Cable Faceplate Advice / Wall Mounted TV

oHUTCHYo · 13 Jun 2022 at 15:01

I'll preface this by saying I am not handy in the slightest - my DIY skills are non-existent!

We have a freshly plastered TV wall with conduit embedded behind for cabling. We have some holes mid height and low height so I can feed appropriate cabling to and from the TV to various devices. Whilst the holes are masked by the wall mounted TV and low standing TV unit I'd like to finish it nicely with faceplates as below.

I see a lot of comments saying they need a backbox. I naively thought I could simply screw or glue the faceplate in place directly over the hole. Is there any reason I cannot?

oHUTCHYo · 13 Jun 2022 at 15:29

(sorry just realised this may have been better placed in Home & Garden sub?)

lucid · 13 Jun 2022 at 17:33

As long as you can drill and plug the holes without hitting the cabling then you should be fine.

"drill and plug" means drilling a hole - usually with a masonry bit - and then putting in a plastic plug that acts as both a grip in the hole and a 'something' for the screw to bite in to. (Example 1, example 2, example 3) The only issue to overcome really is they type of screw. Faceplates are usually fixed with a 50mm long straight screw, sometimes called a machine screw. Wall plugs aren't designed for this kind of fixing. They're designed for a pointy woodscrew. The head of a pointy screw will be too big to sit flush on the recessed hole of the faceplate.

oHUTCHYo · 13 Jun 2022 at 18:51

Thanks pal. Sounds troublesome then!

lucid · 14 Jun 2022 at 21:17

oHUTCHYo said:
Thanks pal. Sounds troublesome then!

Not really.

If I was faced with this on a customer install where they'd decided to have a bit of a go themselves I'd either look at sinking in a backbox to do the job properly, or come up with a workaround.

Lets say the cables were plastered in or they'd already had some fancy wallpaper put up. After explaining the issue and why I was going to do this, I'd drill a couple of holes deep enough for the shorter socket screws I carry on the van, then plug with a suitable fixing for the type of surface (plasterboard or plaster on brick usually) and 'encourage' the screws to fit LOL.

As long as the faceplate isn't being removed every five minutes then this would do. The customer has to realise that at some point when the cables are changed then the job needs doing properly.

edGfaCTor · 15 Jun 2022 at 16:23

You have two options.

1. surface mount boxes.
2. back boxes in plaster wall.

I use 35mm back boxes as standard not the smaller ones due to it allows tv modules which tend to be deeper compared to say network ones also leaves it open for future.

First is simple line the box up and drill two holes next you put plugs in those holes and screw the box to the wall (after this put on whichever face plates you like)

Second you mark up measurements and drill a few holes for each corner of the rectangle/square cut out the plasterboard and put the back box inside.

It's not that difficult to do for plasterboard if you have conduit in place already.

Are the walls internal or external?

I would suggest go watch some videos it may surprise you how easy it is (running the cables is the hard job)

Will · 16 Jun 2022 at 15:25

Curious as to why you *need* a backbox here?

I have a set of faceplates similar to the ones the OP posted, they came with a pair of screws and rawl plugs, so to mount them directly to the plasterboard, rather than needing a backbox fitting behind the plate. Surely if there's conduit in place, then the function of the faceplate is just a case of covering over the holes at either end of the conduit run, so it looks neat and vaguely presentable.

I accept there may be building regs that say otherwise, but if its just a short conduit to accept and hide a DC power cable and a pair of HDMI cables, behind 3ft or so of plasterboard, that will sit in situ for years once run, then I'm not sure I'd go to the effort?

Demon · 17 Jun 2022 at 10:36

You don't *need* backboxes, it's just a belt and braces approach and why not? They allow you to maximise the exit space and provide a more secure constrained structure as well. And if fitting in a plasterboard wall with space behind and you are cutting the holes/fishing cables then the backbox makes life easier, you have to cut a hole anyway so just make it square and the backbox is so easy to fit and provides the securing method for the faceplate without having to use any other fixings.

My brother had conduit loosely secured prior to plastering and he just screwed brush plates over the top as suggested and that worked, until one day he moved his TV unit out and the HDMI cable had snagged, he pulled the end of the conduit out the plaster.. Minor but a backbox would have saved him, it'd have spread the load much better.

What I would say is Screwfix do a much nicer range of faceplates, the LAP Modular faceplates (to which they have brushes as a module option) come in nicer metal finishes if you want (as well as white) but all are much nicer than the rubbish I bought from Amazon.