Mounting a TV when studs are 24 inches apart

You measured, probed and found your studs two feet apart. It's more common than people think — some newer homes, many garages, manufactured homes and non-load-bearing interior walls are framed at 24 inches on centre.

Why it matters

Many wall plates are 16 to 19 inches wide. They're designed to catch two studs spaced 16 inches apart. At 24 inches, a narrow plate reaches only one.

Option 1: a wider wall plate

Plenty of fixed and tilt brackets have plates 24 to 32 inches wide with long horizontal slots. They're made for exactly this. If you haven't bought a mount yet, check the plate width and the slot range before anything else. The brackets we supply for mid-size and large TVs span 24-inch framing.

Option 2: single-stud mounting

For lighter TVs, a mount designed for one stud is perfectly sound: the plate is tall and narrow, with two or three lag bolts stacked vertically in the same stud. Single-stud full-motion arms are common. Stay inside the mount's weight rating and keep the bolts in the centre of the stud.

Option 3: a backer board

A strip of ¾″ plywood or a 1×6 hardwood board, lag-bolted across two studs, lets you put any bracket anywhere along it. Painted the wall colour and hidden behind the TV, nobody sees it. This is also the fix when the TV must be centred between two studs.

Option 4: studs plus toggles

On a fixed bracket with a mid-size TV, two lag bolts into one stud and two heavy toggles through the drywall on the other side share the load well. We don't do this for articulating arms — see why in can drywall anchors hold a TV.

Centering the TV

With studs at 24 inches the plate may sit a few inches off where you want the screen. That's fine: most brackets let the TV slide left or right on the plate, and a full-motion arm can sit off-centre and still park the screen in the middle.

Check that it's really 24

Before deciding, probe for a stud in between. Walls framed at 16 inches can seem like 24 when a stud finder skips one, and openings such as doors and windows shift the pattern.

Metal studs at 24

Commercial-style metal framing is very often at 24 inches. That's a different job with different hardware — see mounting on metal studs.

Stud spacing doesn't change our price. Labor starts at $94, with the right bracket for your framing.