Apr
2
Hanging flat-panel televisions (plasma, LCD, etc.) in multi-dwelling, high-rise buildings can offer some unique challenges versus typical single-family construction. Right off the bat we’re looking at metal stud construction which doesn’t provide the same load capacity as wood studs. More problematic than the actual load capacity however is the nature of metal studs to “twist” under load.
This twisting is due to the fact that metal-studs are used in buildings with concrete and steel load-dispersion and therefore don’t necessarily have to “support” the walls themselves. In essence all a metal-stud wall has to hold up is the sheetrock attached to it, natrually heavey objects mounted on these walls can present a problem. The good news however is the average full-sized sheet of drywall is heavier than the television we’ll be mounting.
Ok back to my point, in order to reduce twisting and to just give the mount a slightly firmer foundation; I like to take a piece of plywood (painted the same color as the wall) and mount it to the wall and then mount the wall-mount to that. This affords us the ability to hit the metal-studs with more screws and by cutting the plywood slightly taller than the mount, you can get even more spread to disperse the load on. By the way, you’ll want to pre-drill (pilot) holes before trying to sink a screw into metal studs.
If you’re really concerned about the ability of your metal-stud wall to support displays larger than 50” you can take further measures. For some larger displays I’ve actually sliced out a section of the wall and “blocked” i.e. built up the inside of the wall by screwing 2×4’s inside the metal-stud cavity and then screwed the plywood back on top of that. At this point it would pretty much take the entire wall falling down (not going to happen) to drop your television to the floor. Yeah it’s a bit extreme, that’s why I only recommend this last method for plasma’s at or over 60”.
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