Service
Bespoke media walls and TV units
RGS Carpentry builds bespoke media walls for homes across Surrey. The difference between a good one and a bad one is almost entirely planning: where the cables run, how the equipment breathes, and whether you can still reach a plug in two years without dismantling anything.
- Lead time
- 3–5 weeks
- Electrical work
- By a Part P registered electrician
The anatomy of a media wall.
A media wall is a services problem wearing a joinery costume. Almost every one that fails, fails because of heat, cable access or a screen size nobody planned for.
Our own setting-out drawing, not a photograph. Numbers key to the notes belowalongside.
Screen recess, sized one size up
We set the aperture out for a screen larger than the one you own. Screens get bigger and cheaper roughly every three years, and an aperture cut to today’s exact diagonal turns the next upgrade into a rebuild.
Integrated lighting
A strip washing down the face lifts the whole wall and stops the screen being the only lit object in the room. Colour temperature matters: anything above about 3000K reads clinical against warm joinery.
Ventilated compartments
An AV amplifier in a sealed box will run hot, throttle, and fail years early. Compartments are vented top and bottom so air can actually move through, rather than given a token slot at the back.
Fire aperture and its clearance envelope
The dashed line is the manufacturer’s minimum clearance, and it governs the framing, not the other way round. Every electric fire has its own figures. Building the joinery first and reading the instructions afterwards is how apertures end up 30mm too small.
A socket you can still reach
Cables run in conduit to an accessible panel rather than being buried loose. Two years from now, adding a console should mean pulling a cable through, not taking the wall apart.
What you actually get.
- Recessed TV mounting with the bracket set into the structure
- All cabling in conduit and routed to accessible points
- Ventilated compartments for amplifiers and consoles
- Optional electric fire aperture built to the manufacturer’s clearances
- Integrated lighting: LED strip, picture lights or recessed spots
- Coordination with your electrician for new sockets and data points
- Plasterwork and making good where the new wall meets the old
What it is made from, and why.
The question that decides how a piece ages, and the one almost nobody asks before signing.
- CLS or C16 studwork
- The frame behind everything. Bracket fixings land on solid timber noggins set out from the bracket’s own centres, not wherever a stud happens to be.
- 18mm MR-MDF face
- Flat, stable and paints perfectly. Plasterboard-and-skim is cheaper but chips at every arris and cannot carry a fixing.
- Fluted or slatted panel
- The current default for a media wall face. It hides small imperfections in a long run and breaks up what is otherwise a large flat plane.
- Micro-cement or plaster finish
- Where the wall should not read as timber at all. It is a wet trade on top of our dry one, so it adds a specialist and a week of drying to the programme.
Why two quotes for “the same job” differ by thousands.
Nobody else in Surrey publishes this. It is the difference between a number you can plan around and a number you have to take on trust.
Guide prices
- Simple slab media wall with concealed cabling
- £2,000 – £4,000
- Media wall with fire aperture and lighting
- £4,500 – £8,500
Indicative 2026 figures for Surrey, including materials and fitting. A guide, not a quote. Your quote is fixed, in writing, and comes after we have measured.
- Overall width and height of the wall
- Whether an electric fire or fireplace aperture is included
- Integrated lighting and the electrical work behind it
- Slab, panelled, fluted or micro-cement finish
- Whether plasterwork and making good are in scope
- How much the room loses: a 140mm frame takes 140mm off the floor area for its whole width
- Whether the existing wall is masonry or stud, which changes how everything fixes back
From the first visit to the last adjustment.
Design visit
We measure the room and, more importantly, list the kit — every box, its dimensions and what it plugs into. Bring the fire’s model number if you have chosen one; its clearances drive the whole frame.
Drawing, fixed price and electrical scope
An elevation plus a services plan showing socket and data positions. Your electrician needs this before first fix, and it is much cheaper to move a socket on paper.
Framing and first fix
Studwork, noggins at the bracket centres, conduit run and the electrician in while everything is open.
Facing and fitting out
Faces on, apertures cut, shelving and doors fitted, vents formed.
Finishing and commissioning
Filled, painted or panelled, and the screen and fire offered up so we know the apertures are right before we leave.
The published figures, not our opinion.
Where a real standard governs the work, here it is, with the numbers in it. You can check every one of these against the source.
Part P — electrical work in dwellings
New circuits and consumer-unit work in a home are notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations. We do not do them; a registered electrician does, and self-certifies. Anyone offering to do a media wall’s electrics as part of the carpentry, without a registered electrician, is telling you something useful about how they work.
Manufacturer clearances for electric fires
Electric fire apertures are governed by the appliance instructions, which specify minimum distances to combustible material above and to the sides. They differ between models by more than you would expect, so the fire is chosen before the frame is built.
When not to call us
If the wall in question is the only wall in a small room, think hard before building forward off it. A 140mm frame across a 3.6m wall takes half a square metre out of the room permanently. A well-chosen floating unit and properly chased cables achieve most of the effect and cost a fraction as much. We will say so at the survey if that is what we think.
The things people ask first.
Can you fit an electric fire into it?
Yes. It has to be planned in from the start because the aperture, the clearances and the power supply all affect the framing. Choose the fire first — its instructions give the minimum distances to combustible material, and those figures set the frame dimensions.
What happens when I change the TV?
We size the recess with headroom for a screen a size or two larger and keep the bracket fixings accessible, so an upgrade later is usually a straight swap rather than a rebuild.
How much depth does a media wall take?
Typically 120–200mm depending on whether a fire is included and how deep the equipment shelves need to be. On a 3.6m wall that is roughly half a square metre of floor area, which is worth being aware of in a small sitting room.
Will the equipment overheat?
Not if the compartments are vented properly, which means air able to enter low and leave high rather than a single slot at the back. AV amplifiers in particular put out real heat and will throttle or fail early in a sealed box.
Do you do the electrics?
No — a registered electrician does, and certifies the work. New circuits in a dwelling are notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations. We coordinate the sequence so they are in while the frame is still open.
Can it go on a stud wall?
Yes, though the fixing strategy changes. On masonry we can fix more or less anywhere; on stud we set noggins to suit the bracket centres before the face goes on, which means knowing the bracket at the framing stage rather than at the end.
Media walls across Surrey.
Each town page describes the building stock we are actually working with there, which is what decides how a job like this is detailed.
Tell us what you are trying to fit, and where it has to go.
Four quick questions, no essay and no obligation. We will come and measure, and you will have a drawing and a fixed price within a week.
Every enquiry answered within one working day.