10 Best Stud Finders in 2020

If you are looking to do any major DIY work in your home or at work, you are going to need the best stud finder you can get hold of in order to make sure you can find all of the studs behind the surface of your walls for safety and security. Stud finders are an essential part of DIY work, but to the untrained eye they often look very similar to one another and distinguishing between a good stud finder and a bad stud finder can be difficult and time-consuming.

We’ve done extensive research into the world of stud finders to help you work out which options are the best for you and your needs. Below, you will find our best stud finder review, where we will discuss our top 10 stud finders in depth. We will break down all of the most important features of each stud finder in order to help you understand what you are looking at, as well as raising any concerns you might want to be aware of before you buy. There is also a helpful buyers guide, where we will talk you through some of the most important considerations that you should bear in mind when trying to choose a new stud finder.

Stud Finder Buyer’s Guide

Types of Stud Finder

There are two main types of stud finders available on the market, classified by the methods they use to locate the studs in any building. These two types of stud finders are magnetic stud finders and electronic stud finders, and both of them have certain advantages and disadvantages that are worth bearing in mind.

Magnetic stud finders use high strength powerful magnets, usually neodymium, to locate the metal screws that are used to hold the stud in place. That means that they can be a little less precise than electronic stud finders, but the lack of electronic components generally makes them more durable and reliable, and less likely to give false positives. The magnets also have a limit on how far they can detect metals, though, so deeper studs may not register well on magnetic stud finders.

The big difference, though, is that even a high-quality magnetic stud finder tends to be far cheaper than a decent electronic stud finder, so if the cost is a factor in your decision making, you are likely to want to choose a magnetic stud finder.

Electronic stud finders, meanwhile, work through a system of sensors that detect any changes in the electrical conductivity of the wall. That means that areas of different density and conductivity in the wall, such as studs, are detected, bringing up a reading on an LCD screen. They can often penetrate further into the wall than a magnetic stud finder is able to achieve, but this comes at the cost of reliability.

Many cheaper models of electronic stud finders are prone to false positives, and the electronic systems are more fragile and easily damaged than magnetic stud finders usually are. Electronic stud finders are often able to detect other features in your walls, though, and they may be more versatile than their magnetic counterparts in some situations.

Stud location

In most cases, you are going to be looking for studs in the walls of your building. If this is the case, then pretty much any stud finder should do the job, as they are all designed for use on walls. In some situations, though, you will need to look for studs in either the floor or ceiling of your building. If that is the case, you might need a more advanced stud finder. Floor studs can be buried deeper beneath the surface, and more basic stud finders might not have the strength to detect deeper studs on the floor.

For this, you will need something a bit more powerful, which usually comes at a premium cost. It is also worth considering the grip on your chosen stud finder, as looking for studs in the floor or ceiling often requires holding your tool at a different angle, which can be uncomfortable unless your stud finder has been designed for a comfortable grip at alternate angles.

Types of Stud

Studs in walls can be made from a range of different materials, and certain stud finders are only calibrated for finding specific types of studs. This means that being aware of which type of stud you are looking for will make the calibration and location process far easier. Most home walls are constructed with wooden studs in the walls, but many commercial buildings have heavier duty metal studs. In some rare cases, buildings may even have plastic studs built into the walls, which are much rarer and therefore less likely to be supported by the detection technology used in any given stud finder tool.

Other Ways to Find Studs

In addition to magnetic and electronic stud finders, there is an old fashioned method you could try for stud detection. It is not always going to be particularly accurate and won’t work on every wall, but it might be your best option if none of your stud finders are working properly.

If you rap your knuckle against the wall, it will make a fairly hollow tapping sound. When you rap just over a stud, that sound changes to a more solid noise, which you can use as an indication of where the studs in your wall are located.

You can also often use electrical sockets as a rough guide. Sockets are usually placed next to a stud, and that tends to be more predictable than you might think. As most people are right-handed, the majority of electrical sockets are located to the right of a stud rather than the left.

That means that you can usually find a stud just to the left of an electrical socket! That being said, not every electrician is right-handed, so this is not a 100% reliable method, as you always run the risk of finding a socket that has been installed by a left-handed electrician, and therefore has the stud to the right of it.

Expert Tip

You might think a stud finder isn’t a necessary tool, but you’d be wrong. The construction of walls is a precise and complex system, and you really do not want to drill into the wrong part of your wall!

Did you know?

The walls in older houses (pre-1960) are often thicker, with studs sunk deeper behind the surface. That means that the older your house is, the higher quality a stud finder you will need in order to get good results!