broke.. so i bought another
water levels are bogus.. too much time.. too many ways to screw it up.. no good in freezing weather unless you use antifreeze
the Fat Max works great.... we use it in bright sunlight ( with a plywood target to help find it ).. and it's self - leveling Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Mike, relax. The OP is a DIY.
For a pro like you, time is money. But for someone renovating his own old house, working inside out of the weather, using a water level to do the job can be fun and inexpensive.
MikeAre you talking about the CL2 cross laser?It is a "little more" than $49.Starts at $99 (more for external, kits with poles, etc)..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
You in my opinion need a water level . I never use a lazer inside . Out side I do.
They actually sell them in a neat carry package or you can make your own. They go round studs and walls or anthing you want to go around as long as the line can lay on the floor .
I set up all the cabinets in a house , vanities , closet shelves , etc in about 15 minutes . Try that with a lazer self leveling or not . You can leave it on the job set up if ya want . No ones gonna steal it . You can make one for about 20 bucks . Some people just use a clear tubing and nail one end to the wall. But I dont like it . I use a container that holds water . Mine is a 5 gallon bucket but its over kill . Still if I accidently lose a little water its still more accurate than a lazer level. Its money all the time as long as the bubbles are out of it . You check lazers or building levels with a water level. Its the only way I know of to check them and be dead sure . Thats why I set cabinets by a water level. Its actually very quick to mark corners in a closet with them.
Tim
But where do you put the batteries onthe water level?
Seriously? Water level is the way to go for small jobs or one time use.
Self leveling is the way to go if you can. can be had for $100 at lowes.
Level is relative in a 110 year old house...
I'd use your 6' Stabila, no problem...
What is level? the window above the counter?-the ceiling?the chair rail? I might run with the window if it's not too far out...or split the difference...
Dead nuts level in an old or crooked house doesn't always work-like setting a door frame in a hall between walls-I'm going to set the jambs
parallel not dead nuts plumb so it looks straight.
my humble opinion-...time to find some Molson xxx-it is Saturday night and I just came in from the shop.
cheers,
hi ho silver-edit-it's Corona tonight!
Edited 6/9/2007 9:05 pm ET by silver
<Molson xxx-it is Saturday night and I just came in from the shop>
YESSSSSSS!
Forrest - the same
You are so right about level in an old house! I shoot for level on the kitchen surfaces, but doors, mantels, etc. look much better by eyeball. Floors get smoothed, not leveled - I would lose 6" of headroom in some rooms, & the ceilings are only at 7 1/2 to start with.
House has been doing ok for 300 years - who am I to criticize?
Enjoy that beer!
Consider this.
Clear vinyl tubing. Food dye, choose your color. Water, free, from the tap or hose.
Make yourself a water level. Have fun with it. Out-Stabila those guys with their silly yellow levels.
Me, building my first house solo, too cheap to buy any kind of level, engineers or laser, went to Lowe's and bought 120 feet of 3/8 clear flex vinyl tubing. Filled it up with water, tinted it dark green, staked out my whole site with a 10 x 10 grid, then proceeded to record all the elevations, using my green tube, and pencil and paper. Did a great looking topo, using all the numbers.
Later, just for fun, when my foundation builder's guys were placing their grade nails in the forms in prep for the pour, we took the water level, and checked the whole thing against their laser.
I told a couple of their guys, while we were doing this, that the Egyptians had used water levels when building the pyramids, to get things right.
"Really? Where'd they get the vinyl tubing?" asked one of the guys.
stupid question here, really stupid, I mean it so darn stupid you gonna think I,m from alabama.How does a water level work. I know water will seek its own level. but what happen when you lay the tube down to drive a nail. does it take two people to run a level..Most hated person on the net
One end is a quart container with a line on it you fill the water in the bottle up to and hang it at the level you want. The 50-100-200' clear tube is attached to it...walk with the end of the tube to where you want "level" and hold the end of the tube up untilthe water stops bobbing up and down. Thats your level mark. When you firs start out...fill the bottle and hold the end of the tube up to the said water line on the bottle to see that the tube and the bottle sync with the water line.
Be sure all bubbles are out of the tube and bottle before you start.
