I need to Mount a 55" Sony TV on a Wood paneling wall w/no studs

Question

My wife and I rent a duplex in an old neighborhood of Honolulu, HI. We have talked about mounting our 55" XBR-55X810C Sony 4K TV since we bought it, and yesterday we bought a mount on a whim. It's a Stanley tilting mount for 32" up to 70" TV's up to 90 pounds in weight. The XBR-55X810C specs say it's 38.2 pounds. Here is a link to the mount: http://www.stanleymounts.com/tlr-es2215t-product-page.html

But unfortunately, everything made sense after a wasted trip to the HW store to buy a $15.99 stud finder, and that was, the walls are thin pieces of wood paneling without studs the tilting mount instructions call for. Umm, probably should have added that up when we realized the electrical sockets throughout most of the electrical outlets are facing sideways on the baseboards, and the light switches have electrical running on the outside of the wall into the ceiling (pictures attached).

The wall is located between our LR and MBR; and there is no view to see what's inside, checked the breaker and ground, but there is a ceiling crawl space in the bathroom I can can look.

To measure the thickness I measured the inside of the door jam (3 4/16"), and subtracted the measurement of each outside edge of the jam to the wood paneling to the wood paneling on both sides, subtracting the outside doorjam overhang on each side and taking it away from the initial measure (inside measurement - (1 11/16" + 12/16") 2 7/16" = 13/16" of thickness, in total, for both sides of the wood paneling which is surprisingly sturdy and holds sound quite well.

I searched the DIY site before typing this all out and couldn't find the exact scenario, so I am hoping that a few kind users could offer me advice on how I could make this mount work, given the layout of the room, having no other mounting options (except for maybe a floor standing mount).

So if there is a reasonable way for a DIY novice like myself to safely install the TV with minimal damage to the wall, then I am all ears and would be so appreciative.

The wall plate hardware includes are 4 lag bolts with washers, and concrete anchors. The directions say to drill 3 inch pilot holes into studs which have no less than a total depth of 3 1/2 inch, with a 3/16" bit.

Pictures are attached. LMK if you need anymore info to help.

Answer 1

It sounds like you have solid 13/16" thick plywood for a wall. If that is the case, I'd drill holes matching holes in the mount all the way through, get four metal bolts, four matching nuts and eight washers, and hang the mount on the wall, securing with nuts from the opposite side of the wall and using threadlocker on bolt threads. You would have nuts permanently visible on the back side but the construction should be more than sturdy enough to hold a 40 lb TV.

If you don't have solid plywood but something else (I doubt that there's enough room for anything else but who knows?), that's a different story. You should find out as soon as you drill the first hole.

Answer 2

Since you posted the picture, I can see that the wall is actually normal, and there most-likely are studs in it. The stud finder may be having difficulty finding the studs through the panelling; it takes some skill to use a stud finder, especially with panelling, more especially if the panelling is thick (like 3/4"). But (based on the picture) you appear to have just 1/4" panneling. If you don't have any nails in the panelling (they may be tiny, finishing nails, so look hard- but if not the panels are glued on), I would recommend using the stud finder again to try to and find where the studs approximately are. Set the finder against the wall, press the button wait a second and then just to keep sweeping it back and forth slowly. If the stud finder just wont work, then use knocking to locate the dense (stud) and hollow (no stud) sounding areas.

Your studs will either be 16 or 24 inches apart. From the oustide wall, measure 15 1/4 or 23 and 1/4 inches plus the thickness of the panel material (pretty sure they are 1/4") to find the exact center of where your first stud should be. The rest of the studs should be exactly 16 or 24 inches apart from the first stud.

I would not recommend hanging anything as heavy as a TV from 1/4" panelling.

edit- the picture is gone again.