Hello, my name is Nils from DIYNils.com and in this video
I'm going to be showing you how to get rid of these unsightly wires and add an outlet behind your wall-mounted TV in a
professional and code-compliant way - all in about an hour.
Before we get started with today's project,
I want to thank our Sponsor DataComm Electronics.
DataComm is the maker of High quality audio/video components a couple of which you're going to see in the video here not only their
4k HDMI cable
but specifically their
organizer kit that's going to make this whole thing possible and easy to do. You can find links to this product as well as their
website in the description below.
Just a quick caveat before we get too far along, the type of project
We're doing today is for drywall with timber framing like this where you've got 16 inch studs on center with some bays
in between them. That's kind of a requirement for what we're doing here today
If you have solid walls like brick, concrete, stone, anything like that,
I recommend you use some cable channeling or a different way to do this
That's not going to work for the project that we're doing today
To get started with this project the first thing we need to do is take down the TV and remove all of the existing wiring,
the plugs, everything that we can to get a clean surface to work with.
With the TV removed and the cabling and wires and everything gone as well
We're ready to go ahead and check the area to find out where it is that we're going to want to put our top plate
and
our bottom plate
First we're going to check the studs, see where they are and we're also going to check for fire blocks to see if there's anything
in our way, so I'm just using the stud finder here, and we see there's one right there and
Then there should be another one 16 inches away. Now one
easy way to quickly determine about where your studs are going to be if you look at the receptacles that you've already got, outlets or
Cable boxes, anything like that, they're almost always going to be attached to a stud and in this case
It looks like each of these is on the right side of a stud
So there should be a stud right to the left of either of these.
There's not one there and then there's one right here next to it and then same thing over this direction
one right there next to it so we can use that and
Figure out where the bay is so this is all open in here, but I'm also going to run the stud finder up
What I'm checking for is what are called fire blocks which are horizontal
pieces of 2x4
That run in between and they're usually about halfway up the wall so we want to make sure there aren't any of those that we
Have to work around. If you do have those and you can still do this project.
It's a little more complicated because you have to cut the drywall,
Drill through it and then feed your wires through it, patch your drywall, so it's a little bit more work
But it definitely can be done and shouldn't stop you from doing it with our studs [marks]
We're going to go ahead and use the templates that come with the kit to mark where the top
Receptacle and bottom receptacle are going to go one thing to keep in mind is the receptacles do have little wings
that are used to hold them on in the drywall these are not mounted to the stud itself like an outlet would be for example
so you don't want to put your templates or your receptacles right up against the
Stud here because that's going to get in the way
I'm going to move out just a little bit. Another thing to keep in mind
Is that on the bottom section there's going to be an extension cord so I can actually put my my template over here if I
Wanted it to be over here and have the one above it. That's fine
I can just run an extension cord. If I want it over here I could do that and just run the extension cord.
What really is important is that the top receptacle and bottom receptacle are in the same bay; they're in between the same two studs.
I'm going to put one right
about here. I've got a stud right here. I'm going to put one just a couple inches away from it
Now the stud finder I'm using actually has a level built into it. I'm just going to use that to make sure that the
Template is nice and level
Right there. I'm just going to use that to help me out, get this nice and straight.
Then I'll just follow along the template do the same thing on the bottom
When it comes to cutting out the actual pieces there's a couple things to make this really easy. First
I'm going to use a screw and drive it into the middle of this
Any kind of screw will do
And that's just going to act as a handle to make sure that when I cut out the piece
It doesn't drop back into the wall
then I'm going to use a
Jab saw which is basically a little saw with a point on it
That's meant for cutting drywall
To cut out the square if you don't have a jab saw you can definitely use a box cutter or a utility knife to
Score around here, and just make several passes until you get all the way through and that'll work just fine, too
But since I have a jab saw I'm going to go ahead and use it
Now on this last piece
I'm going to hold on to the handle so I can keep a grip on it as I cut it free
and out it comes.
Now in my case, you can see that it's totally hollow back here.
This is an interior wall, which is not insulated.
Sometimes interior walls are insulated
Or you might be mounting the TV onto an exterior wall when it's facing the outside.
In either case if you have some insulation in here,
Then you just want to make sure to do shallow cuts so that you don't get the tip of the saw snagged on there.
