The stud finder lied to me and now I have 4 extra holes to patch

Bought a cheap stud finder for $18 at the hardware store in Akron and it told me there was a stud right where I needed to mount a heavy shelf. Drilled in, hit nothing but drywall, and the anchor spun loose by the next morning. Tried again at another spot, same lie, so I grabbed a rare earth magnet and found the real screws in about 30 seconds. That little magnet trick has saved me more times than any gadget I own. Now I check every claim with a pencil tap before I commit to drilling. Has anyone else ditched their electronic finder for the magnet method, or am I just lucky with simple walls?

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luna2612d ago

That magnet trick works because it finds the actual screws holding the drywall up, which are ALWAYS in a stud. The electronic finders get confused by foil backed insulation or even old paint sometimes, and you end up trusting a little blinking light over basic physics. What nobody talks about though is that the stud finder is still useful in OLD houses where the drywall has been replaced. The old screws might be buried under multiple layers of paint or spackle, so the magnet gets nothing while the electronic one picks up the density change. Also, if you are mounting something really heavy like a TV, even finding the stud isn't enough, you need to verify you are hitting the CENTER of it or your lag bolts will still strip out. I keep both tools in my bag now, but the magnet comes out FIRST every time, and I've patched way fewer holes since I started doing that.