How do you find plasterboard/drywall battens?

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Use a magnet to find the nails or screws.

Just pick up a stud finder at a hardware store

Stud finder or just tap the wall and listen to where it's solid and not hollow sounding.

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how does a stud finder work?

>>1217728
they determine your grip strength and if you're a manlet with weak grip strength it wont detect you, but if you're a chad and squeeze it like you're choking a python then it'll go off.

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come on /diy/ you can do better than this, surely there are other anons who have had this problem!

>>1218195
Buy a stud finder.
Theyre under ten bucks.

>>1217728

Capacitance changes between where there is a stud and where there isn't. Pretty ingenious design.

Bang on the wall until you can feel/hear the stud.

>>1218195
Stud finder is the best option for finding studs.
The magnet thing is ok, too.
Banging can work, but not always reliable, especially if there's not a lot of space behind drywall.
Sometimes you can see where screws are by the imperfections when they were mudded over.
Use a tape measure if you hava an idea of stud spacing.

Or just start poking holes until you hit a stud.

>>1217587
using a magnet is the best way
only thing a stud finder is good for is to say to someone 'better test it's working' then turn it on as you bring in towards your body, as it gets closer it will beep indicating you are a stud. make sure to pre-empt any insubordinate calls of 'must be broken' by quickly insisting it seems to be working fine.

if you have the skirting off you can just look, also if you are in the USA sockets/switches seem to be fixed to the sides of studs? otherwise you can take them out and use a dental/inspection mirror, torch, rule to measure distance to one. they SHOULD be at regular set intervals.

if you are a cowboy builder you might just get a nail and hammer in in repeatedly until you feel it grab. but this leaves a mess.

with a little practice you can hear the difference when tapping the wall but the sound doesn't change immediately, it gradually changes from solid to hollow so it takes a little practice and patience.

>>1218271

It should be legal to shoot anyone that makes that fucking joke, but you're right that is the only thing they are good for

>>1217587
Plaster walls = no stud finder.

>>1217587

If you're working in an old house the magnet might be your best option.

My current house has three different layers of wall material hung on the walls: drywall on top of wood paneling on top of plaster. No fucker that remodeled ever bothered to tear down the previous wall layer.

Downside: finding a stud is nearly impossible.

Upside: wall is thick enough to hold up anything I'd want to hang anyway.

>>1217587
hit your head on the wall at some various places, if it hurts more at some place, it means that you found a stud.
godspeed

>>1219435
You think that's bad? I was helping my step dad install a wall mount for a tv. It was an addition added before they bought the house. Stud finder kept going off everywhere. We cut a small hole behind where the tv would be. Asphalt shingles. They built the addition around the old exterior wall.

>>1217587
In the UK, back boxes for sockets are fitted to joists and joinsts are fitted every 16 inches

>>1220684
>back boxes for sockets are fitted to joists
You have sockets in the floors?
Walls are made of studs and noggins. Typically sockets are fixed to a plate between studs