Hidden behind this 50-pound expensive wall heater are flat 2x4s nailed between the vertical wall studs. These critical framing members are blocking and ensure the heater never falls to the floor. Copyright 2025 Tim Carter

Hang a Heavy Mirror on Drywall - Blocking is Best

Have you ever struggled attaching heavy objects to a wall or a ceiling? You may employ a stud finder hunting and hoping wall studs are exactly where you need them to be. Some just throw in the towel and count on hollow wall anchors to do the job. You don’t ever have to use those when building a new home or doing remodeling.

The most recent trend over the past decade would be a flat-screen TV. These electronic marvels along with the wall-mounting bracket keep getting larger and heavier. You don’t want to hope they never fall to the ground. Kitchen wall cabinets, heavy mirrors, and paintings are just a few other things that must stay put.

Solid Wood Blocking is Best

Talk to any seasoned finish carpenter and she or he will tell you blocking is your best bet if you never want to rely on hollow wall anchors. Blocking is strategically placed wood, 3/4 of an inch or thicker, that gets covered by the finished wall covering. This wood is secured between vertical wall studs, ceiling joists, or trusses in locations where you know weeks or months from now you’ll be driving mounting screws or lag bolts.

Last year, while working on my son’s large basement remodeling project, we installed all sorts of blocking. In one instance, he wasn’t sure that early in the job the height of shelves would be in two alcoves on either side of his giant flat-screen TV. We solved this problem by installing 4-feet-tall pieces of CDX 3/4-inch-thick plywood.

CDX Plywood Works Well

This plywood was screwed to 2x2 pieces of lumber. The face of the plywood ended up flush with the face of the vertical 2x4s that created the alcoves. Months from now when the shelves are installed he can install nails or screws anywhere on the sides of the alcoves knowing he’ll hit solid wood.

We also installed critical blocking behind all of the electric wall heaters. These heaters each weigh about 50 pounds. They’re expensive and you never want them to fall to the ground. Horizontal 2x4s were nailed in between the vertical 2x4s. We referred to the heater installation instructions for guidance as to the recommended height above the finished floor for the blocking.

Shoot Photos or Videos

Not only did I take photos of the finished blocking with the centerline height above the floor marked on the flat 2x4s, but I also wrote this same information on the concrete slab with a Sharpie permanent marker. It was then child’s play to locate the center of the blocking once it was hidden from view by the drywall.

We used the 3/4-inch plywood trick in a closet under the stairs that lead to the first floor. My son wanted all of the Internet electronics, including the router, modem, and ethernet switch mounted to the wall. We laid all the components on the floor in a logical arrangement so the cables would work and be manageable. This allowed us to place the pieces of plywood exactly where they needed to be.

Our blocking mission didn’t end there, nor should yours! We had to install two rows of flat 2x4 blocking for a very expensive towel warmer in his bathroom. Once again, we didn’t want to guess the correct location. The towel warmer instructions gave a recommended height off the finished floor for the fixture.

Kitchen Cabinets Need Blocking

I’ve sworn like a sailor years ago hunting for wall studs for kitchen wall cabinets. I was determined we’d never have to do that on this job. Wall cabinets are going to be installed on a wall in his small speakeasy. Once again, we installed flat 2x4s at the correct height to match up with the inside rail at the top of the cabinets.

Blocking requires you or your builder to think ahead. This is a small price to pay in the planning phase. It eliminates frustration when it comes time to install things on walls and ceilings.

Here’s what many don’t realize about drywall. Most drywall specifications call for screw spacing to be 16 inches on center for walls. Celling drywall fasteners should be 12 inches on center.

Have you looked at how small the bugle head of a drywall screw is? Do you want to count on that to hold the drywall to the wall when you install a hollow-wall anchor? Yes, there are four screws on each wall stud. But what happens if the drywall hanger overdrives the screws and tears the facing paper? What happens if there’s a leak, the drywall gets wet, and the gypsum core turns to mush at the anchor location?

Don’t forget to take the requisite photographs or videos of the blocking before it gets covered up. Write the centerline heights of the blocking on the face of the wood with a Sharpie.

