My husband and I are mounting a tv. The stud finder shows some type of electrical wires by the stud we need to drill into. How can we safely drill into this stud without nicking any wires? Or should we just avoid the area in general?
How to mount a television with wiring in the wall behind
studs
Related Solutions
As Legion600 suggested, you probably have steel studs as furring strips. You need to be sure you are not hitting protection plates installed on wood studs.
These protect electrical or plumbing lines close to the stud face, and you must never attempt to drill through these. Usually, if you drill several inches above or below such plates, you will hit wood. If you are hitting metal along the entire stud length, it is not a protection plate, but a metal stud. Metal studs in this application should be fairly light gauge and easy to drill through. Protection plates are about 16 GA and are not easy to drill through.
You may anchor objects to metal studs. They are sturdy enough when finish sheathing is attached along their length. Do not use toggles, the hole required is too large. It's best to use a number of self-drilling screws that are barely long enough to engage the stud face material after passing through the mount and wall finish. This avoids damaging any lines routed through the center holes of the stud. You can also use self tapping screws into pre-drilled holes, but drill very carefully so as not to damage any underlying lines when the drill breaks through the face material, and again, use appropriate length screws.
I agree with ppa about the wire running down the stud. Try to determine which side of the stud it is on by slowly moving your detector away until the light goes out. Probe for the stud with a 4d finish nail until you locate the exact ouline of it. Then follow bats advice and carefully drill the stud with a pilot bit for your lag bolt. You may want to be just a hair off center away from the cable but still in the meat of the stud. The pilot bit should be half the diameter of the screw or less. This should guide the screw and keep it from wandering off.
If you take your time and are careful you should be able to avoid the electrical cable in the wall and still get the holding power of the stud. I would not trust #10 screws or drywall anchors for this job.
The best way would be to remove a part of the drywall, attach horizontal blocking between the studs and patch the wall back up. Then you have a really solid installation. But then, this will cost more time and money.
Good luck!
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Best Answer
The only way to be absolutely sure is to cut an access hole and get a visual on it. If you hit a wire, it will need to be opened up anyway. If you have access to a small inspection camera, you could get away with drilling a much smaller hole.