Hi, I'm Norm, and I'm part of the A/V Design Group here at Crutchfield, and one
of the things that happens a lot is that when people go to mount a TV up on a
wall is that they don't want to see the wires hanging down to plug into their
outlet. So today we're going to show you how to run the wires inside the wall
using UL-approved wiring, and I'm going to show you a kit that we sell. It's
called a power relocation kit, and we sell a couple different brands. This
particular one also has a sheetrock saw. Some of the kits don't have a sheetrock
saw, but you can buy them at Lowe's, Home Depot for like 7 or 8 bucks. So I'll show you
what comes in the kit. You do get the instructions, and in this
particular case the instructions are actually pretty well-detailed, good
drawings, power cord, and this looks like a regular ordinary power cord extension
we had a female one end and way on the other, if your walls are dark tone or something
like that and the white would stand out, you can go to Lowe's, Home Depot and just
get a black version of this where it's three prong on one end and three prong
on the other, but just this will work fine for what we're gonna try and do
today. Here's the sheetrock saw. One of the things about sheetrock saws is
that they are really really sharp, so this one is you'll notice it actually
comes in its own guard. So here locking in position. You're gonna
cut two holes in the sheetrock, one down low and one up high. The one that's gonna
go down low...this is gonna go right here, and this power cord in this particular
case plugs into here, and then this is gonna plug in right here, and notice we
got tons of extra wire here. The reason why they give you so much is that sometimes
the best place to mount the TV there just is not an electrical outlet
right here, so you can have it four or five feet one way or the other, and
still be able to bring power to this.
We're gonna cut a hole here, mount this one here. This is actually going to go
inside the bracket. You can mount this above, you can mount it below, but
typically it works much better if you can mount it inside because it's all hidden
by the TV, and if you can do it it allows the cable to stay hidden, stuff like that. If
you've got like a 55inch, 65inch, 75 inch TV, something like that, you could even
mount it above but I usually have pretty good luck mounting it right inside. So
now one of the things that's interesting is that, you know, how most people are
right-handed, so most electricians are right-handed, and one of the things
that'll happen is when they're doing the rough-in, you know, before the sheetrock's up
for any of the wiring in it when the house is being built, they'll hold the
box with the left hand, and they're hammering the two nails to hold the
box in behind, so about 80% of the time wherever you see an outlet the studs
gonna be right here that's running all the way up. So we're gonna put this box
on this side of the stud, and the in this particular case we'll just do that. So
this here, this here...and I'm going to show you the three things that you'll
need be able to do this is Phillips screwdriver, a regular ordinary pencil,
and a hammer, and you may not need the hammer. So one of the things that happens
with this one down below is that there's ears like once you cut the hole, this
fits in there and you take your screwdriver and as you start turning it
these flip out and stop. And what happens is that the sheetrock actually is
sandwiched right in here. So the plate's on one side, the tabs on the other. It's
pretty solid when you do it. Because you're using the tabs, you want to make
sure.. remember how the studs running up here, you want to make sure you got
roughly...like the stud is like to right here, you want to make sure you've
got another inch of sheetrock before you start cutting the hole so that
this tab can grab behind the sheetrock. If you cut right along the stud, this one
can't flip out and it's got nothing to grab on to.
So here...
now, one of the things that this is actually useful for is you can get a
ziploc bag, like a sandwich bag, or something like that, I put this in here and
this is a great way if you're going to the store and you're trying to match it
up, this is the paint sample, so there's a guy at the paint counter that can match it
up, make sure it works. Otherwise, you throw it away. And then when you're
installing this, there is two openings, one opening is open to the air and
that's the part that faces up, and one of the things that I like doing is I like
cutting the hole so it's a friction fit so that the sheetrock itself is actually
holding it in place. It'll prevent torquing and stuff like that.
You don't have to do that, but the if you can it just makes for a better fit and
there just is less wobble.
There you go, see how and that's roughly about the same height, and visually it
looks pretty good? Do not lock this thing down now because we need the open hole
for the next step, and I'll show you that in a minute.
So the stud's running all the way up, now we're going to mount this one. If you
remember, this one we had the open hole facing up? On this one, which is the one that
goes behind the TV, we have the open hole facing down, and the reason why you want to have
that is so that as the HDMI cable gets fed up it comes in like that. So now...
one of the things that you can do, normally the TV's already been hung on
the wall, and you'll notice that the power cable and the HDMI cables are
usually not on the same side, so if the power is on one side and HDMI on the
other, just center it. Some TVs, though, will have the power outlet and the HDMI
all on the same side, so if you want to make it a little easier for you, mount
the box to the left or to the right to make it just easier to just plug in the
stuff. If it's split, just put it in the center. So I'm inside the same
bay that I cut down there
and when you've done your cut like this, you put your saw, same thing as down
below, I meant to say it, you want to put the saw blade on the outside of the cut,
and you'll do this two or three times because we're trying for the friction fit, and
right now I'm just eyeballing it to make sure that I'm still...that when this goes
up against the wall, it's not touching this, or the other way down here. So box is
in, we know that part's right, the next thing you want to do because you're
trying to hide not only the power cable but also the HDMI cable, if you're using
the same HDMI cable that you were using before, sometimes it's just not long
enough. You might need to get a longer one. So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to drop it down...remember this is an interior wall that does not have any
insulation, and I'm gonna reach in here and pull it out. And remember, this is a
six-foot and I got to be able to reach the equipment and I've got to be able to
reach where, you know, if the HDMI connection on the TV's here or here so
sometimes six, which is usually enough, I always fudge it and get seven just to give
me some slack. So I've got the HDMI cable run through, I'm feeding it through here.
There, it looks right. And the HDMI, or the phillips screwdriver. Then this is...you don't
need to use this cover; I like to use the cover, it just dresses it up and makes it
look nice. And there's four clips right here, and
they fit the four openings right here.
That part's done. Now remember, there was a long white cable off the back for
the romex, we're gonna reach in, hand...here you go.
And the excess can just go in the wall. Now one thing I should have
mentioned earlier and I didn't do it was that I should take some plastic, it could
even be a 33 gallon trash can liner like used for kitchen trash can, that works
fine, and I laid down right here, and so anyway you can catch all the
sheetrock dust. So now the back of this, there's two screws, and you're gonna undo
this cover. This is the part of the this particular item, this relocation kit I
like a lo,t and this pops off and and this fits like this. You can hear it snap
into place. Then this goes right back on top,
and you have to wiggle it a little bit for it to snap into place, and then you put
the screw back, and you put that screw back,
and remember the opening here is facing up, and the sheetrock...
The trim plate, this goes here, and
Then this plugs into your equipment, that plugs into the back the TV. Now one of
the cool things that you can do is that we're here, we're tapped into an
outlet, a lot of times people have their surge protector plugged into here, and
they'll have their surround sound receiver or the cable box all plugged in,
this can also plug into the same surge protector so that the TV is also surge
protected as well as all the other equipment. So it's just just a neat
little tip, but right now we just plug it in here, so that's hot,
this is hot, and I'm sitting on the floor, and you're done.
So that's it, and it really is pretty quickly if I hadn't been talking so much
it would have been even quicker, but you can typically you can do this in about
20 minutes. If you've got more questions, it is totally cool to call, email, snail mail,
we even do that here at Crutchfield, and we're glad to help. Thank you very much.