OT: Best Stud Locator?

[Jim Thompson]

OT: Best Stud Locator? (Thru drywall or stucco.) ...Jim Thompson

[mroberds]

I usually use a Zircon StudSensor. I've had various models. I have almost always used them on drywall. Useful features are an LED or LCD bar graph of signal strength, and what they call "deepscan" mode, which seems to up the transmit power or receive sensitivity a little bit. (I think these are ultrasonic but I'm not sure.) The fancier models now have metal and electric-field detection; I've never used one like that so I don't know how useful they are.

All of the Zircons I've used have a "calibrate" step, where you put it on the wall and push the button, and then it beeps to let you know it's ready. Every once in a while you manage to calibrate it right on top of a stud, which makes it act weird when you move off the stud. Solution: move it six inches any direction and recalibrate.

If cost is absolutely no object, buy a FLIR camera. When I had the inspection done on this house, the inspector had one, and I looked over his shoulder; you could easily see the studs when he pointed it at the outside walls, and the joists in the ceiling were also discernible. (It probably helped that it was an 0 F day outside, and the furnace in the house had been running for about an hour at that point.)

Matt Roberds

[Jim Thompson]

I have a Zircon StudSensor SL. It was giving me flaky results unless on deep scan. From the discussion I think my problems may be due to foil... I'm hanging stuff in the garage. ...Jim Thompson

[Higgs Boson]

[...]

I thought ladies just had to dropinto the neighborhood bar...

HB

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[RobertMacy]

My zircon didn't work well either.

Why can't you go to your blueprints and simply review all the joist placements?

Oh, you mean you bought a house WITHOUT the manual? Invested how much? and no knowledge of what's inside?

me, too. Couldn't pass up that jibe, though.

[SteveB]

I get a dozen or more of the one eighth by three eights round ones. When you have them on the nails, they will tell you if there is a stud that is not on pattern, it will find the protector plates, and if a row of nails is just hugging a stud, that is, just catching the edge, you can try a test hole or two, and adjust an inch in, so you have more meat. I use good stud finders, but magnets give you an actual picture.

Steve

[micky]

I have a zircon from 25 or 30 years ago and it works just fine. It lights up when I get to one edge of the stud and unlights 1.5 inches later when I pass the other edge.

I wouldn't assume blueprints are right.