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They are worth having in the bag. I'm not sure if a really expensive one is a lot more useful because I've never had one.
When you're working with plasterboard walls the void can help you to avoid damaging any pipes or cables. Go very slowly and carefully into the wall and you can feel any changes in the substrate. Big drill bits and drills are the worst, I hit a water pipe in a block of flats with a core drill. Luckily no permanent damage done. Clean water is less of a problem than people think.
I'm quite interested to see what could be done with an IR scanner. It might help to find central heating pipes for example.
The more often you drill holes in walls the more cables and pipes you'll hit though. I've asked long serving pro curtain fitters and the answer to how many was 'lots'
Airhead-
I'm quite interested to see what could be done with an IR scanner. It might help to find central heating pipes for example
Because they only observe the surface temperature, that's unlikely to be useful as you'd be relying on the hidden pipe radiating/conducting its heat to the back of the surface and that warming the surface sufficient to observe.
If they are on, it t will find underfloor heating circuits as they are intended to heat the surface. CH pipes running along a hall not to far below the floor may show, however a thick carpet / underlay would probably have a fairly uniform surface temperature if the heating was on.
I have a Perfect Prime UR0005 and it can see the cold bridging of studs and screws through the plasterboard and areas within those studs that are poorly insulated :(
It picked up a fuse box breaker and a plug socket that was hotter than the others and turned out to have loose terminals.
user69121
Yeah, noticed already the mad wiring in older houses. Shortest route possible seemed to be the choice for a lot of cables plastered into the walls. Often in a metal conduit of some sort at least, but still.
It's water pipes I'm more worried about. Which reminds me that I need to grab some of those Rothenberger Kibosh emergency repair things you recommended.
As I'm fairly new to the trade, and my main area of experience that is lacking is actual work in houses, I was keen to have something to try and help keep me out of trouble. I'm hoping I can find someone to take me on for a bit so I can learn my way around domestic jobs a bit better!