3 Mistakes DIYers Make When Mounting a TV

I'm about to destroy some TVs in my house so that you don't destroy your TV in your house here are three mistakes the diy-ers make when mounting a TV to the wall the first mistake is using the wrong size or too much pressure for the mounting bolts on the back of the TV when you purchase a TV mount it typically comes with a huge bag of Hardware like this to accommodate any type of TV and it has different lengths of bolts that you can drive the mounting hardware into the back of your TV with be careful not to use bolts that are too short for your TV if it's just going in a couple of threads that's not enough to secure it to the TV and you want to make sure that that Hardware is very securely mounted to the back of that unit on the other hand if you're using bolts that are too long you may end up applying pressure inside the TV to the back of the screen this can cause Distortion it can eventually ruin your TV or if you thread it in too much you could actually break the screen timeout Nils from the future here and I've done a lot of digging into this and a lot of experimentation I've got an update on this one I tried this on three different TVs and I couldn't get it to break like no matter what I did the only way I could get it to break on this third one this little 30 24 inch TV that I picked up used just to try this out on I actually snapped screw heads several times trying to get it to go further so the screw would rather break than actually go into the screens just to take it further and see what would happen I drilled out to the inside the bottom basically of the screw hole and then try to thread more in broke more screws and then just kept going got a longer bit and eventually I got through but I went all the way through the TV to the screen itself like right up front and was able to get that discoloration and eventually get it to break but boy you have to work at it this is not something that's going to happen just by threading some screws in at least in my experience with these three TVs I tried it on this plasma TV this bigger older one and on that one I got them to go all the way in and they would bottom out and I couldn't find any screws long enough to bottom out on that thing and then on this shorter one again it would just bottom out and the screws would rather break than actually go any further towards the screen so I think TV manufacturers have got this figured out again I've Heard lots of rumors about how bad it is but I can't seem to get it to break now if you have a different experience or if you've seen that happen I'd love to hear about it another side effect I've seen is where someone torques it down too hard and what happens is it pulls the threaded Hardware right out of the TV making it almost impossible to mount your TV after that point First Step grab a bolt that's thinner than the threads inside there like this one will just slide right in and you can get a pretty quick idea of exactly how deep that hole goes so I've got this much room to work with if you know that you've got one that's a little long then make sure to test it beforehand always see if you can get it to bottom out if you can you probably don't want to use that one like this one bottoms out right there or you're going to have to use it with a spacer I've got that much sticking out I can thread it in like so again doing this all by hand and then that tightens down nice and secure and there's no issue of bottoming out there better yet I've got a bolt that's the proper size that I can thread in there and I'll test this again beforehand I see that it goes all the way to flush with the TV which is ideal and I've got enough threads on there to hold on my mounting hardware as well so that's our perfect candidate right here as far as tightening this down just do it by hand you really don't need to use any power tools for this as much as I love power tools it's still not the right choice for doing an application like this get out a hand screwdriver make sure it's snug and that's all you need the second mistake is improperly securing your TV mount to the wall first let's take a look at what not to do you may recognize my green demo wall here that I've used in my stud finder videos and drywall repair videos this is a full-on actual wall with all the same components that you'd find in any other wall what I've done here is I've mounted this Mount using just drywall screws none of these are mounted into the actual studs just the drywall themselves now to make this a little more sturdy I've put 16 of these drywall screws in and let's see if it can hold this TV just for reference this TV mount is rated for up to 132 pounds and I'm installing a 50 inch 73 pound TV onto the mount and again this is what not to do I have not fastened this into any studs I have not even used drywall anchors I've just used drywall screws let's see how it goes you can see here initially it actually holds which I was pretty surprised by and that's almost definitely because I've got 16 screws instead of four or eight like you'd normally use as I pull the TV back putting more press pressure on the mount on the wall this TV is out of commission completely broken definitely a heap of garbage at this point obviously no one was hurt while we were doing this because this was a controlled situation but imagine if that happens with children with people not expecting this that could be super dangerous whenever possible try mounting your TV mounting hardware to two different studs a quick thank you to our awesome channel members right here who help support this channel you can learn more about that by clicking the join button down below depending on the horizontal positioning of the TV you may only be able to attach it to one and if that's the case consider moving the TV over a few inches but if it's got two lag bolts going into the stud you're probably going to be just fine if you're going to go with drywall only in some cases that's the only option that you have then there are a few kind of good better best options to look at a good option is to use a traditional drywall anchor like one of these they typically have a rating on them and they'll do a decent job but they're not going to be as strong or as sturdy as toggle bolts so a better option would be a toggle bolt like one of these and these are a little bit tricky though because sometimes when you're threading the bolt into the back of the toggle it will start to spin on the inside of the wall so I recommend maybe spending a little bit more instead of getting some of these that are really inexpensive spend a couple dollars more and get a higher grade toggle bolt option the next option up from that is this one here by flip toggle and these work really well the only issue I have with these is that they only have the threaded plastic piece on one side and sometimes that can cause an issue but they are pretty nice because they go into a half inch hole and that's specifically why I go with the 3 16 inch size and again that's a trick I picked up from Brandon at be the installer and these work really well they can hold up to 106 pounds in half inch drywall or even more if you use them in cinder block or other applications like that but better than that I'd say the best option is to go with something like this from Toggler for example these have the plastic on both sides so they really help to secure that toggle in the right place on the back of the drywall and they're rated up for up to 230 38 pounds in half inch drywall these are super easy to work with they're super tough and they only require a half inch hole on that 3 16 inch size what we want to avoid here is drilling a hole and inserting a lag bolt that's just going to slip out the side and give you really no more strength than just drilling into the drywall one of the biggest mistakes I see people making is using a super cheap stud finder like this this is not a reliable stud finder it's just going to find part of a stud somewhere on the stud and you need to make sure you can find the center now stud finders I've got a bunch of them I've tested a bunch and they run the range I've got the wallabot DIY 2 here which is kind of like having x-ray vision behind the wall and then I've got right down to the Zircon hd55 and even this one it's only about twenty dollars but it has Edge finding technology it will show you where the actual edges of these studs are you can even get some for I think about 13 or 14 dollars now so don't use that old cheap stud finder get something that does a proper job and if you're not familiar there is a little shop bag icon down in the corner there that's kind of a new feature that YouTube's enabled and that allows me to put links to all of these things directly right to the product so you can check those out if you want to if you don't find it there always check the links in the description of my videos I'll put links to every single product every single time another method that doesn't involve using a stud finder or at least will help you pinpoint things once you've found a stud is you can use a tiny drill bit like this to drill some small holes into the stud these are really tiny you want to use the smallest drill bit that you can get your hands on and then you'll notice pretty easily whether that drill bit penetrates into wood or just sinks right through once it gets past the drywall by drilling a series of small holes like this it doesn't leave much of a mess at all you can spackle over all of this after if you need to but it helps you to find the exact center of the stud knowing that the stud is about one and a half inches wide if for some reason you have to mount a TV to the wall where there is no stud where you're going to put the mount then you definitely need to rely on some super heavy duty drywall anchors if it's a larger TV I just wouldn't do it you always want to go into a stud whenever possible but let's say you've got a really small TV fairly lightweight and you don't have the option to drill into studs for some reason or another you can make sure that the drywall hasn't been patched because if it's patched it's compromised in that area but if you've got solid original drywall then you can use these drywall anchors and mount those with screws right through the mounting hardware if you're mounting your TV into any sort of masonry whether that's cement concrete stone brick cinder block anything like that then you can use these masonry bits to drill your holes and then most of the TV mounting kits come with masonry sleeves this is hardware that's meant specifically for this application these sleeves might be metal they might be plastic and those go inside and then you thread the bolts right into those instead the sleeves will expand inside the hole you've drilled and then that will hold everything nice and secure these are not drywall mounts so do not use these in drywall they are not intended for that purpose one question I get asked a lot with my TV mounting videos is what brand do you recommend or which Mount should I get so I called up my friend Brandon who has a channel called be the installer and he said pippyshell he trusts them with these really expensive TVs I've got two Pippi shell mounts here they're both the exact same one one I'm going to be using to hang up my new 85 inch TV like we've been showing and the second one I've been doing some pretty dangerous experiments with just having some fun so you've seen me knock this specific Mount right here onto the ground twice with those two different TVs and now I'm going to put it to the weight test and see how it does so Pippi shell is actually the sponsor for this video so I want to thank them for sending these couple of mounts for us to try out this particular one is rated for 132 pounds so let's see how much it can actually hold we've got 105 in here right now this particular Mount that I'm using today is called the pixf2 this is a full motion TV mount so it can swivel up and down side to side and you get a huge viewing angle 160 degrees so you can put it in any direction you want not only that but it squishes way close to the wall less than four inches and can be pulled out 29 inches if you need a closer view 330 okay there's 335 pounds on there so tons of weight this can hold your TV no problem we'll say that I'm going to use my trusty Milwaukee Fastback here to open this up I love this check this out so this says measure twice drill one I think you're missing a c there guys but in celebration of that I should wear my shirt that goes along with that shouldn't I there we go that looks good so I only measure once as one of my fun shirts for diy-ers and definitely in contrast to measure twice drill one it's just for a laugh but if you want to check out some of my other shirts you can check those out in the links in the description below mistake number three the diy-ers make is putting the TV too high or too low there have been numerous studies on the topic of how high or how low to place your TV based on viewing angle but it all comes down to this we need to have the TV at a comfortable height for viewing so that our eyes don't have to move more than about 15 degrees up or down while watching the easiest way to determine where your TV should be is to sit wherever it is that you'll be watching your TV most commonly get comfy close your eyes and look straight ahead then open your eyes and see where you're looking you may have to do this multiple times to find your average area but also make sure to have anyone else in the house who's going to be watching TV do the same thing you might find that their viewing spot is a little bit higher or lower than yours find the average height and that's where the center of your TV should be located it's helpful to use some painters tape to Mark the location on the wall where your eyes naturally go to from there you can use the mounting kit instructions to determine exactly where that mount needs to be in relation to those marks you've placed on the wall as you can see here for example I figured out exactly where my TV mount needs to go based on the positioning for our viewing angle and for our TV I've marked this out with painters tape and I know exactly where everything needs to go I'm ready to start the mounting process so obviously this is mounted lower than the center point of our TV and that's because the mounting brackets for our TV are on the lower half of the TV so this is exactly where it needs to go to put the center of the TV right here [Music] [Music] I've put together this playlist just for you if you're mounting a TV this covers everything from choosing a stud finder to mounting your TV to the wall with step-by-step instructions patching any drywall holes that were there previously and even how to hide the TV wires underneath your TV I'm Nils with learn to DIY thanks for watching

Channel: LRN2DIY

Views: 275,893

Keywords: diy, how-to, lrn2diy

Id: 4SpXl6dadAc

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 04 2022