There are several ways to find wiring in the wall. Most often, professional devices are used, but sometimes you can find hidden wiring in the wall without them. Let's consider various methods.

There are several types of devices that allow you to determine the location concealed wiring in the floor or in the wall.

Metal detectors create a field, due to which they find metal that has fallen into their coverage area. The device is convenient in that the wires do not need to be powered for searching, cons - they will react, including to screws, nails, etc. However, an improved professional device can distinguish between metal types, which makes it easier to determine exactly the wiring.

An electromagnetic device interacts with an external electromagnetic field. However, to use it, it is necessary that the wiring be under a load of 1 kW or more, so before you can find electrical wiring in the wall, you will have to plug in any device.

An electrostatic device picks up electromagnetic pulses, which form a conductive current in the cables. The device is accurate, but errors in operation can create internal structures and dampness in the room.

In fact, it consists of two devices that can search for electrical wiring, in conjunction with each other. To be more sure that you have correctly determined the route of the wires in the wall, two devices are led from both sides of the wall, if of course this is physically possible.

I personally held this device in my hands, and what I especially liked about it was the ability to switch between modes and work. In its most powerful mode, the BDS300 wire finder can locate wires up to 5 cm deep.

Another convenient and simple option: an indicator screwdriver. It is best to choose modern types, with light and sound alarms, but a regular probe with an LED indicator is also useful for finding electrical wiring. Such devices respond to the electromagnetic field of energized electrical wiring. These screwdrivers are very easy to use - touch your finger to a special window (MS series indicator) or to the sting (regular indicator), then drive the screwdriver along the stack - it will give a signal in the place where there is a wire in the walls. The method is not accurate due to the small search depth (about 2 cm) and a significant error: on average, the indicator will show only a channel 10–20 cm wide. However, it’s quite enough if you decide to just hang the picture and don’t want to hook the electrical cable.

A reliable and proven device for detecting wiring in a wall is the E-121 signaling device (“Woodpecker”). It is easy to use, and not only accurately determines the location of electrical wiring under voltage, but also finds break points. Search depth - up to 7 cm.

Not using appliances

Sometimes the question of how to determine the wiring in the wall can really be solved without special devices.

In some cases, it is possible to inspect the surface simply visually: often the termination of the wires cannot be made even, so protrusions can be distinguished on the wall. True, this can only be done without wallpaper, for example, if you are doing repairs.

Sometimes even an Android smartphone or a Mac OS can become a wiring detector: there are special applications that allow you to determine the wiring channel, for example, Metall Detector. Alas, it also reacts to foreign metal elements.

A wire finder can be made from an ordinary radio: just set the frequency to 100 kHz and move the antenna along the wall - an increase in noise will show that there is a cable passing through. Although not a jeweler's exact method, it is quite suitable for finding a channel.

A compass is sometimes used to find wiring in the wall. Search for the first time when the wires are energized and remember the places it reacted to. Then you should turn off the power and check all places again: this way you will locate the fittings and other metal parts.

Video "How to find electrical wiring in the wall"

Video on how to use the CEM LA-1014 tool to find hidden wiring in the wall. The video also describes how the device works, how it reacts to the detection of wires.

Hello dear friends! In this article, you will learn how to find the wiring in the wall? Also, today, we will look at the main methods and tell you how to use special devices to search for wiring. But let's go in order.

Concealed wiring is a type of wiring that involves installing a cable (wire) of wiring lines in a wall under a layer of plaster or other finishing material. Such wiring is most preferable from the point of view of aesthetics, since the cable laying routes are not visible. But at the same time, this feature of hidden wiring creates additional problems if it is necessary to find cable laying places in case of damage to one or another line or if it is necessary to replace the wiring during repairs.

Why else do you need to know the location of the wiring?

