# Forum Home Renovation Tools & Products  Stud and wire finder woes

## ddk

Hi. 
I'm trying to help out my mom by doing whatever minor repairs and renovations on a place (absolutely no electrical or plumbing work though, I'm not too bright, but I'm also not that dumb  :Smilie:  ) so she can sell it. One of the minor jobs has been doing something as simple as putting up some towel rails and a couple of coat hanging hooks. So I went and got a stud finder (Stanley S100). The instructions were idiotic to say the least. So there's a cupboard with a water heater in it that has no plasterboard and a couple of wires running behind it where I could see and test the device on the other side. The only problem was that it seems completely useless. Calibrating it on an area I knew had no studs or wires wouldn't find the wires or studs. Calibrating it elsewhere and moving it to the area where I knew there were wires and studs sometimes found either and sometimes didn't. Now I have zero confidence in it. 
I did a search and read about the Franklin but if I understand correctly, that doesn't find wires? I figure that to hang a towel rail and some coat hanging hooks, it probably isn't worth electrocuting myself over. Is there a reliable wire finder that anyone could recommend?

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## GeoffW1

Hi, 
I tried with the Stanley gizmo for a while and found it very erratic. I bought one of these  Bosch 80cm Digital Detector I/N 6260234 | Bunnings Warehouse 
and it seems quite good. It will detect different things as it says but you have to learn to set it correctly then interpret what it says. There is a super duper version too if you prefer that. 
Cheers

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## shauck

Just thinking, if you have reliable stud finder such as the Franklin mentioned, and you are fixing to the center of the found stud, you won't be hitting any wires anyway. Not the same for pipes that go through studs, depending on depth of fixing but I think the Franklin does detect pipes?

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## uncleted

I have the Franklin, and it's pretty good at indicating where the studs are, plus the LEDs give you a pretty good idea of where the centre of the stud actually is.  It's strictly visual, so at best it might be able to show a pipe up as somewhat like a noggin.  I could give it a go on our bathroom walls and let you know if it picks up something. 
It does work equally well with lighting up on metal or wood so far though.

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## Handyjack

I have a few stud finders, (including the Franklin) and use them on a variety of walls. Stud finders are a guide, and guide only. They measure change of density and can be fooled by things such as metallic wall paper or lath and plaster walls.
Information on the Franklin Sensors packaging apply to almost all sensors. "Maximum sensing depth may vary depending on material consistency, moisture, wall texture, paint etc. This product is not recommended for scanning through exterior roofs, through exterior siding, flooring, tile or inconsistently constructed lath and plaster walls." 
Have an idea of where wires and plumbing are and drill accordingly. Wires tend to run vertically (not always) and should be 50mm from the surface to reduce the risk of being hit when drilling. Not all pipes are metallic these days and may not be detected by stud finders.
I am lucky and yet to hit power or water, but have missed studs lots of times.  
Towel rails if they are a fixed length, you will probably find you can only get one end into a stud, the other end will require a hollow wall fastener. 
Plumber at work hit the jackpot when putting in a screw - just missed (metal) stud but penetrated pipe instead. 
Franklin stud finder is distributed by Ozito Industries Pty Ltd of Bangholme Victoria, Assembled in China and Designed in U.S.A.

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## Pitto

used alot of the stud finders and returned alot of them too, i have the franklin now, well worth the money, but yes, no garantee that you wont hit a pipe, which i have done once in the past. 
and yes, alot of pipework these days are poly, so having the metal detection is pretty much useless.  
as the others have said, alot of the power cables run vertical, very rare to have a sparky bore thru studs to run a cable, when it can be dropped from the top plate.

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## ddk

> as the others have said, alot of the power cables run vertical, very rare to have a sparky bore thru studs to run a cable, when it can be dropped from the top plate.

   Cool, thanks. Unfortunately this place doesn't seem to have been built by professionals. So many Jerry-built issues  :Frown:  Quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they'd used bare wires it's that bad.

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## r3nov8or

I have a Stanley too. Over older hemp/horse-hair plaster it is pretty useless. It's 'OK' over gyprock though.

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