Blew $150 on a fancy stud finder that can't find wood through drywall

I was all excited to hang some shelves in my living room, so I went out and bought this top-of-the-line stud finder from Home Depot. It had all these sensors and a digital display that promised to find pipes and wires too. I spent a whole Saturday afternoon moving it across my walls, and it kept beeping at random spots or showing nothing at all. After three hours of frustration, I just pounded a nail into the drywall to test it, and I hit nothing but air in four different places. Turns out my walls have metal studs, and this thing was made for wood frames. I tossed the box in the trash and now I just knock on the wall like my grandpa did. Has anyone else had a tool that just completely failed at its one job?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabethn5627d ago

No way, I'm on the OPPOSITE side of this one. If you KNOW you have metal studs, a basic magnetic stud finder is like 15 bucks and works PERFECT. The fancy digital ones are for people who don't know what kind of wall they have, not for someone who just needs to hang shelves. Also, spending 150 bucks and not reading the manual once is on you, not the tool.

clairem471mo ago

Three hours of moving a stud finder across a wall? That sounds more like a patience problem than a tool problem. Isn't the whole point of a stud finder to save you time, not waste an afternoon? And then you just hammer a nail into the wall blindly anyway. You could have done that from the start and saved the 150 bucks. Metal studs are pretty common in newer places too, so maybe check what you're dealing with before buying a specialized toy. Honestly feels like a lot of drama over a simple tool that probably has a return policy.