• Apartment redevelopment. For example, you decide to cut a doorway in a different place, but you don’t know exactly where the current-carrying wires pass.
• Chain break. One of the most painful reasons, because. in this case, you will need not only to find the electrical wiring in the wall, but also the place of the wire break
• The need to drill through the wall. Suddenly you have to connect wall sconce either hang wall cabinet, picture or TV on the wall
• Even more dangerous is that in the process of drilling a hole in the wall and getting into the cable, there is a high probability of electric shock to a person.

In order to avoid the occurrence of these negative situations, if it is necessary to mount one or another element on the wall, you should first search for the places for laying the wire and, taking this into account, adjust the places for mounting the fasteners.

Indirect method of searching for hidden electrical wiring

This method does not involve the use of any tools or fixtures. There are generally accepted rules and regulations, according to which the installation of electrical wiring is carried out, we list the main ones:

• all electrical wiring lines must run strictly vertically or strictly horizontally relative to architectural and construction lines
• the cable is laid below the ceiling slabs by 150 mm
• the cable running along the window beams must be located at a distance of at least 50 mm
• in walls made of concrete, reinforced concrete blocks, the cable is usually placed in special grooves provided in the slabs, in interblock seams, and in the absence of such a possibility, the cable is laid in strobes
• if there are voids in the floor slabs, it is recommended to lay the cable in them. In this case, lighting lines can be laid directly to lighting devices, as well as other electrical wiring lines.
• the distance between cable line electrical wiring and pipelines must be at least 50 mm - for water supply, sewerage pipelines and at least 250 mm - for gas pipelines and heating pipes

That is, if you follow these standards, you can easily determine the place of laying a particular wiring line. The only disadvantage of this method is that the wiring may not be installed in accordance with the standards and, accordingly, in fact, the cable may be located in a completely different place.

How to find wiring in the wall, indirect method

Often, in order to save wires when installing electrical wiring, the cable is laid along the shortest route, that is, not strictly horizontally and vertically with bends at right angles, but, for example, diagonally, in a straight line from the junction box to the outlet. Also, if the wiring diagram is quite complicated, then the place where certain lines pass is impossible or there is a high probability of making an error.

That is, the indirect method does not give a 100% guarantee that the cable passes exactly in this place. This method is well suited if it is necessary to carry out work to replace the wiring - you can immediately start opening the strobes, based on the above rules, and in the process of dismantling the cable, you can clearly see where the cable goes and how to open it further. It often turns out that partially or completely the wiring in the house was not installed in accordance with generally accepted rules and recommendations.

It should also be noted here that if a complete replacement of the wiring is planned, then it is recommended to install the new wiring strictly according to the rules, avoiding previous mistakes.

If you install the wiring strictly according to the rules, then in the future it will be easy to navigate where this or that wiring line passes if it is necessary to fix various interior elements on the wall. And in case of need for repair or subsequent replacement of wiring, it will be easy to find one or another route of electrical wiring cables.

In general, when replacing electrical wiring, it is recommended to leave a wiring diagram that indicates the exact location of the installation sites for sockets, switches, intermediate junction boxes, cable routes for all electrical wiring lines relative to other elements. In the future, such a scheme will greatly simplify the search for certain wiring elements in the walls.

Modern devices for finding hidden wiring

• Signaling devices of the Chinese production of the MS series. For example, the MS-158M probe tester will be able to find not only electric wires but also any other metal object. It is worth noting that such a tester will not be able to find an object wrapped in foil, since the foil creates a screen that interferes with metal detection. Working with such a signaling device has its own nuances - you need to learn to distinguish between the signals that come from the wires and the signals that will come, for example, from an ordinary screw. Without much difficulty in stores, you can find other devices that detect hidden electrical wiring.

How to find wiring in the wall, MS-158M probe tester

• The LA-1012 device is not only able to find the wiring in the wall, but also provides the user with data on the variable electric field, which emits, for example, an electrical panel.

How to find the wiring in the wall, apparatus LA-1012

• Testers models VP-440, GVD-504A, GVT-92, GVD-503 are also great helpers in finding wiring. The VP-440 will be able to detect breaks in wires, which is why it is also in great demand among craftsmen.

