I Built a See Through Wall to REALLY Test StudFinders

I built this see-through wall with all different kinds of studs, pipes, wires, as well as five different wall types so that we can see which stud finders actually see behind the wall. So in the wall behind me here, we have a whole slew of different kinds of wires and pipes. As far as the wall itself up top, we have 18 inches of five eighths inch thick drywall followed by half inch thick drywall, half inch drywall covered with half inch shiplap, inch and a half thick drywall. On the bottom, we have lath and plaster. So I built a lath and plaster wall here so that you can actually see exactly how this will work with these different stud finders and cannot find the studs through there, especially since the lath itself is a bunch of strips of wood. So we'll see how it goes. We're going to get started with this little magnet pal magnet. It's just a small strong magnet. And all this is for is just finding the screws that are in the drywall that attach the drywall to the studs. Now there are some pros and cons to using this. Namely, if the screws are off to the side of a stud or worse yet, if they're not even touching it and they're left in there, then you might think that there's a stud there when there's not. Another one is you have to spend time doing this, trying to find those screws. Oh, okay. Yep. They grabbed one there. So we've got a screw right there. And so we know there should be a stud there. We just don't know where on the actual surface of the stud it is. Now, once you find one, easiest thing to do is just to go back and forth. Got nothing there. There's another one there. Okay. Now I happen to know that this is a double stud here, but you wouldn't know that without having seen this be built or without this x-ray vision here. Yeah, no, I didn't get one right there. Okay. So this would be really confusing if you didn't know there was a double stud there and you're getting some here and some there. So that's the tricky part. Oh, and this is another cool thing with these. So it found that, but look at this, this metal stud. It's almost grabbing it by itself this whole way. Yeah, right there. So it can kind of tell the difference, especially I hear where this is half inch thick. It can tell the difference between wood and metal because it's got that, it's got a pole right here and it will stick to it on this half inch stuff, at least anywhere on the stud moving down here to the shiplap. I don't know if it's going to, okay. It's probably going to pick up our brads cause I use brads and put those into the studs. I'm pretty sure that's what it's grabbing right there. In fact, if I, yeah, there's one there and I'll probably find yet one there. That's fine for something like this. If you've got some brads that are on the stud, but if someone missed the stud, again, these magnets are just going to go to wherever those brads are. Now, hypothetically, at least this magnet should work just fine on this a inch and a half drywall because I have long drywall screws holding everything in here. So it should be able to find something right there. Okay. So if I go up and down on this plane and there's the other one. Okay. Now down here on the lath and plaster, I'm curious if it can pick out the nails, which are all on the studs here. I'm going to scan along, see what I see. Nothing there. And there are nails on every single piece of lath on each stud. So this magnet is pretty useless on here. Now you may have seen on my channel, I've showed off these little devices. This is called the stud pop, and this gives you both an audio and a visual cue when it finds something. So again, it's just magnet based. So let's come over here and we'll work on this stud. See if we can find a screw here. It's got a little bit of wider area, so you don't have to cover or make as many passes, hopefully. No, it's not finding anything yet. There we go. Okay. So there's a screw there and you can see visually the little center piece pops up and then it makes a little sound too. If I move up through the five eighths inch thick stuff should have no problem with that. There we go. There's one there and one there. And one thing I liked that they did on the stud pop is that the diameter of that stud pop is an inch and a half, which is the typical diameter or width of a two by four. Again, I want to check this. Okay. Yep. There's our metal. Look at this. Okay. So we get a little visual indication all the way up. So if we move off the metal stud, it goes down and there it goes up. So that's pretty easy way to see if you've got metal studs versus wooden studs. So I can find that pop, pop, pop. Basically with all of our magnetic devices, we're going to have the same issues where it's going to find the Brad's only might not be very accurate at all when it comes to finding studs, especially if the person installing the paneling didn't actually get the studs, it's just going to find where the Brad's are. And that could be a bad thing. Let's see