Understanding TV brackets

A TV bracket attaches your television (usually a flat-screen LCD or plasma) to a wall. As well as looking fashionable, TV brackets allow you to site your screen at exactly the height you find best for viewing, and also means you don't need any floor space.

TV brackets come in a variety of styles, but most allow you to either tilt the screen up and down, swivel it from side to side, or both. Tilting can be handy if you have to site the screen particularly high or low in comparison to your viewing position, while swivelling is useful if you want to be able to see the screen from an adjoining room (such as when you make a cup of tea in the kitchen).

There are some TV brackets which hold the screen in a fixed position that doesn't allow any alteration. These may be cheaper but can make it awkward to get behind the screen to adjust or replace cables to DVD players, satellite receivers and so on.

The easiest way to make sure a TV bracket is suitable for your screen is to either buy one made by the same manufacturer, or to buy one that lists your particular screen as suitable. (You'll need to check the exact model number of your TV as there can be important differences between two TVs with the same screen size by the same manufacturer).

However, brackets that don't list your screen in the promotional material may still be suitable and could offer better value or more useful features. It can be quite easy to check compatibility: many TV brackets have what's called an FDMI (Flat Display Mounting Interface) rating. This guarantees it is a particular standard size and shape which follows guidelines produced by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). In many cases your screen will have a listed FDMI, so you'll know for certain that it fits a particular bracket. Bear in mind that VESA is not a regulatory group, so TV brackets without an FDMI rating are not necessarily of any less quality.

If you are looking at a bracket which doesn't have an FDMI rating, you'll need to approach the seller and check for certain. Don't be tempted to take a chance as you may get a situation where a screen appears to fit a bracket but is actually not held securely in place, which can be both dangerous and expensive if things go wrong.

As well as the size, brackets should always come with a load-bearing figure to tell you the maximum weight of screen you can store on it. It may seem obvious, but do not even think about exceeding this, even by a small amount!

You'll also need to check that your wall is capable of holding the weight. Generally you'll be looking for a load-bearing wall (usually one that is either at the edge of your house or one that you share with an adjoining property). Internal ‘partition' walls (such as those between two rooms in your home) are much less likely to be suitable