How to find wiring in the wall, VP-440 tester

Attention! When you look for wiring, do not forget for a second: When working with electricity, be extremely careful, careful and accurate!

Considering devices for searching for hidden electrical wiring, it can be noted that a conventional metal detector can perform the function of searching for a wire in a wall. In fact, this device indicates the presence of metal, and the wire in the wall is non-ferrous metal. This method is not suitable for walls made of reinforced concrete, since the metal detector will signal the presence of metal at any point in the wall.

One of the most common devices for finding hidden electrical wiring is a device called Woodpecker. This device is able to find not only the place where the wire is laid, but also the exact place of its damage (break). With the help of this device, the process of finding and eliminating damage is greatly simplified. The so-called Woodpecker searches not just metal objects, but conductive ones, so it can be used to search for hidden electrical wiring everywhere, including in panel houses.

How to find the wiring in the wall using the Woodpecker device, video

There are many different devices that allow you to find the wire in the wall. We would like to immediately draw your attention to the fact that there is absolutely no guarantee that these devices will cope 100% with the task.

Some devices are not able to determine the location of shielded cables or they work on the principle of a metal detector, that is, they show the presence of not only electrical wires in the wall, but also other metal elements, for example, reinforcement in a reinforced concrete slab.

You can also make a device to search for hidden electrical wiring yourself. If you have the appropriate skills, this is not a problem - there are simple schemes for these devices on the Internet.

Old-fashioned ways to find wires in the wall

Old-fashioned methods can also help in finding the place where the cable passes. Previously, to detect wiring in the wall, they dispensed with devices, while safely finding the entire power line under wallpaper, tiles and plaster. How did our grandfathers and great-grandfathers do it?

We bring to your attention the three most simple options that will allow you to find the wiring yourself:

1. If a major overhaul is planned. Tear off the wallpaper and inspect the wall in Khrushchev (or in the house). Usually, strobes for hidden electrical wiring stand out a little in color from the rest of the surface, and the putty will be rougher to the touch.

2. Take an ordinary radio receiver, tune it to 100 - 150 kHz and, bringing it to the wall, listen to the nature of the noise. The appearance of extraneous sounds, hissing, crackling indicates the presence of a wire in this place. It is recommended that a powerful electrical appliance be plugged into the outlet, which is powered by the desired wiring line, so that the load current flows through the cable.

3. An alternative to a radio receiver is the use of a microphone and a tape recorder. We connect the microphone and carefully guide it along the surface. There was noise or crackling - you managed to find the approximate location of the track.

Please note that methods that use a microphone and a receiver have a rather high error of 15 cm. That is why, relying on the signals of these devices, it is better to play it safe and retreat a little more so as not to get an electric shock!

You can also try to locate the cable using the normal indicator screwdriver. Some types of screwdrivers react to the cable laid in the wall.

If you need to search for hidden electrical wiring, you can seek help from specialists who provide such a service. The advantage of this option is the accuracy in determining the location of the cable.

If you are purchasing a device for the first time and still do not know whether it works or not, then an experienced electrician probably already has a time-tested device that will allow you to accurately determine not only the location of the wiring in the wall, but also the exact location of its damage, in the event of such need. Therefore, before going to the store for the device, you should think about the advisability of such a purchase.

There are times when we need to know exactly where hidden electrical wiring runs in our walls.
There can be several reasons, ranging from apartment renovation to the banal case of hanging a picture on the wall.

Ideally, it would be nice to have documentation on the plan for electrical (and not only) communications in your home, but often, especially in older buildings, there are no diagrams and there are times when there are deviations in the diagram and on the wall.

Modern technologies allow the production of professional devices that with high accuracy determine the laid wires in concrete wall at great depths, even if they are not energized.

Several Ways to Find Routes of Routed Wires

• Professional devices for searching for hidden electrical wiring (indicators).

Widely known to all electricians signaling device E-121 "Woodpecker" - can detect electrical wiring at a depth of up to 7 cm in the wall.