PS...dont let the water squirt out the end. Mine has a cap that fits over it for when I'm moving it around and storing it for a few hours or the day.
"What people will notice and remember is the broad brush of how how we act.We can aspire to reach our high ideals, or we can slide down the slippery slope towards the despicable." rjw
http://www.john-lennon.com/imagine-neilyoung.ra
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
http://www.factsfacts.com/MyHomeRepair/WaterLevel.htm
Here ya go you addict you : )
"What people will notice and remember is the broad brush of how how we act.We can aspire to reach our high ideals, or we can slide down the slippery slope towards the despicable." rjw
http://www.john-lennon.com/imagine-neilyoung.ra
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Like any job working with something long, with the business ends farther apart than your reach, using a water level solo will involve some imagination and ingenuity.
Clamps, jigs, wire, string, rubberbands, velcro strips, all kinds of things will work for you in holding one end up while you diddle with the other.
The easiest water level rig to work with in doing something like one room of a house, is to have the tube connected to a nice reservoir, such as that in a one-gallon plastic jug, the jug set up on the paint-pail tray of a wood stepladder.
There's your helper there, the tray sticking out of the stepladder. Just run around the room with the free end of the tube, marking out the level points. Measure up or down from there, connect the dots, and, voila! You're level.
No, DON'T lay the free end down. If you must, use a clamp to seal it.
Howzit work? Try this. Take a length of tube, cut it to say, 18 inches. Put your thumb on one end and fill up the tube to within a couple inches of the other (upper) end.
Now, shape it like a U, take your fingers or thumbs off both ends so both are pointed up and free to the atmosphere. Notice that the water levels out so that both sides, where the water level is, are level. Really level. They have to be. Sorta like, say, Lake Michigan. Or the Atlantic.
That's how it works. Now extend it to a hundred feet or so of tube. A six foot stake is driven into the ground somewhere, a mark placed at, say, 48 inches off grade, and both ends of your water-filled tube are brought up to the mark, raised up or down, until the water level matches the mark. Use string or wire (or Iraqi handcuffs, a zip tie), and fix one end to the stake, the level matching your mark. Now take the other end of the tube way off somewhere, and where that level is will match the one wired up to your stake.
Take it from there. Go crazy.
It works exacly like a transit or lazer. No difference in understanding it.
They all shoot a mark thats level and you measure off it every time . The only place I know where a lazer is set at the heigth your working is ceiling grid . Thats because you can hang it from the wall and adjust it up and down. On my Dewalt anyway.
Then like I said , it goes around corners where the others dont .
Tim
No question here is stupid .
what a stupid question,they went to the hd on the corner and got the tubing.what morons!! larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
Leave out the food dye, stains the tubing over time. If you really need a bit of color, use the smallest amount of food dye possible.
mike
"Looking at a Johnson Level Co. that comes with its own tripod and purports to be accurate within 3/8" at 100 feet..."
Part of that 3/8" may be calibration, most is, believe it or not, curvature of the Earth. Your laser beam is "drawing" a straight line tangent to the spherical surface of the Earth. Set up a laser perfectly level and mark the point where the laser light hits a stake 100 feet away. Set up another perfectly level laser at the mark and aim back at the first one. The light point will strike the first laser at a point a fraction of an inch above its light source.
"Does this mean that it will be accurate to 1/8 of that for the 12 foot run of our kitchen counters?"
Yes, at least that portion of the variance that is attributable to Earth curvature.
Mike chimed in here, so what I say will mostly duplicate his stuff.
I have 3 laser levels. One real cheapie with tripod ($29.00 and worth every cent), a Robotoolz 3 beam laser and a manual leveling rotating unit.
I like lasers because after the few minutes it takes me to set them up, they shoot the line and I'm as accurate as I can be.
Yes, there are other ways. But the chance for a new tool only comes once in a while. Get one. Looooove one. Be one.
Quality repairs for your home.
AaronR Construction
Vancouver, Canada
Should I just rely on my 6 foot Stabila stick level?
Heck yes. What do you want to make level? The kitchen cabinets? A six foot level is perfect for that kind of job. And more than accurate enough.
