Thought I was clever using a level on my foundation forms until the concrete truck driver pointed out my string lines were off by 3 inches last Tuesday

The guy had been pouring slabs for 22 years and he just looked at my setup, shook his head, and said 'son, your batter boards are telling a lie' - turned out I had pulled my reference strings too tight and they sagged in the middle, so my whole footing was out of square by the time the pour started, has anyone else had a veteran tradesperson catch a basic mistake that made you rethink everything?

2 comments

2 Comments

grantmartinez1mo ago

Man that's brutal. Real pros save us from ourselves every time.

ryan3691mo ago

Hang on, I gotta push back on that a little. Feels like we're giving the "pros" too much credit and letting regular folks off the hook. Yeah, hiring someone who knows what they're doing is great, but acting like we're all helpless without them just absolves people of any personal responsibility. A lot of times the "pro" is just cleaning up a mess that someone could have avoided by reading a simple manual or watching a 5 minute video. I've seen way too many people hand over a thousand bucks for something they could have done themselves in an afternoon with a little patience. Sometimes the real pro is the one who tells you "you got this" instead of taking your money.