Tester probe MS-58M - finds not only electrical wiring but even metal objects.

The VP-440 tester is a professional high quality tool that can find breaks and search for wiring.

• If the wiring was laid after plastering, you can notice small defects that can reveal the places where the hidden wiring passes, and since we know that the wires should be laid in perpendicular lines, we can determine the line of the laid wiring. But there are such "craftsmen" who can lay the wire and for everyone and askew, here it's already as lucky.

• Searching with a conventional radio tuned to a frequency of 100 kHz. Silence and attention are needed here. The receiver is led along the wall and listened for changes in the background sound. Small crackles or obvious changes in the background indicate that the electrical wire is under the plaster.

• Compass. With the help of a compass, which is also led as close as possible along the wall, they look for the deviation of the arrow. In the places where the wire passes, the arrow from its previous pointing point will turn towards the wire lying in the plaster.

If these methods do not work well, you can connect a small load at the end of the proposed line, so that it is under load and current flows through it, this will help to identify the wire located more easily.

• A small device assembled on a knee, a coil wound on a core with a resistance of about 500 ohms, either a high-resistance speaker, an earphone, a telephone or an indicator with an arrow (from old tape recorders) are connected to it. Or even simpler is a dial indicator from the same, for example, an old tape recorder with a small outline of a thick wire.

• The device is assembled on the basis of an old cassette player. The alteration consists in the fact that a high-resistance coil is connected in place of the magnetic head, or, for example, a small-sized transformer. The wire from the coil to the player is desirable to use shielding.

The methods described above allow finding electrical wiring if all the conductors in it are obviously intact and working, but there are situations with a malfunction when zero or phase is burned out.
If at least one conductor is intact, you can apply the methods described below

• AT junction box or the electrical panel from which our wire comes, change zero with the phase in places, and now most likely our line will be under phase. You can search by the hidden wiring indicator or by the methods described above.

• The line is disconnected from the power supply, instead of voltage, a high sound frequency is supplied from a sound generator, using a receiver or a coil with a high-impedance speaker, this "sound" is searched along the wall.

You will need

• - a device for detecting hidden electrical wiring;
• - a radio receiver operating at a purity of about 100 kHz.

Instruction

Use one of the devices to detect hidden electrical wiring. The MS-58M probe allows you to search not only for hidden electrical wiring, but also for other metal objects in the walls of the premises. Copper, steel, aluminum products are easy to detect with this probe. The exception is metal objects located in the walls, shielded, for example, with foil. The detection depth depends on the mass, type and dimensions of the material.

Solve the problem of detecting hidden electrical wiring using the E121 ("Woodpecker") signaling device. It can also be used to detect breaks in live wires. This reliable domestic device is used by professional electricians. Searching for hidden electrical wiring located at a depth of 5-7 cm is not a problem for the Woodpecker.

A cheaper analogue of the Russian "Woodpecker" is the Chinese MS hidden wiring signaling device. This device is sensitive to all metal objects. When working with it, you need to adapt to distinguish signals from hidden electrical wiring and, for example, from a screw. The MS brand device is purchased by novice electricians or amateur electricians.

Search for hidden electrical wiring in the walls of various building structures with the POSP-1 device. It will also warn you about the presence in electrical panels, cabinets, etc. of alternating electric field. discover hidden wiring it is possible with a voltage tester of the brands GVT-92, GVD-503, GVD-504A. The hidden wiring route, breaks in the wires are non-contactly determined by the VP-440 device.

As you can see, the market offers a sufficient number of various devices for detecting hidden wiring. However, the prices of professional devices hit the pocket. Therefore, you can apply the old-fashioned method. Take an old radio, turn it on and walk along the wall with it. Increased noise and specific crackles will give out the location of hidden electrical wiring

Determine the location of hidden electrical wiring by the roughness of the walls in places where it runs. Pull off the old wallpaper - and the wiring route will become clear to you. And remember that electrical wiring is mounted exclusively in two directions - horizontally and vertically. Happy searching!

note

Be very careful when working with electricity.

