Precious Metal in Walls

[RickHarrison]

Hello everyone, I have a question. Theoretically, lets look at the story like this. My good friend inherited lots of money from his parents when they passed away. He was a multi Milionaire. He was also a very old fashioned person and was rumored to have hidden lots of silver bars in his home, possibly even in the walls. He passed away unfortunately. If I was left his house, how would I go about detecting these hidden bars/coins/etc in the walls without tearing the whole building apart. How do I detect and find all of this so I dont have to rip the whole building apart?

 

[vito]

X-ray. You may use a detector, but won't be sure without demolition.

 

[RickHarrison]

How would you guys go upon this?

 

[bootyhoundpa]

This could be very challenging for several reasons: 1st it would be necessary to power down the entire house at the breaker box so as to not get overwhelmed by EMI, 2nd it would probably be necessary to turn the sensitivity down pretty assuming the silver is in mass quantities as you describe you should still get a solid hit without getting fooled by copper wire in the walls which will also read in the silver range, 3rd you would need to turn up the discrimination rather high,higher the better as long as it still reads silver in quantity..even then it’s a long shot and probably just folklore but hey ya never know.... it would be necessary to use a detector that has very good discrimination capabilities as large iron and steel pipes can give false signals that may read in the silver range..

 

[north1]

What about a pinpointer with a sensitivity setting? Also could check out wall cavities with a borescope/endoscope like are used for sewer pipes. They have ones that you can plug into your cell phone and use an app or more expensive self contained units.

 

[IDXMonster]

I would absolutely go with what North said above...borescope. You’re going to get “silver type” readings everywhere in the house because of the copper wire Booty mentioned, and then you’ll have to drill a hole and confirm any hit anyway with...a borescope.
Metal detectors are calibrated for coin-type/size targets, a silver bar won’t read in the “silver range” because of the mass. Where WILL it read? Dunno. But It’s going to be lower on the conductive scale, as long as you're talking about a large cast bar, like 20-25 lbs. The 1 oz bars collectors buy should read like silver.
You’ll want to investigate from floor level to 6” up the wall to start....

 

[GeorgeinSC]

If the walls are sheetrock then someone would have had to cut openings to insert the meta. Unless a professional did the sheetrock work then you just might be able to see where the walls were cut and then repaired.

 

[Mike Hillis]

If you have access to the property you hang paper over the walls. Take a Whites V3 and detect the wall, marking the places where the V3 responds with the V3 spectragraph and analyze detection signatures. All the metal in the wall gives a unique signature on the V3. Not a problem to trace the conduit/wire, studs, etc. Once you have it drawn and marked you should be able to see the anomalies. You go back and use pinpoint mode to size and shape the anomalies.
Take a picture of the wall drawing. Label the pictures Do all the walls, one a time. Room by Room. When finished - reassemble the house via the pictures and go through and identify the true anomalies that can't be explained. Those are what you focus on.

Good Luck,
HH
Mike

 

[Mike Hillis]

or if you have deep pockets you can get you a portable hand held backscatter x-ray machine, like this Viken imager. https://www.heuresistech.com/hbi120
I've been looking at it, trying to find a price that doesn't get me spammed for life. The good thing about these imagers is that you can see more than metal.

HH
Mike

 

[Ronstar]

I would check exterior walls (outside). Especially around chimney clean outs, false boards below windows, etc. Interior walls usually nice and clean but no one notices a faded board or mismatched board in the pattern outside