You can definitely still do this installation if you have insulated walls as well.
It's a little bit more tricky to work around it, but it works just fine.
Toward the end of this video. I'll show you an installation in an insulated wall.
Now this next part I'm going to show you is completely optional. It's not required for this project,
but I think it's going to make this a little bit better,
so I'm going to go ahead and do this. If you're worried at all about bugs or insects or anything like that
This is the way to go now the wires that I'm going to feed through here
there's going to be an opening from here to there
and if I want to seal that off,
Then I'm going to use this pipe to do it. I picked this up at the hardware store
It's called a six foot bilge and pump discharge hose.
It cost about $8. The nice thing about this versus the audio/video hoses that you can find is that it's completely sealed
It's not cut down the side or perforated or anything like that
And it's got these sections every foot or so that allow you to cut it to size.
So I can take something like this, and I can see that if I cut one right here
Then that's about all I need. It's about four feet of this it looks like. I'm just going to take some scissors
This is soft enough that even a regular pair of scissors will cut right through it
okay, and now I've got myself a channel that I'm going to run my audio-video wires through my low voltage wiring through and
That will run them from the top to the bottom
Another reason you might want to use a hose like this or some sort of channel is because if there's some new
technology that comes along for example something after HDMI
Then I can actually just run that through or if I need to add additional cables, remove cable,
I can just feed them through here
And it won't be any trouble to find them from here to there even after the plates are already installed
Now with my low-voltage pipe cut to size
I'm ready to actually connect it to my top receptacle, so what I'm going to do for that - and again,
this is optional, but I think you just make life a little easier later. I'm going to set it up
So where I squeeze it and it fits right in there,
and I've got a nice little place for my AV cables to drop through.
I just happen to have some white electrical tape that I purchased to fix some of my my mac wires that are getting a little
Little Iffy, so I'm going to take a length of this just kind of tape this in place. Tape my Tube in place
Onto the back of the receptacle here. I'm going to run this around several times.
Alright now
It's all sealed up again an optional step but just something to keep in mind if you're worried about
Pests or critters or if you just want to make sure that this pipe is going to stay in place
So that you can feed other wires more easily even after the kit's installed. Next I'm going to make sure my tabs are in
Just like this, so if the wings are out like that then it's not going to fit in the hole properly
So I'm just going to make sure these tabs are all in and then I'm going to drop first my electrical wire down
Again, this is rated for use in a wall. So this is up to code and ready to go
And then I'm going to drop in my Av Tube
push both down in there
And put this in bottom first check all the little tabs, or wings make sure they're in good
Okay
It's going to be a little tight because of this tube. It'll swing in.
Okay
Catching on...
...that. Okay there we go.
Push that in
Once you've got that then we're going to use a screwdriver
And we're going to make sure to do this part by hand. You don't want to use a power drill, for example, and over-tighten
these wings
I'm going to push it flush up against there and
As soon as I twist it to the right it's going to flip the wings down
so they can start to grab on to the drywall,
and you'll feel it kind of snug up. There we go.
And it's ready and now it's staying in place the same with the other three as well.
Now with the top piece installed, we're ready to pull the bottom pieces through. Mine are just sitting right there.
Okay, I've got plenty of extra on the electrical cable, and then I should have just a little bit extra there.
And this is flexible so I can pull on this just a little bit
but I've got my pipe ready and
My electrical wire ready so now we're going to do a little bit of prep work on our bottom
receptacle to get it all hooked up.
I went ahead and coiled up some of this excess wire that I've got here. If you want to you can optionally
cut this and re-splice the wires or re-strip the wires. These are all stripped already which makes this really convenient.
I'm just going to remove these labels
they basically say white to white, black to black and this bare one goes to your to your ground the green one, so,
and the first thing I need to do is push them through this little box that I've got this is just our little
Receptacle box for pushing the wires through and this will keep everything contained
Okay, once I've got it in there, then I'm just going to connect them. So for this next part,
I'm just going to use these little push-in connectors
Which are really convenient so you can see there's two holes one's already got a wire in it
And the other one is ready to receive one
So I'm just going to push the matching wires into the receptacles into the little push-in connectors. So we'll push the white
into the white, and you'll feel it kind of
give in - there you go, it'll just kind of sink in there like that. Do the ground for the bare wire
and then we'll do the black and
they go. Okay, so those three are now connected and ready to go and next up. We're just going to push these
gently into the box here
And then we've got some screws that came with this
so that we can
Fasten this all down
so it should end up looking like that before we do the screws and
Then I'm going to take these screws out and tighten them all in and we'll be ready to go.