Sources:

• Search for hidden wiring and its installation
• how to identify wiring in a wall

Installation of hidden electrical wiring is considered a good solution from an aesthetic point of view, but it can seriously puzzle the owner of the apartment. The cable is hidden under a layer of plaster (or under sheets of drywall), wallpaper is glued on top, time passes. And when there is a desire to attach a shelf to the wall, you catch yourself thinking that you didn’t remember where the cable runs. And I really would not want to get into it with a drill or a self-tapping screw.

You will need

• Knowledge of basic electrical installation and wiring practices
• Knowledge of all local connection points to the central wiring in the room
• Tape measure or measuring ruler

Instruction

Find in the room all the points to which the electric cable is connected - stationary lamps, sockets, switches. Knowing general principles and the rules for installing electrical wiring, it is possible with a high degree of probability to determine how the cable descents to their locations are made. Usually, branches depart from the main wiring line laid under the ceiling at a right angle - strictly vertically. Therefore, it is not recommended to hang and place anything above sockets, switches and sconces, it is better to step away from them to the side.

Measure fifteen centimeters from the ceiling - it is at this distance that it is customary to place the central wiring line in the house. Of course, master electricians do not measure the distance to a centimeter, and a number of circumstances may force you to lay the cable a little higher or a little lower. But still this is the most likely place for laying the cable. And even if it does not pass quite there, the retreat will not be great.

Content:

When performing repair and construction work in a house or apartment, it is very often necessary to drill holes, drill and ditch walls. In such cases, the question constantly arises of how to find the wiring in the wall, especially if there is no diagram of its placement. There are several ways to solve this problem.

Devices for detecting hidden wiring in the wall

There are several types of devices that allow you to determine the location. Among them, the most popular signaling device E121, popularly known as the "Woodpecker". The reason for this name was the characteristic sound signal emitted by the device when hidden wires are detected.

The E121 signaling device is able to detect the presence of networks if they are energized. The operation of the signaling device is based on its interaction with the electromagnetic field. This device is easy to operate. After turning it on, it is carried out along the wall and, in case of approaching the intended line, the amplification of the sound signal becomes noticeable.

A more complex device is instrument MS58M used mainly by professional electricians. Its operation requires certain skills and experience. Such difficulties are associated with various sounds made by the device when wiring is detected in the wall. It allows you to identify different metals. The operation of this device is based on . The wires of the network may not be energized. The main difficulty is the ability to distinguish sounds made by wires from sounds made by other metal objects.

A fairly simple model is BDS300 wiring locator equipped with LED signaling system. Light signaling is a significant advantage of this device. The device includes two separate devices functioning in mutual communication with each other. The most powerful mode of operation allows you to detect wiring in the wall, located up to 5 cm deep.

It should be noted another device for detecting hidden wires in the walls. It's pretty complicated device brand CEMLA-101 with more features than previous models. It interacts with the electromagnetic field emanating from live wires. Using the CEMLA-101 instrument, it is possible to detect wire breaks at a sufficiently large depth.

In the absence of special devices, it is possible to identify wires hidden in the wall using an ordinary radio receiver with the ability to tune the frequency to 100 kHz. After tuning, you need to run the antenna along the wall and listen for crackling and hissing. With the maximum amplification of the signals, you can confidently assume the location of the wire under voltage.

How to find a wire in a wall without a device

Detect lines in certain situations electrical networks hidden in the wall, possibly without special equipment. In addition to the radio, there are other methods.

When solving the problem of how to find the wiring in the wall, you can use the map of electrical networks. This method does not guarantee high accuracy, since the document could be of poor quality. In some cases, such a card is drawn at random and presented as a real one.

Networks are best defined with wallpaper removed and exposed plaster. From the laid wiring, visible traces of lines smeared with mortar are sure to remain. This method is effective when carrying out a complete repair, but for isolated cases it is not suitable. Separate areas are required to be examined with a special device.

Finding wiring in the wall