Bought a cheap laser level on Amazon and ate my words when it actually saved my floor job

I was totally skeptical about those sub $50 laser levels because my buddy bought one a few years ago and the line was so crooked it made me dizzy. But my old string line setup was taking forever on this 1,200 square foot living room in a house near Tulsa, so I figured what the heck for $38. Honestly it leveled out my underlayment seams way faster than I expected and the self leveling actually worked within a quarter inch across the whole room. I still had to double check with a physical level on the first few rows of plank, but after that I trusted it enough to crank through the rest in one afternoon. The battery died halfway through day two though, so bring backup if you try one. Has anyone else had luck with those cheap laser levels or did I just get lucky with mine?

4 comments

4 Comments

mianelson1mo ago

@the_wendy yeah the battery thing was annoying but honestly for 38 bucks I can't really complain. One thing though - those cheap lasers usually aren't true self leveling, they just have a pendulum and a magnet inside that stops swinging after a few seconds. Real self leveling lasers have internal motors and cost way more. So if you got within a quarter inch over 1200 sq ft that's actually pretty solid for a pendulum laser, most of them drift way worse than that.

angelaw781mo ago

Used to roll my eyes at people defending cheap lasers but @mianelson kind of changed my mind here. I had one of those pendulum ones and wrote it off after it drifted like half an inch over 30 feet for a deck project. But rethinking it now, that was user error for sure - I was rushing and didn't let it settle long enough. For indoor stuff like hanging shelves or mounting a TV, a couple minutes of patience fixes the wobble problem.

the_wendy1mo ago

38 bucks is a steal if it got you through 1200 sq ft. The battery thing is annoying though.

blair_nguyen1mo ago

Hell yeah, 38 bucks is basically free for that kind of coverage. I picked up a similar cheap laser last year and it saved me on a closet shelving install - the level was off maybe an 1/8th inch across 8 feet, but for hanging brackets nobody notices that. The pendulum thing people complain about is overblown unless you're doing tile layout or something super precise. Just let it settle for an extra second before marking and you're golden.