how our stud pop does trying to find, Oh, there's one there. Okay. There's a nail or a screw somewhere. Let's go along this. Yeah, there we go. Okay. So same thing as before, as long as your screws are actually on a stud, it's going to find those just fine. Let's try it on the lath and plaster. I'm curious to see if it can pick out the nails single. There's a little movement right there. Okay. So this one actually is. Yeah. Look at that. This works way better than a traditional magnet on finding these little nails. Let's move over to this side. Look at that. That's impressive. Good. I'm going to try the Zircon HD 55, and this is basically the cheapo stud finder that you find at home Depot or Lowe's for about 20 bucks. Okay. It's blinking back and forth with the AC metering here. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Still nothing. What is this? I don't even know what it's doing right now. Okay. I'm going to try it again. It kind of missed that stud though. Okay. Start it over. Okay. Stud look at this. Okay. It's coming close to going red. And it's finding what I'm suspecting is the gas pipe there. It's almost showing it like it's a stud, which is pretty scary. And stud over here. So different results. Let's try the five eighths inch thick. I can barely see the screen here. Okay. Stud again, showing the AC shows a stud there. This is probably the best this thing has done to be honest with you. Usually I get very inconsistent results with it. Stud there, over to here. That seemed really long. Okay. I think it may have read a little much on that one and then over to our edge. Okay. I did this earlier today on this wall and it found the gas pipe. It went off as if that were a stud that you should drill into. So that can be kind of scary. Wow. Very good. So this did a great job on that. Let's see if it can do anything on lath and plaster. Okay. Stud. Oh, look at that. I'm impressed. Kind of. No, that's well. Oh yeah. There it's struggling. Okay. Not the best performance, but better than I expected, especially for our little $20 Zircon here. And we're good. Okay. Stud finders are working. Let's test them out. Next we're going to try one of the nicer Zircons. This is the A250C multi scanner. It's got four different settings. It's got your stud scan, a deep scan. It's got an AC scan and a metal scan. So hopefully it can find a lot of the stuff in the wall here. These ones are about $64 at the time I purchased this and let's see how it does. So I'm going to put it onto the stud scan mode. Again, we'll start with our half inch drywall. Okay. We're blinking already right here saying that there's some electricity running through there. Now, just FYI, my wall here is actually green. This is just a green screen thing I've got running here. And this screen is also almost the same shade. So that's why it might look a little funky here. Okay. So it says right here, let's see, let's try this again. So it detects something. It says edge right there. Center right there. And the other edge right here, or it did right there. Edge. Okay. So you can kind of compare this with the X-ray here to see how that looks. Okay. It found something here. So again, this should be our wires and pipes, but it's kind of picking that up almost like it's a stud. Okay. Oh man. Okay. So we've got that. So it's turning red. Okay. That might mean it thinks it's metal again, showing electricity all throughout there, even though there isn't any, let's look at the up here on the five eighths inch. Yeah, this is all over center. Okay. That's not the center. Don't drill there. Yikes. Wow. Okay. This is what scares me about stud finders. If you use this and you go off of what we just looked at, you're going to be drilling into duct work. You're going to be drilling into gas pipes. You're going to be drilling into electrical wires and probably a couple of studs too, but this was all over the place. That is scary to me, man. That's why you got to check things multiple times because you never know how accurate these things are. We'll talk about some tips to make sure you know what's behind the wall without having to rip the drywall off, but that's scary. All right, let's move it down here to the shiplap and see how it does. Okay. We're blinking and red and green all over. This thing is struggling. I'm getting this beeping everywhere I go. Okay. Center. And it's confused by the double studs. Maybe a stud. Same there. Yeah. Okay. Not doing so well on the shiplap. That's for sure. Okay. Center. Okay. It's not sure. It's not sure on that one at all. What is this? Okay. I think there's a stud there. Yeah. It's not doing too good. Oh, look. Thinks there's a stud there. So really struggling on the lath and plaster for the Zircon A250C. Now just a little bonus tip here. I've found that a thermal camera is actually a pretty great stud finder. Honestly, it just depends on the wall, but if you've got either outside temperatures on one side, or you've got, for example, your attic access, those walls that