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Comment on I'm stupid...how do I avoid wires when mounting things to the wall?

Unfortunately, there’s not enough info to help without risk of mistake. Do you live in a single home structure or shared(condo, apartment, duplex, etc.)? What’s the age of the structure? Is your breaker panel on either side of the wall you’re working on? Is it an exterior or interior wall?

When you say stud/wire detector, what do you actually own? There’s no device I know of that combines voltage detection with a stud finder, so I’m guessing your device is a stud finder marketed to also find other buried elements.

If you’re working with a traditional stud finder, a lot of things can give off a false positive, like insulation, lath and plaster construction, pipes, a second skin of drywall and even an exceptionally thick coat of compound.

To have the best chance at not messing this up, I would suggest making an inspection hole. You can either purchase a cheap horoscope cam that you connect to your phone or laptop and make small, easily patched holes or a larger hole to insert your phone. If you can remove your baseboard and replace it, you can hide the holes behind the baseboard without having to patch them when you’re done.

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betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

cheap horoscope cam

Auto(in)correct strikes again, presumably. Guessing that’s intended as “borescope” unless you’re using star signs to find studs (though many charlatans assure me this method works just fine).

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- dingus@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  That definitely would be a more amusing way to find studs.
  
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  - Sunsofold@lemmings.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You will find true love on flag day.
    
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dingus@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Unfortunately, there’s not enough info to help without risk of mistake. Do you live in a single home structure or shared(condo, apartment, duplex, etc.)? What’s the age of the structure? Is your breaker panel on either side of the wall you’re working on? Is it an exterior or interior wall?

I live in a townhouse build in 1998, so many shared walls. The breaker panel is an entirely different area of the home. These are interior walls.

When you say stud/wire detector, what do you actually own? There’s no device I know of that combines voltage detection with a stud finder, so I’m guessing your device is a stud finder marketed to also find other buried elements.

I have this model. Sorry. It detects AC wires, not voltage, per se. It is a Zircon HD55.

www.zircon.com/tools/studsensor-hd55/

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- tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  In most cases, the ‘party wall’ between two townhouse units is not allowed to carry any services - no wires, pipes, or ducts. The ones I’ve seen being built lately often have a couple extra sheets of drywall just sitting in the wall between units, presumably as a fire/noise retardant, and that might confuse stud detectors.
  
  You’re also not supposed to do stuff to those party walls, at least not without consent from the neighbor, because they are essentially co-owned.
  
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  - limelight79@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Isn’t there usually a concrete wall or something between townhouses? (I’ve never owned one, so I don’t have firsthand experience.)
    
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    tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The really nice ones :) Concrete is a lot quieter. They’ve put up several new complexes in my area, and even for $600k, you get just framed party walls. Some of the builders go so far as to build little brick extensions on the exterior facade, so it looks like masonry wall extends between the units. My unit has a daylight basement, and the below-grade party wall is cinderblock, like the below-grade exterior wall, but that ends at grade.
    
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  - dingus@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m confused. How could there possibly be no wires or pipes in between the shared walls?
    
    I guess I could see how you could get away with it in terms of pipes, but wires? If you couldn’t put wires in shared walls, then like 80% of the wall space on your average townhome couldn’t have an outlet. I have plenty of outlets on my shared walls. Pretty sure one of my shared walls has plumbing too because that’s where I had a water leak. Quite frankly there is hardly any additional wall space left for an outlet if the shared walls couldn’t be used for outlets and switches.
    
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    tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    For example, in my 1980s townhouse, all the plumbing goes through one interior wall. There’s void space in the bathroom that carries chimney and ductwork. Wiring goes variously through that one interior wall and the exterior walls. The kitchen has a fake wall built in front of the party wall to give space for extra outlets.
    
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  - Cheesus@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    This might be the general ‘best practice’ today for plumbing, but even as recent as 1998 I wouldn’t count on it. It was technically not against code in Canada around 5 years ago as long as the piping was done in fire-rated materials. Also it’s pretty much impossible to not have at least some wiring in party walls.
    
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- betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  From the manual:
  
  Image
  
  Seems like a good place to start.
  
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  - dingus@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It gives very inconsistent readings around the wiring in this wall so it’s difficult for me to determine this sort of thing. I get the manual is just like “try again from further away”, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to figure out where the wires actually are because of the inconsistency.
    
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