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Soundproofing a Room - This is what a typical interior wall construction looks like. Once the next sheet of drywall is added, the wall is not much different from a bass drum you’d see in a marching band! Copyright 2025 Tim Carter

Soundproofing a Room - It's All About Air

Is your home noisy? Do you wish you didn’t hear things going on in other parts of your house? How about exterior noise? Do you hear sirens, motorcycles, cars, trucks, etc., even when your doors and windows are closed? Believe it or not, there’s quite a bit you can do with an existing home to make it quiet. You can make a new home ultra quiet with attention to many details.

I have a few stories to share that will convince you it’s possible to have a quiet house. About forty years ago, my insurance agent hired me to install replacement windows in his stately brick home. His house was a stone’s throw from a very busy main artery that connected downtown Cincinnati to the posh neighborhood of Hyde Park. Suffice it to say there was a lot of road noise.

High-Quality Replacement Windows

This solid-masonry home was built in the late 1890s. It had traditional up-down sash wood windows. The original windows had no weatherstripping. Some years later, crude brass weatherstripping was added to cut down on cold winter drafts.

The homeowner wanted the new windows to match the existing ones to preserve the architectural integrity of the house. Marvin windows offered a wonderful product at the time where they’d make new sashes to the exact size of the existing ones, and they’d supply new side jamb liners that nested on the sides of the existing window opening once the old sashes were removed. You didn’t have to touch the interior or exterior woodwork.

When I arrived at his house the morning after we had installed many of the windows on the first floor, he said, “Tim, you’re AMAZING! The windows look great, but I wasn’t prepared for how they’ve stopped all the road noise. It’s like a mausoleum inside now. I didn’t think we could ever stop all the noise from the traffic!”

Sound needs air to make it from the source of the sound to your ears. If you shot a gun in a vacuum, you’d not hear a thing. The new windows I installed blocked just about all air pathways between the outside and the inside of his home. His solid masonry walls, by default, were blocking any and all air from the outside from getting inside.

Broadcast Radio Studios

I used to do a two-hour live radio show. The sound engineer taught me one day how he made the radio studios soundproof. Once again, it all starts with air. The actual studio was much like a room within a room. If you took the radio studio and put it in a huge swimming pool, it would float. No water would leak into the studio. Every seam, hole, etc. was sealed with a gasket or with a special acoustic caulk that stays pliable for decades.

The covering on the inside walls of the studio was a different thickness than that on the outside in the hallway. The large glass window looking into the studio was made with multiple panes of glass of different thicknesses. The glass was not parallel like the double-pane windows in your home. All of this detail is what it takes to prevent walls and windows from being first cousins to giant bass drums you hear in a marching band.

My son’s new home is just 500 feet from a very busy freeway in southern New Hampshire. When you’re outdoors, the road traffic noise is so loud during the day you have to talk a little louder than normal. That mind-numbing noise disappears the moment you go inside the house and close the doors and windows.

The builder did an excellent job of sealing each and every air leak. The windows have fantastic weatherstripping just like the Marvin windows I installed all those years ago. Other than that, the wall construction is no different than your home. My son’s house has vinyl siding attached to oriented strand board. The walls are framed with 2x6s, filled with fiberglass insulation, and the interior is just 1/2-inch drywall. It’s proof positive that stopping air leaks is the first step to stopping exterior noise from making it indoors.

Stop All Air Leaks

You can limit interior noise transmission from one room to the next by paying attention to air leaks. The typical interior door is like a colander. Sound passes right around the edges of the door. Install inexpensive felt or foam weatherstripping on the door stop on the sides and top of the door jamb. Install a tight threshold or door sweep to stop air from sneaking under the door.

Remove your electrical outlet and switch cover plates and no doubt there will be a gap between the electric box and the drywall. Caulk that gap and then install a foam gasket under the cover plate.

Air is probably leaking under the bottom plate of the walls. You may be able to seal this by caulking under baseboards. In the worst cases, you can minimize the drum effect by adding an additional layer of drywall on one side of a wall. Sympathetic sound transmission happens when the wall covering on each side of the wall is the same thickness and same material.

Carpets, area rugs, upholstered furniture, and fabric wall decorations go a long way to absorbing sound in rooms. If all else fails, purchase inexpensive silicone ear plugs. I use them each night to sleep like a baby!

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