diff --git a/dumux/boxmodels/common/boxlocaljacobian.hh b/dumux/boxmodels/common/boxlocaljacobian.hh
index 666eae26efa83cff4f223f46491d582ceb95be77..465676852383a86c2a1ca966892a2ea6909ae894 100644
--- a/dumux/boxmodels/common/boxlocaljacobian.hh
+++ b/dumux/boxmodels/common/boxlocaljacobian.hh
@@ -267,9 +267,12 @@ public:
         // resolution of the scalar type. E.g. for standard 64 bit
         // floating point values, the resolution is about 10^-16 and
         // the base epsilon is thus approximately 10^-8.
+        /*
         static const Scalar baseEps
             = Dumux::geometricMean<Scalar>(std::numeric_limits<Scalar>::epsilon(), 1.0);
-
+        */
+        static const Scalar baseEps = 1e-10;
+        assert(std::numeric_limits<Scalar>::epsilon()*1e4 < baseEps);
         // the epsilon value used for the numeric differentiation is
         // now scaled by the absolute value of the primary variable...
         Scalar pv = this->curVolVars_[scvIdx].primaryVar(pvIdx);