Wall-mounted TV and concealed wiring

[Lobster]

I will soon be fitting a wall-mounted TV on a bracket; it will be attached to a plastered brick wall about 18" above a to-be-built-in cupboard. The cupboard will contain the mains socket, aerial socket, cable TV box, home theatre setup and all other gubbins, and I want to hide all cables in the wall for a clean look. No surface-mounted ducting allowed!

I'm thinking the easiest way of achieving this would be to bury a fairly substantial length of ducting in the brickwork/plaster, leading to probably a socket box buried in the wall next to the TV mount, big enough to allow flexes with the likes of an HDMI plug and kettle-type plug to be drawn through; ie can easily be removed/replaced/upgraded as and when in the future. Much easier than what I see as the only alternative, ie organising permanently plastered in cables (mains and video) terminating in proper sockets HDMI faceplates etc above and below the counter top of the cupboard (especially as that would involve more junctions in the signal cables feeding the TV.

Anyone done anything similar, and have any comments or suggestions (especially for suitable ducting and termination thereof top and bottom?

Thanks David

[Andy Burns]

You can get faceplates with "brushes" to allow cables an connectors to pass through easily

[meow2222]

Sounds right. The cables where you do already know what you need I'd bury them in the plaster outside the conduit, that way you get more total cable capacity for the future

NT

[Lobster]

Ooh - just the job - didn't know about those!

Cheers David

[Bill Wright]

Yes, it's routine job. We use 25mm flexi, and terminate in the very deep back boxes intended for cooker switches and shaver sockets. Check the HDMI plugs will go through the conduit.

Bill

[Lobster]

Thanks. I've just been looking at 40x25mm mini trunking (ie burying it in plaster) with a view to being able to fit a kettle plug through it too. Looks like a bit of a bodge to mate up the back box with sufficiently large conduit/ducting - I'm surprised there's apparently not a more 'bespoke' solution available these days (especially given the existence of the brush faceplates.

BTW while I'm at it, any recommendations for decent cantilever mounts for a 42"(?) TV?!

David

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

No chance of bringing cables through the wall from whatever's on the other side?

Also, if the area of wall concerned has furniture, eg tall cupboards on each side of where the TV will be, you could put a false wall in front of the cables and clamp mount, extending to each side enough to make it not too obvious that the wall surface is an inch or too closer to the viewer than the rest of that wall.

With a duct, I would fear that sooner or later I'd need more duct capacity.

[Lobster]

Hmm, that's a thought: will have to chat with the next-door neighbour and see whether they object ;)

David

[Bill Wright]

I know a chap who drilled through a bedroom wall, having decided with no evidence that it was external. When he realised his mistake he decided to keep quiet, and made sure that the customer paid cash. In fact he had removed a tile from the wall of next door's shower. When the customer phoned him the next day to say that the neighbour had been round, fragments of tile in hand, he denied all knowledge. He just brazened it out, and he got away with it.

Bill

[Bill]

MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm

I once drilled into a customers office from outside the building. Unbeknown to me there was an antique oak desk on the other side of the wall. No windows or other reference points to measure against and I was a little out on the location. The long SDS bit seemed to be taking for ever to get through, I only found out when the customer came running around complaining. Fortunately he forgave me!

[charles]

my BIL tried to to fit a flush cooker box on the party wall. he was tapping awya witha hammer and cold chisel when something moved rather suddenely. The neighbours came round and said "would you take your brick out of our bath."

[Tony Bryer]

IN my BCO days someone doing a through room without consent cut a pocket in the party wall for the beam, not realising that these once slum cottages had half-brick party walls. Next door was not amused.

Similar thing would happen with a certain design of 1930s semis built on the cheap with no bedroom fireplaces and siamesed flues. Remove your chimney breast at ground floor level and you'd be looked down next door's flue.

[AlanD]

Screwfix sell those also, I bought some a few weeks ago. Neat solution.

[Dave Liquorice]

Firstly I'd make sure that the bottom edge of the TV isn't going to be much more than a couple of feet above floor level. I can't see how people can comfortably watch a TV mounted like a picture half way up the wall without getting a crick in the neck.

On the IEC mains connector I'd get a rewireable one and fit it to a correct length bit of flex with a rewireable 13A plug on the other end. Still may need a sizeable duct though depending on what needs to get to the telly. It might just be mains and one HDMI but ours has mains, ethernet, 1 Sat coax, 1 terrestial coax, SCART(PS2) and RGB(Wii).

[Lobster]

I know what you mean - this one will probably end up a metre or so up; which should be fine but no alternative location really. However you wouldn't believe the aggro I've had convincing *all* other members of the family, including SWMBO, that hanging it over the mantelpiece is a Really Bad Idea...

I'm going for buried 40x25mm minitrunking I reckon, coupled with a pair of deep metal boxes, to which I'll have to take an angle grinder or something in order to get suitable large entry ports. Still don't understand why there isn't anything purpose-made for this!

David

[Man at B&Q]

+1

Only one end needs to be rewired, just adapt an existing flex.

MBQ