Aright, so now that's on there nice and tight our electricity is all set here as far as this bottom
receptacle. The last thing I'm going to do is take my pipe and then attach it. Just like I did with the top one
onto the bottom one here with some tape
So our pipe is in there now as you can see and I've kind of sealed off this area with some white electrical tape
Now we're going to do the same thing. We're going to push our
Box and everything that we need in I'm going to put the electrical side in first
like so
Okay, so all of our wings are in
Just feeling along the bottom so I want to, on this bottom piece
I need to make sure to push the left side all the way in
And that'll that's what will make the right side fit nicely
Okay
So that looks good same as before. We're just going to tighten it down with a screwdriver instead of a drill
Okay, so this is really secure
It's on there nice and tight now I can drop my A/V cables down and this thing will be just about ready to go.
All right, we're almost all set here. So the last part is we're going to drop our A/V cables down our tube
And they should come out right here, and then I'm going to plug power into my outlet. Now one pro tip here
You're going to find that there is a little spot where the hose the pipe here tends to get a little jammed when you're trying
to fish wires through
so what I found that makes this a hundred times easier is when you're trying to feed wires through here if you just
Loosen these screws you can pop this out again, and it's this little spot back here that kind of gets squished
You kind of imagine that getting squished in the wall like that
So if you just pop this out let me show you how much easier it makes it so I'm going to take this
This flimsy wire here
Which has no real rigidity to it at all this is not a DataComm wire
it's just a really flimsy one that I got for cheap. So I'm going to take it
I'll even take the the non taped up side and
Feed it through down there
But there's not going to be any resistance because I'm basically giving it a straight shot all the way down
You can see it feeds through really simply
And we should see it either pop out or at least get to the end there where I can pull it out
Okay, I think we - yep I see it.
There we go
So that's how easy it is if you actually just pop this guy out to feed your wires
You shouldn't necessarily have to do that depending on the wires. You've got but if you do experience any
difficulty in pulling the wires through then that's going to make it a whole lot easier
Then we just put that back in place. We grab our A/V cables there, tighten this up again, and we're good to go.
Now for our last installation step as far as hooking up the wiring we just need some electricity, so we're going to take the little
extension cord that came with this. One thing I really like about it is it's got these flat and completely
Twistable and
piece on it so I can actually plug this in and then rotate it in any direction in my case not far to travel so
I'm not even going to bother to undo the zip tie on here, but I'll just plug this in.
Make sure that's in all the way and
then I'm going to twist this around to where it fits the way I need it
And in you go, so I now have power up to the top and I've got my Av cables down here, and I'm cooking.
DataComm also provides a single outlet power solution kit, and I went to a friend's house to do an install in their insulated Walls
So I wanted to show you what that looks like
right around four minutes in I
Realized that I didn't have my tape measure so I had to take a few minutes
so skip ahead 20 minutes on the timer on the bottom right and
Then you'll see I grab a tape measure feed it in from the bottom to the top and then as you watch here
I'll tape all of my A/V cords to it
and then pull it through the wall. The rest of the installation is pretty standard just like you saw in the video before but
With the exception that this time, we're just using a single outlet kit.
So, if you have an insulated wall
Then this project can be done pretty much just as easily just by using a tape measure to fish your wires through the wall.
Total time for this installation minus 20 minutes of searching for the tape measure: Twenty nine minutes.
All right, we got the TV put back up
We've got all of our devices hooked up down below in the coffee table here
And no wires. You get a nice clean look, looks professionally installed,
it's up to code and it works beautifully. If you've got any questions,
if you want to see any of the products that we showed in this video including the DataComm Electronic products
we showed, check out the links in the description below - they'll take you directly to where you can purchase them on Amazon.
I've also got links to all of the products that I used in this video
The tools, anything else that you might need if you're a DIY'er or want to become one, be sure to head on over to my website
DIYNils.com where you can get links to projects like this, you can read articles,
you can learn more about different things you can do around the house to make your home a little bit nicer. I'm Nils,
Thanks for watching
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