I have twice made the mistake of trying to screw in a loose floorboard only to drill into a central heating water pipe.
I am in the amrket for somehting to detect these
ANyone used this - is it reliable?
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Pipework detection
Jul 25, 2010
6 Replies
mo explained on 25/07/2010 :
Not that one, but one similar. Yes it worked, but you need to test it where you know there are pipes to get a good feel for its range. Remember it will pick up every screw and nail in the floor, so you need to trace along a pipe to make sure it is a pipe/ cable, rather than a nail etc.. The smaller the head of a metal detector, the shorter its penetration range.
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sort of thing should do the job but I find a bradawl to be quite effective and much cheaper. It there's a pipe in the way you'll soon feel and hear the resistance when you push it in and you're not going to damage a copper pipe with just hand pressure. But don't rely on this to find power cables!
It's also an effective method of confirming that there really is a stud behind plasterboard where you intend to put a screw. If you loose resistance towards the end as it breaks through the back of the board you know you've missed and small bradawl holes leave less of a scar to patch up than full size screw holes.
mo said the following on 25/07/2010 02:13:
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Recently I got and used the following Bosch similar toy.
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needs practice and patience to understand how it works. In your case it might help a bit more because it can identify magnetic versus non-magnetic metals.
Cheers C.
I certainly wouldn't rely on a detector of any type in a commercial situation.
The only 100% safe way IMO is to remove a few boards, mark the pipe runs on the surface & then screw everything down.
I did that once. The family thought I was crazy. I'm glad that I'm not as crazy as I thought. Who knows what the next people to lift the carpet will think.
The builder of my house had done a similar thing - but in faint pencil.
I have gone over the lines in colour coded felt tip whenever I have had the chance (carpet replacements).
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