Hanging a TV from interior wall

[mrgrayaz]

Our 2005 5th wheel came with provisions for a 36" Tube TV. It was a great big ugly cabinet in the corner of the slide, so we ripped it out. Of course now we have nothing to put our LCD on.

What I'd like to do is hang my 40" LCD off the wall using a rotating mount...I picked up a stud finder and "thought" I found a few studs - so ordered the TV and mount.
After further research by pulling out the outlet covers and feeling around (and re-reading the instruction manual on the stud finder), it appears that this slide has no studs in the wall at all!

It looks like its 1/4" plywood glued to 2" foam-board bonded to the outside fiberglass. After some reading on this forum, this looks to be very common construction

I'm planning on using (1x3") x 36" long pieces of Oak to span the open wall to distribute the load, with screws every 6 inches into the wall and construction glue along the entire length. I will then bolt the TV mount to the said oak spans and hang the TV.

I was confident in this plan assuming I found 2 or 3 studs to screw into.......now I'm not so sure. Anybody mounted anything to these walls before? TV+Mount will weigh about 40lbs, and while I'm sure it will be fine statically...its the rear of the trailer which of course bounce bounce bounces down the road.....

[BFlinn181]

I'd use a panel of 1/2" plywood a bit larger than the dimensions of the TV. Glued and mounted with multiple screws, it could support the TV bracket. The panel could be padded and covered with fabric stapled around the edges of the panel, then framed in by finished wood strips to hide the staples. That would spread the weight across a larger area and make each fastener have to support less weight.

[mrgrayaz]

Plywood behind the TV would be very easy to do - I like that idea- basically the same thing I was planning with the oak pieces, just even more load distribution.

The question is...will the screws bite into the styrafoam at all, or will the whole assembly just delaminate the interior 1/4" wall from the foam when we go over the first bump!?

I may be overthinking this. Its something I do.

[BFlinn181]

You could run the frame boards to the floor, putting much of the weight on the floor, the wall would just be holding it vertical. You might use a few expanding fasteners that wouldn't pull out of the wall like a screw might.

[Durango Dave]

you could have the plywood go all the way to the floor and let the floor support most of the up and down load. Then the wall would only be carrying the horrizontal load which wont me much if your using a light bracket and a light tv.

or you could glue the plywood to the wall which would support it. I dont think i would trust a small piece of plywood just screwed into these thin cardboard like walls, i think it would fail very soon. That is unles you were able to find one of the 2x2 studs in the wall somewhere.

[paz]

One way to find studs in your walls is to go outside an a cool morning with high humidity. If you catch the light just right, you can see condensation on your exterior walls. Places where the interior wall supports are located will have no condensation. Hopefully, you can make your plywood backing big enough to pick up a stud in the wall somewhere. Having just one or 2 screws going into one of the aluminum wall studs will greatly add to the strength of your TV support. Installation instructions for most TV wall supports state there must be at least one screw going into a stud. This is even more important for an RV that will be bouncing down the road.

[bddadles]

First I can't believe that there are no studs of some type in the slide wall. The cabinet you removed had to be attached to something and a tube TV is a lot heavier than the new ones. With that said I would investigate the ideas already mentioned. I would specifically look for the studs as that would make all the ideas much stronger. You did not mention the size of the slide wall. If no studs can be found I would consider a piece of 1/2" plywood over the whole thing (if it is not to large) with glue and screws.

Brad

[egwilly]

I agree with Durango Dave....If it were me, I would try and get some of the load transfer down to the floor....either by attaching to the sidewall, or vertically from the mount area. I don't think attaching just to luan or thin plywood would hold, due to vibration and bouncing down the highway. Don't ask me how I know

Take a piece of syrofoam, and try to screw a wood screw into it.....excercise in futility. It will pull right out. It's for insulation, not structure.

[bddadles]

Any progress on your installation mrgrayaz? We like to keep up on these projects.

[mrgrayaz]

Thanks for the bump, didn't mean to leave you hanging. Right now I am shying away from it entirely. With this 5th wheel, we actually don't have any built in furniture, so we are moving things around and seeing what we like. We actually have the TV sitting in the rear window right now and really quite like it there.

I've attached a picture of the wall - I do like the plywood idea, but there is a lot of exposed area blow the TV and quite a few sockets/wires that would need to be fed through. Please note: the PO did all the great looking wiring, not me. It was originally hidden behind the before mentioned cabinet which sat on the floor.

I'm not sure how I would attractively cover up the plywood - wallpaper? OEM look is always one of my goals if possible....

[mrgrayaz]

Here is where we have the TV now. I'm almost positive this window (being so large and on the end cap) has to have some structure - and I could simply bolt the TV down. The slides close RIGHT in front of the window, so it simply couldn't go anywhere...