These Are the Best Stud Finders for All Your Mounting Needs

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If you’re hanging or mounting heavy items on your walls, such as mirrors or mounts for flat-screen TVs, you need to attach them to a stud—the wooden or metal beams that make up your home’s framing. Since these studs are hidden behind your drywall or plaster, a stud finder saves you a ton of time (and potential wall damage), ensuring you drill right into the sturdy support every time.

Some stud finders feature other helpful tools like deep scanning and AC wire detection. These prevent you from hitting a pipe or wire when hanging something up—expensive mistakes when you make them. That doesn’t mean stud finders work like X-ray vision, though—there’s a lot going on in walls, and it’s hard, despite advances in tech, for any device to determine what’s a pipe and what’s a wire, for instance.

We put a selection of stud finders through their paces on a wall of our own making and walls in real homes. We tested several options to find the best stud finders for home and commercial use, whether you just need a hand hanging up your new shelves or you’re hoping to avoid damage while you work within the drywall.

Best Stud Finders

What to Consider

If you want to hang something heavy or weight-bearing, go electric.

Magnetic stud finders catch on the fasteners that attach drywall to studs as you wave a magnet along the wall. Since fasteners often sit over a foot apart on a single stud, locating one with a magnetic stud finder may take longer, but this option is affordable and quite simple to use.

Accuracy is not a magnetic stud finder’s best attribute. Because these tools rely on the fastener actually being driven into the stud, if a builder missed the stud, so will the magnetic stud finder. In commercial construction, where metal studs are standard, magnetic stud finders are typically more reliable.

Some electric stud finders also identify metal pipes and electrical wires. The most advanced stud finders use technology like ground-penetrating radar, which creates a subsurface image.

For most occasional home uses, like hanging pictures or bathroom mirrors, a magnetic stud finder gets the job done effectively. However, if you’re hanging heavier items or anything that bears weight, like a shelf or a bike rack, electronic stud finders ensure you’re more precisely on target.

Plastic secures your components, but they won’t withstand getting wet.

Most stud finders are made of plastic with magnets or electronic components inside. While plastic is lightweight and reasonably durable, those with electronics are vulnerable to moisture and impact damage if they get rained on or dropped accidentally. Rare-earth magnets (with no plastic) are practically indestructible, and their smooth surface better prevents scuffs on your wall during use.

Larger stud finders sacrifice portability for features that boost accuracy.

While all stud finders are relatively small, some are more compact than others. As a carpenter in New York City, I found rare-earth magnets more convenient than other types, simply because they transport in my pocket or tool bag pouch without taking up much space or adding excess weight. Just keep in mind that their extra-small size makes them a choking risk around small children.

Larger stud finders tend to provide more functionality though, so if you plan on using your stud finder around your house—and storage and portability are less important—go with a larger model that fits all your needs.

How We Tested and Selected

For our evaluations, we built a four-by-eight-foot wall from common materials: wood and metal studs; drywall; copper, black, pex, and PVC pipes; and nonmetallic sheathed cable. Then, we scanned the wall with each of the stud finders.

All functioned as expected when it came to detecting the studs, but we quickly found that some of them didn’t work as advertised. We also took the stud finders to two homes—one, a mid-1800s house with lath and plaster, and the other, a 1970s tract house—for real-world testing.

We found several stud finders that worked great and used our DIY and carpentry expertise to determine which stud finders were best for various uses. We also recommend a few that we haven’t had a chance to test yet, but we think these are promising based on product specs and user reviews.

For this update, Popular Mechanics contributor Alex Rennie (a former residential and commercial carpenter) added several options based on his own personal experience mounting shelving units, TVs, and wall-mounted office monitors.

Our Full Stud Finder Reviews

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GMS120 Stud Finder

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$74.00

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With 13 sensors—each corresponding to a bright LED—this electronic stud finder expertly indicates even the outside edges of a stud. By pushing a single button, it provides you with a clear picture of a stud from right edge to left and from top to bottom, which gives you the confidence necessary to screw into its center. This unit also automatically adjusts to the depth of the drywall—up to 1.6 inches—and requires no calibration to get started. Unlike magnetic options, this one requires AA batteries (which are not included), but that’s a fine trade-off considering the additional information it provides.

Stud-Finding Tips from Our Expert, Bradley Ford

Most studs are spaced at 16-inch intervals—find one, and the next stud should be about that same distance in either direction. Changes in spacing usually happen near the ends of walls or doors and windows.

If your stud finder seems to be picking things up between the studs, it could be detecting metal or plastic plumbing components, electrical boxes or wiring, or metal ductwork. To combat this, scan above and below the point to ensure it continues to the floor or ceiling. If it doesn’t, it could be something other than a stud.

Electrical wires usually run vertically on the side of a stud and sometimes horizontally between outlets. If there are light fixtures, switches, and outlets on a wall, you can make an educated guess as to where the wires might be.

Pay attention to where the kitchen and bathrooms are, too—water supply and waste pipes for the second floor are often found in walls on the first floor, below sinks, tubs, or showers. (Pro tip: If your basement is unfinished, you can go down there to see where the pipes go up on the ceiling.)

Here are a few other tips for finding studs every single time.

• Don’t touch the wall with either hand while using a stud finder—this can alter its readings.

• Some stud finders need to calibrate before scanning, so start away from switches, outlets, or light fixtures.

• Apply some painter’s tape over the area you want to scan. It’ll give you a surface on which to mark your findings without having to write on the wall.

• When you detect studs, objects, or live wires, mark them with a pencil or tape.

• Freshly painted walls may be difficult to scan for a few weeks due to the moisture in the paint.

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