Common TV Mounting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Part of our complete guide: How to Mount a TV on Any Wall.

A fair number of the jobs we take in Lexington are not first installs. They are corrections — a screen that sits too high, a bracket working its way out of the drywall, a wall full of holes that are two feet from the nearest stud. What is striking about them is how few are caused by the drilling. Nearly all of them trace back to a decision made before anyone picked up a tool.

Here are the ones that come up most, and what to do instead.

1. Mounting It Too High

This is the most common one by a wide margin, and it is almost always because the height was taken from the floor, or copied from a showroom photograph, instead of from the chair people actually sit in. The middle of the picture wants to be near eye level from the main seat, which is lower than nearly everyone expects.

Sit down where you watch, have someone hold the screen against the wall, and mark the centre from there. Seat height matters more than ceiling height — a deep sectional and a firm sofa put your eyes several inches apart. Our viewing height and placement guide has the measurements.

2. Hanging the Weight on Drywall

Drywall is a surface, not a structure. A modern television and a steel bracket are a long way past what a plastic plug in half-inch board will carry, particularly once the mount gets pulled on. The failures we see are rarely sudden: the plate tilts a little, the screws work loose over a few months, and then one day it goes.

Find the framing and bolt into the centre of it. Where the studs genuinely miss the spot, the answers are a wider mount plate that reaches them, or heavy-duty toggles sized for the real load with the weight spread properly. Our guide to mounting on drywall where the studs miss covers the options honestly, and a mount pulling away from the wall shows what the early warning looks like.

3. Drilling Before Looking Inside the Wall

Studs are not the only thing living in a wall cavity. Electrical cable, water lines, gas lines, low-voltage runs and ductwork share the same space, and the spots people most want a TV — above a mantel, beside a doorway, over a kitchen counter — are exactly where services tend to run.

A stud finder that reads depth, a look at what is on the other side of the wall, and a thought about what sits directly below will catch most of it. Our guide to what is behind your wall explains what to expect in Lexington houses of different ages.

4. Buying the Mount Before Checking the TV

Mount boxes advertise a range of screen sizes, which is the least useful number on the packaging. What matters is the VESA hole pattern on the back of your television, its actual weight, and whether the mount arms are long enough to reach the holes without fouling the ports or a curved back panel.

Check the pattern and the weight before you buy, and keep in mind that a bracket that held your last TV may not fit this one. Our guides to what to look for in a TV wall mount, wall mount screw sizes and reusing an old wall mount cover the three questions that settle it. Bring your own mount and we will fit it at no mount charge if it suits the screen and the wall.

5. Paying for Motion You Will Not Use

A full-motion arm is the right answer in a few rooms and an expensive one everywhere else. It holds the screen further off the wall, it puts far more leverage on the fasteners, and in most living rooms it gets swung out twice in the first week and then never again.

Tilt fixes a vertical angle, which is what a slightly high screen needs. An arm fixes a horizontal one, which is what a sectional or a room you watch from two directions needs — that is when it earns the money. Ours is a flat $35, tilting $45 or full-motion $125, and the full-motion is a 32–55" special order rather than something we carry, so tell us when you book if that is the one you want.

6. Ignoring the Window Until the First Evening

Glare is geometry, and mounting day is the last cheap chance to solve it. A wall that looks perfect at ten in the morning can be unwatchable at six, and most living rooms are used in the evening. A west-facing window behind the seating puts the sun into the panel; one opposite the screen reflects the whole room back at you.

Stand in the room at the hour you actually watch before you commit to a wall. Moving the screen a couple of feet along the wall, or a few degrees of tilt, often does more than any curtain. Our guide to reducing glare and screen reflections goes through how to judge it.

7. Leaving the Cables and the Boxes for Later

Once the screen is on the wall, everything that plugs into it still needs somewhere to live, and power still has to reach the back of it. Working that out after the bracket is bolted up is how you end up with a cable swagging down a feature wall.

Decide first where the cable box, console and soundbar go. Every install includes basic cable management. If you want nothing visible, in-wall cable concealment is a $99 add-on: power and signal run inside the wall with proper plates and low-voltage brackets, and the existing outlet is extended into the chase on a UL-listed in-wall rated cord kit, so there is no new circuit. Where a wall cannot be opened, a painted surface raceway is the alternative and we quote that once we have seen it. Our guides to where the cable box goes and hiding TV wires in the wall cover both routes. If the spot you have chosen has no outlet near it, mention it when you book and we will tell you what that wall takes.

8. Mounting Over a Fireplace Without Allowing for It

Above the mantel is the most requested position in the house and the one that needs the most thought. The screen ends up high, and on a working fireplace there is rising heat to account for as well. It is a workable wall, but it wants planning.

A tilting mount is the better call there, and where the mantel is the only sensible wall a pull-down mount brings the screen to eye level when it is in use. Our guides to brick fireplace mounting and heat and airflow behind a mounted TV cover the masonry and the temperature.

9. Setting Anchors Into the Mortar

On a brick wall the anchors go into the brick itself, which is the stronger of the two materials. Mortar joints are softer, they vary in condition from one course to the next, and an anchor in a crumbling joint has far less to hold than one in solid brick two inches away.

That means a hammer drill, masonry bits that are still sharp, and holes placed on the brick faces rather than along the lines between them. The same principle applies to stone veneer, where what holds the mount is the structure behind the stone rather than the facing — see mounting on stone veneer.

What It Costs to Have It Done Right

Installation is priced by screen size: 32" $129, 43" $129, 50" $129, 55" $129, 65" $139, 75" $229 and 85" $279. Every installation covers mounting the TV, leveling, basic cable management, and all wall hardware. The mount itself is separate — flat $35, tilting $45, full-motion $125 (32–55") — or bring your own. In-wall cable concealment is $99, soundbar mounting is $40 and hauling the old set away is $30. Service within 20 miles of Lexington is free. Richmond is our home base, so it is free too.

If a screen is already on the wall and something about it is bothering you — it looks crooked, it sits too high, the bracket has started to move — say which when you call. A TV that is not level explains why that is usually not the bracket's fault, and if you are weighing up doing it yourself, what a professional install actually buys you lays out the difference plainly.