Are the cheap end versions any good ?
Or should I invest in a couple of powerful magnets ?
Thx
I've got two stud detectors and I find them somewhat flakey on occassion. Stanley is a decent brand, so maybe it's better.
Sometimes you can find the studs by looking at the skirting board. If its fixed at regular intervals it's likely the studs are in the same place.
Or a thermal imaging camera.
the word stud applied to what is a piece of wood is akward, as is the use of a stud detection tool, which normaly have a metal detector. I have examined a few and they will not say on the packaging wether they detect a wooden baton or the nails that hold plasterboard and laffin plaster wood to the wood. If the wood that is used to nail plasterboard to is called stud, then it would require more than a metal detector to find it. If these detectors only find the nails and it is the nails which are detected, then the detectors should be called metel detectors.
Mine switches from one to the other but I've never been able to tell the difference
As a general rule, no. However you may get lucky, some of them may be better than useless.
For ones that definitely will work try the Zircon range. They are not that cheap but can usually reliably detect a number of things.
Magnets can be handy in some cases anyway. Even the best stud detectors will fail with foil backed plasterboard (or with foil covered insulation behind s the plasterboard)
(rswww.com do a good range of Zircon scanners)
The good ones will detect the wood - there does not need to be any nails to present to detect the stud position.
it is... (not to be confused with threaded rod that is sometimes called studding)
True, you need a stud detector.
True, but that is not hoe they work - some stud detectors will also find metal - but that is an extra capability.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com explained :
What is wrong with the tried and tested method of tapping on the wall with a finger tip and listing to the change in the sound it produces?
I have a Zircon one. Seems to work a treat.
taking precise notes of where the studs are, then hang the shelves for you.
Pity really, as these would be so handy.
I tend to do that as a check when using my cheap Draper metal/voltage detector to find the nails. When both methods agree, I'm confident I've found a stud.
-- Rob
They fail when the plasterboard is foil backed. ;-)
Don't know abouit cheap ones ... but after a lot of Googling around I bough a ZIRCON Triscanner PRO SL and it works exactly as it's supposed to.
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