are up along your attic and sometimes even in your basement around the outside, this can actually do a really good job. So here's a perfect example of exactly that. I can see that there are vertical studs going up. There's a top plate, and then there's this triangle structure that's holding up the roof area. And that actually has a totally different pattern of where the studs are located. So at a quick glance, this thermal scanner shows me that those studs are a little bit colder just by a couple of degrees, but enough that it shows up on here. Now a thermal scanner like this or a thermal camera tends to cost, they start at about $140 for a little add on for your phone, for example, and they get pretty pricey. This one is about $400 for example, but you can get less expensive ones and they're handy for a million things. So just something to keep in mind. Next up, I've got a fun one. This is the Metella Scanner 40 from Zircon. And this one is just for metal. It doesn't claim to be a stud finder, but I think it's pretty cool. You can actually find non-ferrous metals. So things that are not magnetic with this. And I bought this specifically to test out with our lath and plaster, which we'll get to in just a moment. By the way, doesn't this look like one of those Star Trek health scanner things? Do you guys remember that? Like they, you know, beam it over your body to see what's wrong with you and see if they can heal your skin. Anyways, it looks like some weird futuristic sci-fi device, but let's give it a try. Let's try this out on our lath and plaster. And it should, there we go. It should pick up our nails. We're getting mixed. It's, it's reading high, but it's not really picking them up down here. So if you're good, if you're looking at this right here, there's nothing right here. It goes up to three and by here it goes to nothing. So you would kind of be able to tell that you've got maybe, and it's all the way up and down. So you'd be able to tell that you maybe got a stud there. Let's move to our next one right there. Okay. It didn't quite go off, but same thing it got. And there's one found some metal metal there. Yeah, it's not picking up as much as I had expected. So I was kind of thinking this might be perfect for a lath and plaster, but it, it helps it detects it. But honestly, some of our other stud finders did a much better job with that than this one. That one's pretty good. Apparently likes my belly more than my chest. Makes sense. Next up is the Franklin. And I will forewarn you, this one's going to show up a little funky as well. This is a green Franklin sensor and I've got it on my green painted green screen wall here. So if it disappears or you just see little dots, that's why forgive me on that one. My favorite feature, simple as it is is there's a pencil inside here. So when you're marking your studs, it's nice if you've got the pencil right in your stud finder, I think, duh, that kind of makes sense. So these guys run usually about $50 or so you can find some less expensive ones in the 30 to $40 range also by Franklin, but let's see how it works. So a half inch drywall here, we'll come over here, push the button, hold it down. So it detects a stud over there, but look, it's seeing something in here and it thinks it's a stud. So we're getting false positives already. Okay. We've got our stud here. It's the double stud. Whoa. Okay. That went a little nuts. Look at this. It thinks everything's a stud. All right. So it does. Okay. At some points, but we got a little crazy. Now, what is this? I don't even know what it's doing. Blinking all over. What is that? Look at this. Look at that. I'll look at that. False positives again. Okay. There's our metal stud finder. No problem. Our metal stud. No problem with that. But look, it thinks there's a stud there too. Don't drill there. And another one. Yeah. See, too scary. These things are wrong. And so that's what I'm finding with a lot of these stud finders is they falsely identify a lot of items in your wall as studs in your wall, which is bad news. Again, we're getting false positives right away. All right. So it's got the double studs. That's great. That's actually doing really well there. Okay. Found that stud. Okay. Metal stud. Oh, metal stud. Kind of putting it a lot thicker than it is. Look at that. That could be problematic. Okay. Let's check out the lath and plaster. Very curious to see what this picks up. Everything. Still everything. Okay. Yeah. Lots of, lots of false positives here. Blowing up. So this is really not going to do much for you for lath and plaster or for inch and a half drywall. Now, if you really need to be sure of what's in your wall, one of the best ways is just to look. Usually you don't have the option to rip off the drywall to see, or that's not practical for what you need it for, but you can use something like this. This is an endoscope and it's got a teeny tiny little camera right here. It's got led lights on the end that are adjustable in their intensity and