Are you looking for a guide about How to Find Stud Without A Stud Finder?
Finding a wall stud without a stud finder can seem difficult, but I assure you it’s easy when your know-how. It comes down to a few things, and I’ll go through them here.
Basically, you want to find a way of establishing where the studs are behind the plaster. There are a number of ways you could go about doing this. Let’s explore each one in detail:
Table of Contents
Finding studs without a stud finder
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1. The old fashioned method
You’re going to use a nail and a hammer. Drive the nail into the wall at various points, maybe every few inches until you strike a stud.
It’s not a very elegant way of finding a stud without a stud finder, but it gets the job done. This is one way you could do it. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the better solutions in a second.
2. Once you’ve found one stud, measure to the next one
Generally, studs in walls are positioned about 16 inches away from each other. This, of course, varies slightly, but this is the normal distance.
Measure from the stud you’ve found to the next one, and you’ll have fewer holes in the wall due to using the nail and hammer method.
3. Examine the baseboard
The baseboard is the board mounted on the studs, and generally speaking, things like lamps, photos, or other things that hang from the wall are mounted on a stud.
Use this to your advantage to find the studs without a stud finder.
4. Use a flashlight
The plasterboard which has been mounted on the studs will have been nail for screwed directly into the studs themselves, so if you use a torch and carefully look at the plasterboard, you should be able to see slight bumps where the screws or nails poke out a tiny bit, or where the boards meet each other at the stud. This is a simple way to find studs without a stud finder.
5. Use a magnet and dental floss
This simple trick will help you to find studs without any sort of stud finder. You’re going to attach a small magnet to the end of a piece of dental floss.
We’re using dental floss because it’s very thin and won’t offer much resistance. Swing the magnet along the wall until it latches on to a screw or nail behind the plasterboard.
This will be where the stud is. It helps to use a strong magnet, but even a fridge magnet or something similar should work for most walls, it really depends on the thickness of the board. Some thick boards need stronger magnets because of course there’s more ‘wall’ for the magnet to work through.
The alternative would be to just get a stud finder, and with the latest advancements in technology, they’re really good now. Not too expensive either. Check out our latest stud finders!