Ugh. No offense to anyone here who has their main set sitting above a fireplace, but I just don't get this trend. I suppose I get it in cases where there's simply not a single other place in the room that the TV can go, but it just seems like a terrible idea for pretty much every reason: viewing angles (first and foremost), heat, and cable routing are the big ones I can think of.

With that said, I need to help someone mount their TV above a fireplace

In this instance, yes, it's the only place to put it. The rest of the room is almost entirely glass walls and cut-outs to other rooms and hallways in the house. The only available wall is the one directly above the fireplace, which has no mantle. There are several challenges, but the first things I need to know are:

1) Is it ok to mount a 46" LED TV* above a natural fireplace?
2) There's no mantle whatsoever, but do I need one? Would it help with the heat at all (I'm guessing not)?

Like I said, there's other challenges, like figuring out how we're going to run power and cables behind a brick veneer, but these first two questions are kind of the big ones right now. I've been trying to read up online about this, but I can't find much consensus.


*sorry, Bruno, it's one of "those" LED TVs

A good fireplace is all radiant heat, the convection heat should all go up the flue. The TV should be fine.

But not at my house. The flue doesn't work properly, and some times the bonfire gets out the front of the fireplace.

Get rid of the fireplace. Or put the TV in front of the fireplace, building a facade to cover the fireplace and complement the TV. If they want to spend money, install a motorized mount that will lift the TV from behind a picture or mirror above the fireplace and then drop it down in front of the fireplace.

Otherwise, TV above the fireplace is just stupid. Uncomfortable and looks super super tacky. Urge them strongly not to do it unless it's for background noise or use only during parties where everyone will be standing. And in that case it really should be hidden from view when it's not on and outside of those occasions.

People that do this are those who don't know any better (so you should teach them) or watch design shows that no one should be watching. As in a designer that puts a TV above a fireplace shouldn't have a job. You'll probably notice that all these TVs will also be showing the incorrect aspect ratio.

I agree it's a bad idea. The viewing angle will be awful. And indeed, trying to tuck away the cabling will be a nightmare. And even if a fireplace produces almost no convection heat, it will warm up, unless it was insulated to prohibit this exact effect. I cannot imagine this being great for the TV either. It'll a least knock off a few life expectancy years since we all know there's nothing worse for electronics than heat. (well, apart from water maybe )

So I agree with the others: don't do it! Talk them out of it and go looking for alternatives, maybe a beamer with a projection screen dropping from the ceiling, I don't know. To quote Chris Rock on this one: Yeah, you could do it (...), but that don't mean it's to be done! Shit, you can drive a car with your feet if you want to, that don't make it a good fucking idea!

Disagree with this point. Hiding your TV by disguising it as regular furniture is super-tacky.



The viewing angle can be compensated for by getting an angled or motorised mount. Depends on the height of the fireplace, of course. Hiding the cabling will, depending on the fireplace construction, be difficult but not impossible.



But, yeah, I wouldn't be happy putting a TV above a fireplace, no matter how good the flue was. You're going to get heat, you're likely to get (at least some) smoke and ash. Not good for the longevity of the TV.

Our TV is mounted on the chimney breast above an unused fireplace. It's quite low down, and it's on an angled mount, so the viewing angle is fine. I've not done anything about hiding the cables -- they travel a short horizontal distance from the nearby shelf where the AV kit is before going behind the TV. Probably only visible for about 4 inches.

I'd never put a TV above a fireplace either, but the heat/smoke/ash stuff just isn't true, at least not for our fireplace.

The wall above our fireplace doesn't get noticeably warmer* when the fire is lit, I've never seen any smoke escape the fireplace and there is no ash on the mantelpiece. In fact the brick around our fireplace are painted with perfectly standard household paint and even the ones that butt up against the firebricks in the fireplace itself have no heat or smoke damage.

* this surprised me a lot when we first converted our fireplace back to a real fire, I did expect the chimney breast to be noticeably warmer when the fire was going

In a prior house we rented with a fireplace we had a severe smoke issue and “damage.” I was starting a fire with some newspaper and due to the wind, pressure or something the smoke decided to NOT go up the chimney. The wall above the fire place was blackened as well as the ceiling. If there would have been a TV there it might not have survived.

With that experience behind me there is no way I would mount a TV above the fireplace.

