Relative to a stud, how does electrical conduit usually run?

In my experience the height depends on the height of the electrician. I use a right angle drill with a bore bit for my rough in. During this you drill hundreds of holes. I tend to rest the drill against my hip while drilling. Me being 6’1" puts my holes higher than most others. It’s actually higher than I like them so I usually have an apprentice do all the drilling, my apprentices have always been short. I tend to be in the chair rail height range which is only an issue when a finish carpenter decides to shoot in 2.5 inch nails.

By code the wires need a nail plate anywhere they are within 1 1/4 inches of the studs surface. Most homes use 1/2 inch drywall. This means if you use 1 5/8 inch nails or screws you have little danger of hitting any properly installed wires.

1 5/8 is plenty long for most applications. If you decide to go longer you just need to be more careful. The odds of hitting a wire aren’t very high, the only time I’ve seen it happen was still during the construction phase.

I really, really, really like the the Franklin ProSensor; out of all the electronic stud finders I’ve tried (half a dozen or so of them, most of them similarly designed), this is the only one that actually works. Instead of being a single locator that you wave around like a wand, it’s a “bar” of sensors and corresponding LEDs… the stud lights up under the corresponding LEDs (usually three). Look at the pictures if it’s unclear what I mean. I’m not the only one, either: Out of 100 Amazon reviews, it has 4.5 stars. Sadly it doesn’t have an AC detector, but for finding studs, it works well and works fast.

The only other one that has equally good reviews is a purely magnetic one… that works, too, but it takes a lot of waving around.

If you want to see what is behind a wall, there is no substitute for a borescope. I have this unit which I can recommend.It has a 9mm head and has various accessories available. There is also a more advanced wireless model.

I borrowed a Milwaukee brand one of those from someone, looked almost identical to that, other then being a few years older and red. It had a really odd quirk…the screen was tilted 90 degrees. That is, if you pointed the camera perfectly straight at someone, they’d be sideways on it. It took a few minutes of prodding around behind a wall to get used to that, and it wasn’t just me, online reviews complained about it as well.

The wireless one detaches from the mount so can reorient however you like. And mine has a button that changes the orientation by 90 degrees each time you press it.

I too have installed hundreds of towel bars and the type I prefer is the second one from the right. The problem, especially in apartments, is that styles change, minds change and bars break. The ones on the ends are sturdier for sure but problematic to remove. I haven’t had ones like the one I indicated fail on me yet. As noted earlier, the best solution is to find a stud for one end and use a drywall anchor on the other.