Apr
8
Mounting Flat-Panels on Brick & Concrete Walls
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Last week we talked about mounting flat-panel televisions on metal studs, this week let’s talk about anther tricky mounting surface, brick and concrete walls. Firstly know that yes, it’s absolutely possible and even preferable in some circumstances to mount televisions on these surfaces, but just as with metal-stud installations there are a few things to keep in mind before proceeding.
Right off the bat we’ll of course be using different fasteners to anchor the mount to the wall than we would if we were talking about wood studs, specifically we’ll be using concrete anchors. Call them what you may, lag bolts, anchors, expanding bolts etc. The basic premise is to drill a hole into the brick or concrete and then place the anchor through the mount and into the hole.
The anchor is then expanded by tightening a bolt which pulls the end of the anchor in toward you. Simple story made even simpler, the bolt is wedged so hard into the hole it become rock solid that is if you drill the hole correctly… I have to admit the only television we’ve ever had fall was one previously hanging off a brick wall. In short the guy drilling the holes awed them out (made too big) and the bolts didn’t get the proper expansion, result was one busted television but luckily no busted people.
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Apr
4
In my 17 years of involvement with custom audio/video I’ve had a lot of conversations on the subject, a lot of the same conversations as a matter of fact but one subject has never come up, not even once. In all the years of talking with client after client I’ve never heard anyone say, “we pulled too much wire” or “I really wish we’d had you guys run fewer cables”.
I suppose this falls right in-line with (although not nearly as famously as) you can never be too rich or too thin, back to the point. If you’re pre-wiring a new home, remodeling an existing home or just running some cable to your current home theater, run extra cables. Why run extra cables you ask? Because in just about every case I’ve witnessed there’s no such thing as an extra cable. i.e. you’ll eventually find a use for it.
I’ve mentioned this before but networked home theater devices are becoming more and more common, who had the foresight to run Ethernet to their equipment rack 10-15 years ago? It’s almost a given that no matter how many cables you run, eventually, sometime down the road you’re going to find use for another CAT-5, component, HDMI or Ethernet cable. Simply put it cost less to run them now versus later. Or just think of it the way our installation team does, always run a spare.
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.
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Mar
26
We’ve discussed the proper seating distance from your display but what about the proper mounting height? It’s no secret that one of my biggest pet peeves is displays mounted so high on a wall that you have to crane your neck backwards to see them. While I’ll obviously never be able to talk everyone out of this mistake, I do have some tips for those who are more interested in the most enjoyable viewing experience; than seeing how high on the way you can mount your television.
Firstly keep in mind that the following guidelines are intended for your normal seating position, don’t decide where to place your display based on sitting at a barstool unless you do all your viewing from barstool etc, this goes for standing, laying down etc. You want to mount your television so that the center of the screen is roughly at eye level seated, you can go slightly higher than that but once you reach the bottom of the screen at eye level or higher you really should consider dropping it back down.
I know it’s easy to imagine the display higher and to want it higher but if you find yourself rubbing at a sore neck after viewing a whole movie or ball-game what’s the point? Sure these are just guidelines and every scenario is different but think about ergonomics more than aesthetics when deciding where to place your wall-mounted TV, your neck will thank me.
Mar
21
This tip is aimed at the do-it-your-selfers out there, specially the folks wiring up new homes or adding additional wiring to their existing homes. Wiring is obviously an integral part of home theater. Wireless solutions are getting better and better every day but they still have a long ways to go towards the performance of traditional hard-wired systems.
We all know that speaker cables, CAT-5 and HDMI cables need to be ran to their corresponding locations in the home theater but don’t forget the coaxial cables. Coaxial is used for cable TV and also for component video, but do you know that RG-6 and RG-59 have specific applications and aren’t (ideally anyway) always interchangeable? Most coaxial cable can be identified by reading the cables jacket but it should be easy enough to tell RG-6 from RG-59 just from the cables diameter, RG-6 should appear considerably thicker than 59.
Use RG-6 for cable TV and RG-59 for component video feeds, RG-6 has better shielding for noise rejection and tends to work better for CATV. RG-59 on the other hand is rated at 75ohms and is better suited for the individual RGB (red, green and blue) carriers of a component video cable. RG-59 is also a bit more flexible which could come in handy considering the need for three cables versus the one for a single cable TV feed.
Mar
16
If you’ve researched wall-mounting a plasma or LCD television you’ve undoubtedly noticed there are several different types of wall-mounts available for the task. Each of these mounts serves a different mounting purpose so we’ll run them down one by one. The most common type of wall-mount is the standard non-tilt “flat” mount, what you see is what you get here, the TV mounted on the wall, no muss, no fuss.
From there you get into the low-profile wall-mounts which in a nutshell give you a slimmer, tighter fit to the wall, sometimes as little as an inch and a half gap between the wall and display. Moving to something a little fancier there are the tilting mounts. A wall-mount with tilt allows you to do just what the name implies, tilt the display up or down a few degrees which can be really handy for finding that just right angle and or tilting the display to avoid glare.
Moving right along into the swivel mounts you gain the ability to pan the television left and right up to 45 degrees, and in most cases these mounts also tilt up and down by 15 degrees. Obviously the tilt/swivel mounts afford a level of flexibility not possible with other mounts but they aren’t necessarily the best value. In other words there is nothing inherently valuable about a wall-mount that can tilt and swivel if you don’t need it to do so. Pick the right mount for the right job and leave the bells and whistles for new cars.
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