Make Sure to Get A Right Laser Level for Your Home Projects.

The use of lasers for leveling has been around since the early 1970s. With the development of laser and manufacturing technology, laser levels have been widely used in surveying and construction. A spirit level can help you find a level measurement easily but a laser level has incomparable advantages over it. A laser level can be your best choice with its great efficiency, faster measurements, finer accuracy, and ease of use. In this article, we will be talking about the laser levels that are the best fit for home projects –line lasers. Before getting to the topic though, let’s take a quick peek at the mainstream types of laser level tools you can ever find.

Generally speaking, there are 3 major types of laser levels on the market.

1, Rotary Lasers.

As the name suggests, a rotary laser level spins a laser beam really fast to create a 360° horizontal/vertical plane. It is usually used for professional construction jobs as it has the greatest accuracy over long distance. With proper accessories, it can be used outdoors.

However, in this article, we don’t recommend this type of laser level for home use as usually it’s very expensive. You will have to spend hundreds of dollars for a reliable rotary laser level. In some cases, you may need extra hands to hold a grade rod or a laser detector. This is against the most important rule of tools for home project— affordable and easy to use. This laser level is the most complex among all laser leveling tools.

Above all, there is no need for a DIYer to buy a class IIIA professional grade laser tool when you have so many other choices.

2,Spot/Dot Lasers

A spot laser level is used to transfer spots from one surface to another. So it can help you make sure a wall or a floor-to-floor pipe is plumb(vertical). The most common spot laser levels project 3 or 5 points onto the surface as you need, the more points they project, the more functional they are. Another advantage of spot laser level is its visibility. Generally a laser dot is brighter than a laser line. But spot lasers won’t help you too much if you do need laser lines especially when you need a continuous horizontal / vertical laser line. Many users would need a leveling tool for hanging things such as pictures and cabinets, just imagine how the job can be done without continuously visible cross lines?

3,Line Lasers

Line lasers are the most common laser leveling tools that can be found on a jobsite. There are indeed many kinds of line lasers, falling into different types by uses and maximum numbers of lines they can project. One common trait among line lasers is that they project continuous, accurate and highly visible horizontal / vertical lines onto the surface on which the laser is pointed. Line laser levels always go with red or green lasers. Red lasers were applied on a large scale a couple of years earlier but green lasers are getting more and more popular in recent years with its better brightness. Under the same lighting conditions, a green laser has a distinctly better visibility than red one because it has larger wavelength. But it also has its disadvantages. Green beams require more battery power than red beam lasers, so the battery life is usually shorter than red lasers. Additionally green beam generators are more expensive than red lasers. So it’s quite normal if you find a green laser level 30-50% more expensive than a red laser even if those two devices look exactly the same.

A good line laser level must be self-leveling, meaning that it can automatically find and maintain a level within a specified range, mostly from 3° to 5°, which will allow the users perform rough leveling and then the laser itself will take over and do the fine leveling. Most self-leveling laser levels indicate an out-of-level condition with beeping or flashing when they get out of the self-leveling range, in an attempt to stop you from using the beam as a reference. Most Self-Leveling Lasers have an internal Pendulum that does the leveling, so it is possible to project non-level straight lines without indications by locking the pendulum, which is called “Manual Mode” or “Tilt Mode”.