My bathroom fan install taught me to read the stud finder instructions

Last month in my 1987 split level in Columbus, I was swapping out an old noisy bathroom exhaust fan for a quieter model. I ran the stud finder across the ceiling and marked where it beeped, then cut my hole with a drywall saw. Turns out I was reading the beam indicator wrong, the red light was showing the edge, not the center, so my hole landed right on the joist. I had to patch up a foot long cut, move the whole opening over 3 inches, and redo the wiring access. My neighbor came over during the mess and said, "at least you didn't hit a pipe," which was small comfort. The new fan works fine now, but I measured the old hole twice before touching the drywall again. Has anyone else ever trusted a tool too fast and paid for it with extra patching work?

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1 Comment

ross.felix5h ago

My stud finder said "wood" over half my living room wall once, turns out the previous owner had glued paneling over brick. Cut a hole for a new outlet and hit brick dust, spent a whole weekend with a masonry bit and grout dust everywhere. Sometimes those little red lights just lie to you, plain and simple.