they're really convenient. You can just drill a teeny tiny little hole into your wall and then you can look back there and see what wires you have, what studs you have, what pipes there are, all of that. So if you need to be 100% sure, this is one of the better ways to do it, but it does require a little patchwork afterward. Now you can pick up an endoscope for as little as about 50 bucks online. They're not too bad. They get quite a bit more expensive, just like the thermal cameras. One like this, for example, is typically around 150 or $200. Not really practical for all circumstances, but for certain things, again, this can be a really handy way. And that way, you know, for sure. The next step I'm going to show the Wallabot DIY 2. Now in a previous video I did comparing some stud finders. I used the original Wallabot DIY. That one only works with Android and I'm an iPhone guy. And so I wanted to test, test this out. I bought one of these and they're a little pricey. I think this was $160 if I'm not mistaken. So the most expensive one of the whole lot here, and this one does work with iOS or Android and it uses a wifi hotspot to do that. So it takes a minute to get it set up. You can't just put this on the wall and go, you have to connect your phone to the wifi hotspot that this makes. And then we've got to calibrate this. So I'm going to do the calibration now and show you what that looks like. The nice thing is you can hold this separately. So I can hold this in one hand and calibrate this and use this on the other. So this usually takes about 15 seconds. Okay. And then we're on. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to start over here. So it doesn't find my edge stud. A lot of these are not finding that one. Struggles. Okay. So it's got a pipe or a wire. There's my PEX. Let's see if it can find the PVC. Okay. There's the PVC. Good. Then we're going to move over here and it should find our double studs here. Okay. So wooden stud. So it says wooden stud right there and wooden stud right there. So it has a hard time kind of distinguishing the two, but it does show each of them. So there's one. And then as I move over, there's the other one. So it does a good job with that. Oh, so, okay. Something, pipe or wire, but I had to kind of search for it and look, it's showing it sideways, even though it's not sideways right there. Let's come up to where it is sideways. Oh, it's thought, see that? It said right there, wooden stud. A lot of them are struggling with the joint from the half inch to the five eighths inch drywall. Okay. There's pipe or wire there. That's, that's a wire. So that's correct. And pipe or wire there as well. We can kind of follow it down and see if it finds our stud here. Okay. Wooden stud. Good. So next up we have a vertical, electrical wire. Good. So there's that. And then we should have our pipe. There's our half inch copper pipe. And then we've got our big pipe. So it's struggling with that. See, it didn't really show it. Our, our PVC, it kind of gives little ghost blips of it. It's not really showing it. And then we'll have, okay, look at that metal stud metal stud right there. So it identifies metal versus wood. So that's good. Now it should be showing our gas pipe. There's our gas pipe. Let's see if it picks up the four inch duct. Yep. Says another pipe there and it doesn't say what it is or how big it is, but it just shows a pipe or a wire. Okay. Oh, and there's our end stud. So did pretty good on the half inch and it found basically everything that was back there. A couple of areas where it didn't do as hot, but generally this has found the most and been the most accurate so far. All right. Coming down here on the shiplap. Let's see what we see. Okay. We've got a wire there or pipe. It's not finding the other pipe come across. There's our stud and another stud, pipe or wire, pipe or wire there. Okay. We've got a stud here. Does a good job with that. Now again, we're behind an inch of material here. So that's why it's kind of curious to see how these things do pipe or wire there, pipe or wire there. All right. Interesting pipe or wire. It doesn't know there's a stud there. It's detecting the metal stud as a pipe or wire. So that's not very helpful. Pipe or wire. There's our gas pipe and then see if it finds the duct. Yep. And there's the duct. Okay. So it did okay, but it did mess up pretty bad on one of the things, which was the metal stud. So interesting results with the Wallabot on the shiplap. Now I've got links to all of these products in the description below. If you want to check that out, those are affiliate links, which helps me out a little bit and it doesn't cost you any more. Also, if you want to learn a little bit more about how to patch holes in your drywall, whether it's a little small hole like this or a big old hole, I've got a video right here. You can check out on how to patch five different holes, five different ways for drywall. Thanks for watching. I'm Nils, and we'll see you on the next one.