This is a rental house that a guy wants to mount a tv onto the rock wall in the picture below.



the face of this wall is all uneven. i have mounted to brick before but not to something like this. It used to be a fireplace and they removed that and put a book case their and this rockwall above it.

here is another picture

If this is a rental house, I would be careful. Obviously not your problem, but it will be hard to fix afterward.

Is that real rock?

its feels and looks like real rock. if it's not iyou got me fooled. They want to mount it a little high so kids can not get to it. we think thats what happened to his last tv that was on the floor (old school RPTV)

From what i am told when they removed the fire place there is plywood and then this rock stuff. Ithink we are just gonna advise him to buy a stand and put a tv on that.

What kind of TV do you want to mount? You would probably get different answers for a 32" tube or a 32" LCD...

40-42 lcd. 32" tube now thats funny

My thought was, if it was a 32" LCD that you could use the single stud cantilever type mounts you could cut the stone out in front of a stud, if you could find one, and screw the mount directly to the plywood and into the stud. This would assume that the customer is going to leave at least the mount, if not the TV, in place when they move out of the rental.

If you are going bigger and need a mount that is wider, things would change. A flat mount I would toggle in behind the plywood and feel good about the support (use the Hilti toggles), but you would have to shim it to get it level and plumb. For a bigger cantilever, I would want to hit some studs.

How are you going to get the cabling to it?

that was my biggest question how to get it level. No rock removal either. we are not sure where the studs are but we are trying to get intouch with the contractor who did this for som insight on that.



still not sure about that. power and cable are to the left of that wall. we may have to wire mold up the wall and over to the tv.


This is a beach rental house. the customer is the owner of the home. so the tv will stay there. until it breaks.

The big thing here is finding the studs. I've seen contractors place the studs over a fireplace with one stud in the middle, and I've seen them place them symmetrically with space in the middle, so it's a total guess unless the GC happened to notice.

The power and video are probably a bigger question than the actual mounting.

I'd start by cutting (after I get advice here on how the heck to do that) a hole a couple inches off center for the power. That would either hit a stud or let me get light and a mirror inside to see where the nearest studs are. I'll often slip a tape measure inside a hole, bend it so it's flat against the back of the wall, and extend it until it stops, to get the measurement from the edge of the hole to the edge of the nearest stud.

What will the homeowner do if you open up a little hole and find that it's impossible to proceed? I once saw a structure like this where, for some reason, they had gotten inside the space and put plywood up on the insides of the studs. If you run into that idiot, you'll be operating blind even after you get inside the wall.

Oh, yeah, this IS new enough to be a metal chimney tube inside a big open space, right? That's been my assumption here.

Can you do a ceiling mount anf have the TV hanging in front of the fire place. Otherwise, I'd use five lead anchors and five red heads, Use longer bolts where the rock is recessed, and shim it out woth wood to make if as flat as possible. Then all you need to do is run power and source cables.

the gc called and said the studs are 8" inside of the hole where the fireplace was, but could not remember if there was one in the middle.


I figured so, we may have to wiremold a bit.

This is my biggest fear not being able to do anything else after putting a hole in his wall.... not sure how to cut into this either


yes it is

for cutting i would suggest a rotozip with a masonry cutting wheel, although i haven't cut real rock with it before. just something to look into.
i drilled through the mortar between the fake rocks in this pic for 3 RG6 runs, then removed one of the smaller rocks to install the 120v outlet. found the studs by ernie's measuring tape method, used extra long lag screws and adjusted them until the mount was pretty flat looking.



put a 63" samsung on it, one of the earlier models that was unusually heavy.

That's a great pic. Although I love how the customer has a nice corner-mount fireplace with stone to the ceiling, cathedral ceiling with hardwood.... and a gold-trimmed fireplace!?!

^^^With the old entertainment unit to the right of the fireplace still in use....

Great install Kevin. Yours is the nicest lookin' stuff in that room!

Chris

thanks guys, i'm trying to redeem myself after the "spaghetti incident"...

[Link: remotecentral.com]

i can manage cable, really!