# Mounting a flatscreen TV on a sheetrock wall



## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

Everybody I've spoken to tells me that the best way of mounting a flatscreen TV on a sheetrock wall is to "use plywood backing." Okay, fine and dandy. But for me, the Devil's in the details: How, exactly, do I do so?

I assume that I have to cut out a section of sheetrock and mount the plywood in its place on the studs behind it? But is this plywood a replacement for the sheetrock that's been cut out (and I dispose of the sheetrock cutout)? And isn't this rather ugly if the flatscreen TV gets later moved (there's now a large rectangular bit obviously made of a different material even if I do paint it a matching color as the sheetrock wall surrounding it; because unlike just attaching it to the sheetrock with multiple toggle bolts where I can merely spackle over the remaining holes, I'd have to remove the plywood and reattach the sheetrock cutout to restore the wall to its original state)? Or is there some other technique that I'm not seeing here where the plywood backing is attached somehow and the sheetrock cutout is remounted on top of it? And what happens if where you want to mount the flatscreen (and thus the plywood) *DOESN'T* have any wall studs behind it? What then? 

The flatscreen mounting bracket is rectangular (36.5 inches X 20.3 inches) and has six default points for mounting it to a wall but it has secondary mount points (up to a total of fourteen) if the default six are "insufficient for the material of the wall to bear" (that's as far as the "instructions" go--they don't go into detail as to how to attach it to any surface). If I used M6 toggle/butterfly bolts at all fourteen mount points, would this be sufficient to secure the mounting bracket and flatscreen (total 70lbs) to a wall of half-inch thick sheetrock without the plywood backing? Or is that just asking for trouble?


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## Ron6519 (Mar 28, 2007)

There's enough flexibility in those wall mounted brackets to mount it directly to the studs. Most of the directions that come with these bracets say they must be mounted to the studs.
Ron


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## Maintenance 6 (Feb 26, 2008)

Most of the brackets I've seen have a ton of mounting holes. Get a stud finder, locate the studs, then find the holes in the bracket that get closest. Lag bolt the bracket to the studs. I would not rely on 1/2 inch drywall to carry the weight of my $2000.00 flat screen.


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

Maintenance 6 said:


> Most of the brackets I've seen have a ton of mounting holes. Get a stud finder, locate the studs, then find the holes in the bracket that get closest. Lag bolt the bracket to the studs. I would not rely on 1/2 inch drywall to carry the weight of my $2000.00 flat screen.


Uh..."lag bolt"??? What's that? Can you elaborate, please? Thanks in advance.


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

Ron6519 said:


> There's enough flexibility in those wall mounted brackets to mount it directly to the studs. Most of the directions that come with these bracets say they must be mounted to the studs.
> Ron


"Must be mounted" is well and fine but what if there aren't any studs behind the spot where I want to mount the flatscreen?


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## jbfan (Jul 1, 2004)

TanMan said:


> "Must be mounted" is well and fine but what if there aren't any studs behind the spot where I want to mount the flatscreen?


The you will have to remove some sheetrock and instal a couple of 2 bys between the studs to hold the tv.


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

jbfan said:


> The you will have to remove some sheetrock and instal a couple of 2 bys between the studs to hold the tv.


Even with aluminium studs (I managed to take a look in another wall cavity when I installed some access doors in the walls to get to water shut-off valves and saw that they'd used them so I assume they'd be consistent and use such studs elsewhere in my apartment)? Is there a "how-to" guide on this? Can I mix-and-match 2x4s with aluminium studs? As you've probably already surmised, this isn't exactly what I do professionally so I have no clue. But finding a decent contractor in my locality for anything short of a complete home renovation or even just a handyman who won't take my money and leave me with an unmitigated disaster has been a problem of mine lately.


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## oregondiy (Oct 24, 2008)

Did you read the instructions that came with your mount at all?
You need to mount it to the studs, wood or metal.
My mount had fairly good instructions for either style.
You should have also got some mounting screws with the mount also. 
You can always poke a nail through your sheetrock to find the studs behind the mounting area. The small holes will not show once the tv is on the wall.


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

*SOLVED: Moen SecureMount for Flatscreens, Moen Part #SMA3000*



oregondiy said:


> Did you read the instructions that came with your mount at all?


Yes, I actually RTFM religiously: All five (5) pages of it that were in English. But not the pages that were in Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, Swedish, Danish, Italian or Dutch. I even scrutinised the diagrams carefully.



> You need to mount it to the studs, wood or metal.


No, it did not say that. But it does say to "check the strength of the wall in six installation locations, and add reinforcing if any of these locations are not strong enough." And that if those six are insufficient due to the lack of strength of the wall, up to 14 can be used with that type of bracket.



> My mount had fairly good instructions for either style.


Sadly, mine didn't come with such good instructions and, as you know, the Devil is in the details. I suppose I should be grateful it didn't contain these instructions:

_"For results that can be the finest, it is our advising that: NEVER to hold these buttons two times!! Except the battery. Next taking the handily earth section may cause a large occurrence! However. If this is not a trouble, such rotation is a very maintenance action, as a kindly intransigent viewpoint from Drawing B._"





> You should have also got some mounting screws with the mount also.


Only to attach my flatscreen (a Panasonic plasma) to the bracket itself (also a Panasonic brand). It does say that I should procure M6 bolts to attach the bracket into the wall. These extra M6 bolts were not provided.