However when we moved out the landlord complimented us on how well we kept the place up and the fact that we even painted the walls and ceiling. I decided not to mention that we almost burned the place down.

Yeah, I'm with the consensus here, and agree that I would never put a TV above a fireplace. But seriously, these folks have nowhere else to put it. It's all glass walls in this room. Plus, while I can gently nudge my clients in a direction, it doesn't mean they'll listen to me. It's incredible how many of my clients decide not to institute a backup plan despite my dire warnings of computer catastrophe.

I'll do my best to think of an alternative, but I think this TV is going above that fireplace no matter what I say. We'll be getting them a swiveling/rotating mount, so at least the viewing angle to the screen won't be bad, despite the poor viewing angle on the neck

As a point of reference, most "traditional" fireplaces around here have a mantle (or equivalent) that is around shoulder-height or higher on someone who is 5'9" to 6" tall. So even when standing, one would typically be looking at the very bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of the TV.

Just a nit-pick here... A swivel/tilt mount doesn't (can't) alter the "viewing" angle. It's basic geometry. You would need an articulated arm that could physically change the height of the TV. Otherwise, while you may change the angle of the screen and therefore affect how perpendicular it is to your sight line, when sitting down you will always have to look up with head tilted at the same angle to see the TV. Angling the screen isn't changing the triangle created between your face, the wall directly across from it and the height up from there to the TV.

If heat and smoke are a concern, that fireplace should never be used as it likely no longer meets minimum building code and surely would never pass insurance requirements either. The whole TV above fireplace is just about the eyesore and ergonomics.

Matt, in the end, yeah, you'll probably have to do it if these are customers you'd like to do (or already do) other work for. If this were a one-off I'd say no. Just make sure they know that you highly recommend against it. You may get future business moving it somewhere else later.

What kind of fireplace is it? Wood-burning? Natural gas/LP? Is it sealed, does it have an insert? You can put a nice-looking wood panel above the fireplace onto which you'll mount the TV. Behind that panel you can run all the wires and potentially even hide slim source components like a cable/sat receiver.

As an aside, two sets of friends of ours have their TV above their fireplace (no doubt wife's decision), and I think I mention the awkwardness to them at least one out of every two visits. I believe it was also the builder who set the wiring up above the fireplace by default. Ugh. The main problem in the houses here over the past 10 years is the terrible locations picked for the fireplaces - and then the secondary is the terrible design of the fireplaces (cheapest builder selection).

I've seen that in a number of newer homes that I've been in -- the only location to put the TV is right over the mantel, because that's where the builder put the cable and power outlet for the wall. Heaven forbid there's someone like me, who still has a tube TV that won't fit on a mantle. But then, even if I did have a TV that would fit, I still wouldn't put it over the mantle, because a) the viewing experience sucks, and b) it's tacky.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was saying. With a swiveling/rotating mount, you won't be off-axis from the screen, but the screen is off-axis from you. The result is that you're looking higher than you're supposed to.

I dislike the setup myself, but some have no choice. In this situation, the mantle isn't anywhere near as high as you normally see because there is no mantle. The hearth is right at floor level, so the top of the firebox is only about three feet off the ground. The TV can be placed anywhere above that.

Matt, that sounds infinitely better than the situations I typically see.

I think this has come up before, but I also like my fireplaces up higher and mounted to the wall. Of course this is a more contemporary design.

Here's a room that's made to look horrific with a TV over the fireplace: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/tips-for-hanging-a-flat-screen-74713

They even bookended the TV with wall sconces. Holy shit. Besides the whole height issue, based on what furniture I can see in the room, it doesn't look like a TV belongs on that wall at all.

This one is from a forum (http://www.diychatroom.com/f12/ideal-tv-height-mounting-above-fireplace-44851/) Brutal.

Is it me or do these TV above fireplace people also like to sit perpendicular to the wall the TV is mounted on? It seems like every example I see, including the two friends I mentioned, have seating at a right angle to their TVs. Sorry, don't put a TV in that room at all if you're going to do that. Leave it as a sitting room.

I love quotes like this "Having it mounted above the fireplace is not ideal, but lots of people have it that way" - lots of people have medical/health issues too for which they (hopefully) seek treatment.

A Google image search will bring up a lot of spine tingling examples.

