Long Measuring Tape (20mx12.5mm)

Fibreglass does not conduct electricity. A steel tape does, along its entire length, and extending one near overhead power lines is a well-documented cause of fatal accidents on construction and utility sites. It happens because a long tape is pulled out quickly, often by someone walking backwards and looking at the ground, and the far end goes up before anyone looks up. On any site with live overheads — and on almost any road, plot or agricultural site in Sri Lanka there are overheads somewhere — a fibreglass tape is not the cheaper alternative to steel. It is the correct tool, and the only safe one.

There are secondary advantages. Fibreglass does not rust, so a tape wound away damp is not ruined, which matters in this climate and in the wet season particularly. It does not take a permanent kink when trodden on or dragged round a corner the way steel does. And it is lighter to carry and to pull out.

The honest trade is stretch. Fibreglass extends slightly under tension, and over twenty metres a hard pull will read a little longer than a gentle one. For general measuring, room and plot sizes, fencing, landscaping and estimating, that is immaterial. For setting out a building line or checking a diagonal for square, where the measurement will be built to, a steel tape is the more accurate instrument. Knowing which job you are doing is the whole of it — and pulling with consistent, moderate tension keeps a fibreglass tape honest.

The blade carries a clear, durable scale, in a high impact ABS case with a strong belt clip and an ergonomic grip. Twenty metres is the handy length: plot frontages, room and floor areas, fencing runs and service routes.

The buyers are electricians and utility contractors, landscapers and fencing contractors, agricultural and estate work, general builders and estimators, surveyors working near services, and hardware dealers supplying the trades.

Keep the blade clean, since grit worked into a fibreglass tape abrades the printed scale, and wind it in without twisting. Ask us on WhatsApp for a price, or for a steel tape if your work is setting-out.