> You can always poke a nail through your sheetrock to find the studs behind the mounting area. The small holes will not show once the tv is on the wall.


Well, I've found a way to do it without needing the nonexistent studs: the Moen SecureMount for flatscreens of 150lb or less on 0.5" sheetrock walls and above just announced at CEDIA Expo 2008 (http://www.cepro.com/article/print/..._dry_wall_with_moens_securemount_anchors/K348) that I discovered being mentioned in the Home Theater forum but already in production for the last nine months or so (I spoke to the Moen rep over the phone). The Moen part number is SMA3000 and uses the same principle as their mount for towels and handrails for disabled persons using a shower who need to put their full weight on the rail. They did caution that it requires at least a 0.5" thick sheetrock wall if not thicker (and _THAT_ I have) and the max flatscreen weight it can hold is 150lbs (the combined weight of my flatscreen and bracket is at most 70lbs and will be distributed over 6 to 14 of them). The physics behind it makes sense in that using the relationship of Pressure being inversely proportional to Area and with Force (weight of flatscreen and bracket) being constant, if one increases the Area by increasing the number of mount points, the Pressure on each mount point decreases. Plus the bracket is a non-angled one, so there is negligible moment arm to factor into calculations. Now to find a retail or online store that sells them...

Of course, mounting it on studs is the ideal but that's not my situation (the builders of my apartment are two-decades gone and only now am I finding out what a lousy job they did inside the walls--don't get me started).


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

*UPDATE: Located Online Dealer for Moen Securemount SMA3000*

While I managed to convince a local retailer (Gracious Homes on 3rd Ave btw 70th & 71st Sts) I was familiar with to special order the Moen Securemount wall anchors for flat screen TVs under 150lb (Moen part number SMA3000) for me, I was also given a location of a 3rd party supplier online by the Moen people that I could just order from using the standard web-based shopping cart system:

http://www.centronics.com/products/Installation-Tools-%26-Accessories

Search under the "Installation Tools And Accessories" section if the above webpage moves or cannot be brought up (you seemingly can't do a search on keyword--you won't find it that way: it's eyeballs or nothing). You'll see an icon for the Moen Securemount right at the bottom of the page (at least it was at the bottom when I looked). It's listed as "SMA 3000 Secure Mount Wall Anchors" with no mention of its manufacturer. But it's the same thing.

And the mounting bolt just happens to be an M6: Precisely what the instructions say my mounting bracket requires for each of the 6 to 14 mount points. Happy, happy, joy, joy...

FYI.


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## PaliBob (Jun 11, 2008)

Tan,
You get five stars for problem solving research and *for SHARING*

Moen started down this wall mount anchor road with their design for a bathroom grab bar Anchor.

For mounting a Grab Bar in a tiled bath you need a 1 ¼” tungsten carbide hole saw to drill a hole in the tile and get the * 500 lb Weight Capacity
* http://www.activeforever.com/showproduct.aspx?ProductID=2199&SEName=moen-securemount-anchors

Tan, the above is off post but I put it in to share the grab bar info.
If the TV mount is the same, You will need to pick up a cheap 1 ¼” drill bit. Carbide not required.


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## PaliBob (Jun 11, 2008)

*Patching 1 ¼” holes with saved plugs*

See following post


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## PaliBob (Jun 11, 2008)

*Patching 1 ¼” holes with saved plugs*

Tan,
If you drill 1 ¼” holes Save the plugs in a baggie so that if you move the TV then patching the drywall will be easy.

* Revised 2/16/09*
Patching 1 ¼” holes with saved plugs"

Supplies:
1) Small tube of liquid nails or similar fast drying goopy stuff
2) Smallest container of fast drying lightweight spackle
3) A few one & a half, up to two inch #6 Screws

Procedure:
1) Remove all the Moen anchor so there is just an empty hole
2) Screw a #6 screw part way through each plug. The tip should just be starting to come out the back side
3) Apply a small bead of glue around the edge of a plug & let dry until it starts to set up
4) Hold the head of the screw and gently put the plug in the hole.
5) Rotate the plug to spread the glue against the insde edge of the hole
6) Don't completely let go of the screw until it can stay in place on its own
7) Don't take the screw out NOW, Wait until the next day after the glue sets
8) Fill in any voids with the Fast Dry Spackle


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

PaliBob said:


> Tan,
> You get five stars for problem solving research and *for SHARING*


Anytime. Glad to share what I've found and help out the community.



> Moen started down this wall mount anchor road with their design for a bathroom grab bar Anchor.
> 
> For mounting a Grab Bar in a tiled bath you need a 1 ¼” tungsten carbide hole saw to drill a hole in the tile and get the * 500 lb Weight Capacity
> * http://www.activeforever.com/showproduct.aspx?ProductID=2199&SEName=moen-securemount-anchors
> ...


Yup, it's a similar anchor except that for the SMA3000, the weight limit is 150lbs instead of 500lbs and it can be used with drywall 0.5" to 1.25" thick and each anchor must have a clear space 3.5" behind the installation point in the drywall it's attached to, according to the tech specs that Moen sent me. Supposedly, that limits it to 55" screens and below.


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## TanMan (Feb 3, 2009)

PaliBob said:


> *Patching 1 ¼” holes with saved plugs*
> 
> Tan,
> If you drill 1 ¼” holes Save the plugs in a baggie so that if you move the TV then patching the drywall will be easy.


Good to know. Thanks. Will do.:thumbsup:


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