A television wall is where household cables reach their worst state, because devices get added over years and nothing is ever fully unplugged.
Why It Gets Bad
Each new device adds a power lead and a signal cable, and neither of the existing ones is removed.
Over five years that is a dozen cables, several belonging to devices that left the house. Nobody knows which is which, so nobody removes any of them.
Clip the Runs
Once sorted, clips along the back of the unit and down one leg hold everything in a defined route.
Adhesive clips in quantity, of the kind at eboot.net, are what make that possible; a sleeve handles a bundle and clips handle the individual strays, which is where the mess returns from.
Start by Removing
- Unplug everything and pull the unit away from the wall
- Photograph the back of the television before disconnecting
- Discard cables for devices you no longer own
- Test anything questionable rather than keeping it in case
- Label both ends of every cable that stays
Wall-Mounted Televisions
The specific problem: cables hanging visibly down a wall from a mounted screen.
The tidy solution is running them inside the wall through purpose-made pass-through plates, and mains cable inside a wall must be run in accordance with wiring regulations, which for a permanent installation means an electrician rather than a hole and hope.
The practical alternative is trunking or a fabric sleeve down the wall, which is visible and entirely safe.
Signal Cables Are Different From Power
Low-voltage signal cables are considerably more relaxed about routing than mains cables.
They still have limits: sharp bends damage them, and very long runs degrade a signal, particularly at high resolutions. A cable that produces intermittent picture dropouts is usually too long or damaged rather than incompatible.
Ventilation Matters
Amplifiers, consoles and set-top boxes generate real heat, and enclosing them in a cabinet with cables packed around them traps it.
Equipment that runs hot fails early, and in the worst case overheating is a fire risk. Leave clearance around anything with vents, and do not bury power supplies in a bundle.
Extension Leads
A media wall usually needs more sockets than the wall has, and that is where daisy-chaining starts.
One properly rated extension block from a wall socket, not several chained together, and nothing high-wattage on the same block.
Nothing Under the Rug
Cables running under a carpet or rug are damaged by foot traffic invisibly, and the covering traps heat. It is a recognised fire risk and worth avoiding entirely.
Children and Cables
A trailing cable from a television unit is something a small child will pull, and a television falling from a unit is a recognised cause of serious injury.
Cables clipped and out of reach, and the television itself anchored or wall-mounted.
Do It Once
An hour spent properly does not need repeating, provided every new device gets added to the system rather than beside it.