Update: tried a laser distance meter and a tape measure on the same stair stringer job in Tucson
Had to cut 14 stringers for a deck rebuild last month and grabbed my old tape out of habit, then remembered the laser meter sitting in my bag. The tape got me close but I kept losing the hook on the edge, and my helper had to hold the end while I crawled around. The laser gave me 3.47 feet dead on with one press, no second person, no guessing. Anyone else find that one of these tools just quietly took over the whole job?
How did you handle the spots where the laser can't get a clean read though? I tried mine on some exterior trim last fall and it was great on flat surfaces, but the second there was a shadow or I was aiming at an angle it just gave me an error or a number I didn't trust. Ended up double checking everything with the tape anyway, which kind of killed the time savings. For stringers specifically, are you shooting each one separate or did you find a way to batch them once you had your numbers? And did the Tucson sun mess with the laser dot at all? Seems like it would be brutal out there in the middle of the day.