Other than that, as others have said, level is relative in an old house. It's more about what works visually and practically.
i built my house with a 4foot mason level, Doing the footings i picked out a nice staight 14 foot 2by4 , Set the level on top and was good to go
Use the stabila. Quite good enough and fast enough. RThere is no need to get too complicated here.
Water level is second best. because, as somebody pointed out, there are a number of ways to screw up water level readings. Water levels with reservoirs are expecially risky.
If you are not a pro, get the laser only if you have money to burn,
Ron
go to habor freight or SAMS club or ebay and get an under $30 yellow laser with tripod...
i got 2 of em... onsale for $9.99 ea... has horizonal and vert... i tested mine against my Hilti that i paid 2k for and 35ft out... zero nada difference... (the hilti is good for 200ft and has the real cool remore and spins ect... so it has it's place)
but we do everything with these cheap ones.. sometimes you have to darken the area in bright daylight... but other than that mine are dead on... we lay out top & bottom plates... frame.. form... everything with em... just did a 44ft tall 7 flight 6 landing stairway and not a 1/16 inch off on anything top to bottom... sometime i check with a good level out of habit... but never found it was needed...
for under $30 you can't go wrong
p
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Rotary-Laser-Level-Kit-With-Tripod-360-Degree_W0QQitemZ270128617698QQihZ017QQcategoryZ43588QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Thanks for the report and the link. Without your help I'd have never trusted a "cheap" tool like that.
Man, it's a dog eat dog market place anymore. Hard to believe that you could get a laser like that for $9.99. Shoot, my old Craftsman builder's level, the simpliest of its kind, cost me $99.99 at Sears thirty-five years ago. And now, after hundreds of jobs, it's going to be replaced by a $10 laser.
I don't believe that this is a good sign for the American economy though. Taking advantage of cheap labor in Asia, to build our technology, will eventually bite us in the azz.
maybe... but i do remember pay'n over 4k for an IBM XT clone 10meg hard drive... 56k... before there was windows (dos) before the internet... paid 1k for a fax...
had to believe you can buy watches for less than the replacement battery cost also..
the link i posted that one rotates... mine don't but mine do plumb and level...
i still love my hilti... but i guard it... back in the case asap ect... these cheap ones i leave on the tripod... and treat them like the $10 tool they are... guess if i paid more for em i'd treat em better... bad sign i know but...
p
my first 286 was $1800 and with fiance it was $2200. fiance company screwed me, so that was the last thing I ever fiance 18 years ago.Most hated person on the net
not sure i'd even trust me with $1800 for only a chance of get'n $2200 back... maybe they were just clear thinking :)
i hate/refuse to finace anything.... i'll build my own first :) maybe that explains my 12yo truck...
p
I bought a stanley knock off of the pls2. It shoos a crosshair line and is self leveling. I don't know if it is the one mike smith has as I paid 99dollars at home depot.
I am totally content with it. It is tough to use in bright sunlight but I am using it constantly to level floors and concrete forms.
Karl
We rent, at the survey equipment supply house (HD rent them too, but the survey house rents better stuff). Some surveyors have jr's who will come and put in level lines and plumbs (like, for a kitchen) pretty reasonably in off-hours/off-season.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
I have that very Johnson level. $69 at Lowe's. I used it to level the floor of bathroom renovation I am doing on my 90 year old house. I found it a lot easier to use than a level, though my floor was BADLY out of level (1 3/8 inches, in two dimensions, over about 60 inches). I didn't find it a big deal to level the laser, but I did take major pains to ensure that once leveled and in place I a) did not bump, touch or move the level; and b) that I took all the measurments at one time to ensure accuracy. It worked like a charm. I had to shim at every joist though and sometimes at several places along each joist so using a level would have been a major pain. For cabinets along a wall, I'm not sure if the level wouldn't be just as easy, but if there is any floor leveling in your future, I'd recommend it.
The laser is also a great cat toy; drives my wife's cat nuts and I can get her to run around in circles until she is so dizzy she has to lie down. If only I could get her to run out the the door and not come back....
Here you go. Self leveling, tripod included (or hang if from a strap), 360° beam, right around a hundred bucks. I have several laser levels and this is the one I use most. Quick & accurate for interior work.
View Image
http://www.blackanddecker.com/ProductGuide/Product-Details.aspx?ProductID=6463
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA