![]() In rare instances, a wall outlet may have been added at a later date, but in these situations a special remodeling box is used that doesn’t need to be nailed to a wall stud. In almost all situations, the boxes that house the outlets are nailed to the side of a wall stud. If the house is built after about 1950, I look for electrical wall outlets. The first thing I do when I have to find a stud is to look for clues as to where they would be. It works well, and because I carefully picked the spots where I drove the nails, the cabinets covered the exploratory holes after they were hung. I reverted to my old-fashioned method of a hammer and a nail. Just last weekend, I had to find some wall studs to hang wall cabinets. You can see why using these tools requires a knowledge of building habits in certain parts of the nation. The builder’s rough carpenters had installed 1-by-3 furring strips across the entire ceiling at 90-degree angles to the floor joists. It turned out that the device was finding them, but that they were recessed from the inside surface of the drywall by 3 / 4 of an inch. I even had the house plans and knew the direction of the floor joists. It would indicate where a ceiling joist was behind drywall, and when you drove a nail, the joist wasn’t there. Two years ago, I was using a stud finder and it was giving all sorts of false positive signals. ![]() ![]() They are great tools in certain situations, but sometimes they can be really frustrating. I hear your lamentations about the electronic stud finders. Can you share any secrets on how to find wall studs or ceiling joists hidden behind drywall or plaster without one? And how do I prevent making the walls look like a woodpecker was here? In the past, when I’ve borrowed one I had limited success using it. I need to hang some cabinets, but I don’t own an expensive stud-finder tool. ![]()
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