How to Mount a TV to the Wall Simple and Safe Steps

Hello there. My name is Nils with Learn to DIY. And in today's video, I'm going to be showing you how to take a TV that's on a stand and mount it up onto your wall. All right. So the first thing we're going to do is remove the stand or the base from the television. On most TVs nowadays, it's just a matter of removing some Phillips screws. You can use a regular screwdriver or a drill since we're just removing. And in this case, I've got six screws, two, two, and then two back here. So these should pop out pretty easy. There we go. Starting to loosen up. Okay. And it should be all the way loose now so we can pop it off, lean it against the wall and all my screws are still in here. And I'm just going to keep them in here. One little trick is you can actually just keep the screws in there and then put some tape over the screw hole. So the screws will always stay with the base. Okay. So now we're going to take a look at our TV mount. You want to make sure you get a mount that's appropriate for the TV that you've got. You want to make sure the weight support is sufficient for your TV. Most modern TVs like this one that are a little bit thinner are actually pretty light. So this one holds up to 130 pounds. It's articulating, which means it can turn in just about every direction, tilt, and tilt in both directions really. And so this one's going to work out really well. If you like a TV stand or a TV mount like this, then check the links in the description below. I'll put a link to an Amazon product where you can get the same mount on amazon.com. So we're going to pop this open. Be sure to check out the instructions for your TV. One thing that's that differs on all TVs is these where these four screws are for mounting. Some of them are a much smaller plate. It just depends on what TV you have. And if you look through your manual here, you'll notice that it's got instructions for all the different sizes and, and a different configuration. So on this one, we've got some arms that we're going to assemble here. And basically what we're going to do is take this one is as big as it can get. We're going to put those two right there on these screws. And then those will attach to a mount like this one, one down here and one up there. And so I'll just go ahead and get this part put together. But again, just follow the instructions that come with your TV mount. So we're all set. Now we've got the bracket on, so we can now get our wall set up so that we can attach that to this bracket. And then we'll be just about ready. Now let's go over the math involved in this. I am not a big fan of math, but this is fairly basic. I'm going to just make sure that you understand once you have a mark on the wall of what height you want it at, how to figure out how the TV needs, where the TV needs to be mounted so that you can have the bottom of your TV, for example, at just that height that you had marked. So I've already placed a mark up on the wall. What I'm going to do is take a measurement from, in this case, I've got these two holes right here that line up with these two holes on the mounting bracket. I'm going to measure from the bottom of the TV to that hole. I just need some point that I can reference on both the bracket, both the mount and the bracket. And so that's 13 inches from the bottom of the TV to this stud right here. And so I'm going to now take that measurement and subtract whatever the mount, the distances from the hole where this stud fits into, to the bottom of the mount. So I've got 13 is my first number. And then from the bottom of the mount to the hole is three inches. So I just take three inches off of my 13. So I've got basically that means that the bottom of this bar of this mount needs to be 10 inches higher than where I expect the bottom of the TV to be. Hopefully that makes sense. So I'm now I'm just going to put my mark on the wall and then put this 10 inches above that. So up here on the wall, this is the height where I want the bottom of the TV to be. And so I measured 10 inches up and that's the height where I want the bottom of the mount to be. So I'm going to place the mount right here and that'll put the bottom of the TV right here and we should be good to go. So what I'm going to use to find where the studs are is a wall-a-bot. A wall-a-bot is basically a device that you attach to your phone. It just sticks on there temporarily. And it's kind of like this amazing stud finder. I've got a bathroom right behind this wall. So I want to make sure that I'm not drilling into any water pipes or anything like that. Certainly not gas pipes, electrical wires, anything like that. Unlike a traditional stud finder, this wall-a-bot is actually going to let me see what's behind this wall, including pipes and other things that stud finders are going to miss. So I've got this mounted on the back of here now, and I'm just going to open the app, get connected. And then I'm going to select my wall type. This actually works on concrete or drywall. We've got drywall here. So I'm going to do that. And then now I'm going to calibrate, which basically just means I'm going to let it identify the type of wall. And it's actually sending little radio signals into the wall right now and listening for their return. And then I'm going to do what's called a pan. It's really cool. You can actually see as it's going, what's showing up on this pan here, just doing a quick scan of the wall. And you can see these yellow lines where the studs are. Okay. That's plenty. I'll save that. Now I can go into image mode with image mode. It's actually going to show me what's behind the walls. Okay. So I've got a stud right here. So I'm going to mark my studs. Got a stud right about there. Okay. So I've got either a pipe or a wire back here. So I want to be aware of that. So I'm not drilling right into that spot. We can kind of follow this along, see where to go. There we go. Until I get to my next stud with almost all construction and drywall homes, you can see that there's the studs are almost always going to be where a plate is mounted. So if you do have plates mounted on your wall, it's almost guaranteed that it's going to be mounted either on the right side or the left side of the stud, because that's what the box behind here is actually attached to. So I've