It amazes me that a lot of people build brand new rooms with the intention of putting the TV above the fireplace. If you're starting from scratch there's no reason for this compromise. Go side by side like the example below. It can easily be rescued by dropping the position of the TV - which is still way too high for some reason (can't tell from the photo what that black rectangle is under it)




Nice room actually, though I'd lose that sectional in favor of something different and more complimentary to the room.

Our builder similarly stuck the fireplace dead center in the wall where you might want the TV. This is Houston, where you'd have to be insane to use a fireplace, so I initially just got a small TV stand and completely covered the fireplace with the TV.

My wife was not amused.

Much painful home renovation later, we no longer have a fireplace whatsoever in our house, and instead have a nice home theater cabinet (custom made, etc.) where the TV simply sits on top and all the cabling happens behind it through some cutouts and hidden cable runs.

(Best part of doing this: my front left/center/right speakers are all the same exact speaker model, all standing vertically. Sound is pretty good.)

Next time I'm in a sales office and I see that plans show traditional fireplaces (which are all gas in new construction), I'll make sure to ask if there's an entrance for the livestock under the house and whether there's a trap door at the side of the house for the milkman to deliver through.

The apartment I rented in college, originally built in the 1920's, had a cabinet in the kitchen that was meant to hold your block of ice, with discrete drains to take the melt-water out the side of your house, and shelves nearby for the things you were trying to keep cool.

To be fair, if I lived somewhere like, oh, Canada, (eh?) I might appreciate a fireplace more than I do here in Texas.

I'm actually really looking forward to having a traditional fireplace in the home we're trying to move into. DC tends to get a good variation in temperature throughout the year, so while this summer had several weeks in the low 100's, the winter will regularly go below freezing for long stretches. Certainly, we don't get weather as hot as Arizona or as cold as Alaska, but it's a decent swing.

So while we won't have fireplace weather for a good 7-9 months of the year, we'll certainly have nights that could call for it.

Besides, aesthetically speaking, I'm personally very much in favor of a natural fire over a gas fireplace. Gas is a great convenience, but I'm sorry, nothing beats the crackle of a real fire. I love building it, lighting it, and keeping it stoked. Plus, my family has a nice Christmas tradition. Every year when we take down the Christmas tree (always a real tree), we cut off all the branches and put those out for the trash. The trunk, however, is kept in the garage all year long, and next Christmas Eve it gets chopped up and burned as that year's Yule log.

So yeah, I love a real fireplace. That said, my TV is going on the long blank wall perpendicular to it

The primary school I was at would always have a life-size Father Christmas postbox each December, just cardboard boxes with a cut-out Father Christmas stuck to the front, for "posting" the children's Christmas cards to each other. When I was in the top class of primary, we found out what happens to him after his work is done: on the first day of the next term, the teacher took Father Christmas out into the playing fields, set fire to him, and told us all to watch the smoke "making its way to Valhalla".

Peter

I don't use my traditional fireplace more than maybe a 10-20 times a year (some less if I'm out of town in Dec or Jan), but I love it. I don't get the appeal of gas fireplaces, though (but I don't get gas grills either, so maybe I'm just old fashioned).

I don’t get gas fireplaces either. It’s like watching your furnace run.

Our house is heated entirely with a wood stove. While making a fire does not seem too dreadful now after four months of not making one by April I hate heating with wood and dread going outside to get wood. But I’m cheap so I suck it up and do it every year. One more weekend of chopping wood and the shed should be full.

There was a wood stove in a house some friends rented up in Prescott Valley. The room with the stove (the front room) was hot, but the rest of the house fairly cool/cold. The rest of the house being cold didn't bother me, since when I stayed over there it was because I was passed out on the couch in the front room.

Luckily my house is very open with twenty some foot ceiling in the living room where the stove is and a large ceiling fan that does a good job of circulating the heat. Sometimes when it’s super cold I’ll fire up a kerosene heater in the kitchen. It has to be real cold for that to happen because the kerosene stink often gives me a headache.

I am sure people want the TV above the fireplace because every home improvement / design show does it. I can't believe it would be comfortable watching TV needing to look up all the time.

I think it depends on your couch/sofa/recliner. when I lay down on mine, with my head on the armrest, I'm in the perfect position to watch a TV that's placed over the fireplace. I'd say that's why so many people put their furniture perpendicular to the TV, but it's more likely they think that arrangement is keeping the focus off the TV -- despite the huge monstrosity on the wall over there overshadowing any other decor in the room.