TV Wall Mount FAQs
Question 1:
The 2nd to the last picture shows the tv mounted but it looks so thin against the wall. Did you have to cut out a hole for the tv to rest in?
No holes other than the wires. I wanted a very slim setup, so that’s why I went for the 1″ mount. The wife was adamant that the TV not stick out from the wall because the side of the TV is in you line of sight when you enter our front door. That’s the great thing about flat panels and wall mounts.
Question 2:
It looks like in your project, you only fed the cables vertically. If you were to feed the cables from the tv past several studs either left or right, how would you go about it?
You’re correct. I did run the cables vertically. I’ve thought about your question before. I think there are a couple of things that I’d consider doing.
First, if I only needed to go over through one stud, I think I could knock out some dry wall, take a paddle bit and put a 1″ or so hole in the stud. I don’t think I’d do that over a series of several studs, which brings me to my second thought.
If I was running wires like you’re talking about, I think I’d drop the cables like I did (vertically between two studs). Then I’d pull up my base board and run the cables behind the base board to my end point. Then I’d either go up the wall and out a grommet or just come out under the base board.
Question 3:
I don’t see any electrical wires. What did you do with those? Do you have them running through the wall? Isn’t this dangerous?
Yes, the power plug to the TV is in the wall. There is an outlet behind the entertainment cabinet, which also has a shelf for a surge protector, allowing me to push the cabinet up against the all entirely.
I don’t see how the TV power cable in the wall is a danger. I understand that many city codes prohibit this. In this situation, I don’t see a danger for rigging this one power cable through a 3′ section of the wall. It’s about 2″ on the other side of the same wall it would be if it were on the outside of the wall.
That said, do this at your own risk. I chose to put the power wire in the wall. Note that others have pointed out the homeowner’s insurance may not cover damage caused by violation of municipal codes. I don’t know if this is the case, but it seems worthy of consideration.
I have seen other installations where people will actually rig a power outlet behind the TV. I think this is a good idea; however, I didn’t see any reason for the extra effort as everything was concealed. By all means, go for it.
Question 4:
With the cooling vents flush against the wall, are there any issues with overheating that you know about?
No problems that I’ve noticed. I know there is a lot of venting on the top – I can feel the heat coming from it. But, no, no problems at all.
Question 5:
My wife is concerned that mounting the TV on the wall will be uncomfortable to watch because it is higher than eye level when sitting down. How have you found this to be?
As you can probably tell from the photos, the center of my TV is higher than eye level when sitting on my couch. The bottom of the TV screen is about where eye level is. If I’m really kicking back on my couch, the whole TV is higher than eye level. The bottom edge of the TV is actually 32.5″ from the floor.
There’s a lot of folks that say the center of the screen should be eye level. I rarely see this though. The TV just doesn’t look right from an aesthetic point of view when it’s mounted that low on the wall. My wife actually chose the the mounting height on the wall. She has the design veto on every project I do. Yours should too.
Now, on to viewing pleasure . . .
We have no problem at all with the slightly elevated viewing angle. I think the key consideration you need to think about is your viewing distance. If your 15′ from the TV, then you’re going to be able to deal with a much higher viewing height than you will if you’re couch is 6′ from the TV. We’re 10-12′ from the TV depending on how we’re sitting on our couch.
I think a good rule of thumb would be to sit down on you’re couch/chair draw a spot on the wall and look at it from the various positions that you sit it. If you have to strain your neck, then it’s too high. My eyes can comfortably follow everything on my TV without having to move my head/neck. I think this is the goal. If you’ve got one nearby, take your wife and go to an electronics store that has a home theater set-up. That will give her a chance to look at a variety of viewing angles.
I’ll also pass along a couple links about viewing angles:
Crutchfield FAQ (includes chart)
Question 6:
I would like to know where did you get the black trim piece where the cables come out of.
I got mine at Office Max (see Step 8), although you can find them just about anywhere that sells desk accessories. Amazon’s got the same 3″ Grommet as well as a variety of other sizes if you’re getting your mount, cables or TV from them too.
Question 7:
It was really difficult to move the wires from where the TV is to where base near the floor was. We had a lot of insulation that we had to work around and finally had to cut little slits in the sheetrock to push down the wires. I’m wondering how someone in the future can get around this.
Another reader answered: Depending on the insulation and distance, you can use a coat hanger or Lowe’s sell a wire fishing tool that works pretty well.
This is a really good suggestion. I was about to respond with a similar answer, but I was beat to the punch. I ran into a situation like this when I was helping my parents run speaker wire for an in-wall speaker outlet. That was a pretty cool job that I wish I’d done photos and a how-to guide for. Anyway, we did just like the reader said, took a wire fishing tool that we made out of a stripped excess electrical wiring (it was really stiff) and bent it to conform to the run that we were making. Then we taped the speaker wire to the fishing tool so that it was parallel with the tool. In this case we were running from the basement (under the floor) to the wall outlet speaker terminal. I pushed from the bottom with the homemade fishing tool and he sat ready at the hole in the wall. Within 10 minutes we’d made the run successfully.