got a stud right running right down the right side of this guy right there. And then there's that wire again. So I do have a wire appears to be running across this way. It could be a pipe. So I want to be leery of that and make sure we're not drilling any screws right there. Okay. So I'm going to mark that actually. So from right here, yeah, still, it goes all the way across right through here. So now I know what to avoid. I know where I can drill the bolts for the attachments, and I'm ready to go ahead and mount the TV mount onto the wall. All right. I've actually placed my phone on here to use as a level. A lot of TV stands actually come with, or TV mounts actually come with a level. So if you've got one, just go ahead and use that. And then I'm going to put the bottom of this at the line that I marked right there, make sure I'm level. And then I know where my studs are because I've already marked those with the wall about actually, I'm going to move it over a little bit so I can hit two studs. If you can ever hit two studs, that's a lot more strong than just hitting the one. And so I've got the one going right here. I'm going to mark the top and bottom. So I'm just checking this one last time to make sure the area that I'm going to drill into is free from any obstructions behind the wall. So I've got my first dot over here. I just got a stud there, which is great. That wire or pipe is actually back in the middle. And then my other one is up here, which is good. And then right there's my other one and right there. Okay. So I'm confident that when I drill in here, I'm not going to drill into anything I don't want to. And so now for the, what we're going to do is we're going to pre-drill. Your TV mount comes with lag bolts. They're kind of a thicker bolt and they're meant for going through that thick mounting plate. And so we're going to use a pre-drill so that we don't have to just drive those lag bolts straight in, which could cause the stud behind it to split. Now, according to the instructions for the TV mount that I have, this requires a three 16th inch hole to be drilled about three and a half inches deep, which is most of the length of this drill bit. So I've got my lines or my holes marked. One thing you can tell right away, you'll start seeing sawdust coming out rather than just drywall dust and you'll feel the resistance. If you're not hitting the stud, it's just going to plunge right through. If it's offering some resistance, that's a good thing. All right. So with my holes drilled at this point, I'm ready to go ahead and put the mount up. And so I'm going to start out by not tightening these in all the way. I'm going to put them in most of the way, but not tighten them all the way down. So I still have a little room to adjust. If I need to put this first one in. Now I'm cheating here a little bit and using my impact drill. You can really just do this with a regular wrench, even some pliers. This just makes it a lot easier. And for the sake of getting this done quickly, I'm just going to use this since I have it, I'm going to grab my next one and put it through second hole in where this measures out. Okay. So again, not in all the way, just enough to where I can still move it around if I need to. And then I can get my bottom ones in there right here. Okay. So it looks like we're good there. So I'm just going to tighten these in and we should be ready to go with this. Okay. That thing is rock solid. So I've got it spanning two studs. It's level and we're good to go. So now you can see I've got lots of motion here and movement from side to side. I can pull it out this far and then sit it pretty flat. And then it's also got tilt on it as well, which is really nice. So the next thing we're going to do is mount the actual TV bracket to the mount here. And to do that, this is really a two person job. You're going to have one person hold the TV up while the other person make sure that these studs line up and then we're going to fasten those on. There's a little wrench that comes with it to fasten the nuts onto the bolts that are on the back of the TV. Now. All right. I can't see this actually. Can you help position it? All three. Okay. So the only other thing we're going to want to tighten is let's do it totally flat. If you want to just grab that guy. Yep. Okay. All right. So we've actually tightened down the three bolts that hold this thing in place as well as the two bolts that adjust the tilt. So this thing's not going to be tilting much now. And then when we push this back, it should just flatten right out. Oh, I think I was off. There we go. Okay. And in this case we already have our outlet behind the TV. I'm going to pull this out a bit and there's even some little cord carriers in here, which is nice. Plug it in, flatten it out and we are cooking. We've got our wall mounted TV wires are gone. Now if you don't have your wires hidden in your wall, then I've got a couple of videos with a couple of different techniques on how to do that. I've got how to do it for $10 and kind of a simpler, more generic way, or you can use a kit that simplifies the process. Kit cost about $60 and I've got links to that again in the description below. So check out up in the top left corner or your right for the links to those couple of videos. All right. So that's it for this project. The TV is mounted looking really good. And again, I want to thank my sponsor for today's video, Wallabot. I've used lots of different stud finders and stud sensors in the past, and I'm actually going to be doing a little video comparing the multiple types of stud finders. So if you're watching this video, be sure to check that out on my channel. If you want to learn more about Wallabot's products, then you can check them out on their website at wallabot.com. And as always, there are links in the description. You can also see more about this with a few more details on my website at learntodyi.com. There, you can also buy t-shirts. If you like the Do It Yo Sizzle Elf shirts, and you can also follow me on social media on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook at learntodyi. Thanks so much for watching. If you like this kind of stuff, be sure to subscribe. Got new videos coming out all the time and hopefully you'll enjoy them. Thanks so much. And remember you can Do It Yo Sizzle Elf.