Tech Does anyone have a flat screen above their fireplace? I have questions.

valeri

O.G.
Dec 30, 2007
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We are going to be moving and in the living room their is a huge fireplace. Since that is the focal point we are planning to put a flat screen above it. My question is, where do you put the dvd player and cable box??? I have seen pictures of homes with the flat screens above the fireplaces with no dvd player or cable box in sight. Where do they put them?
 
We are going to be moving and in the living room their is a huge fireplace. Since that is the focal point we are planning to put a flat screen above it. My question is, where do you put the dvd player and cable box??? I have seen pictures of homes with the flat screens above the fireplaces with no dvd player or cable box in sight. Where do they put them?
Don't do it. Go to any audio professional and they'll tell you a couple HUGE reasons not to do it - one, it's too high, screen is supposed to be eye level. Second and most importantly, you will melt your tv components if you ever use your fireplace.

Designers will do it, but designers don't know about how electronics work.
 
Don't do it. Go to any audio professional and they'll tell you a couple HUGE reasons not to do it - one, it's too high, screen is supposed to be eye level. Second and most importantly, you will melt your tv components if you ever use your fireplace.

Designers will do it, but designers don't know about how electronics work.

Agreed - TVs are not meant to be put that close to a heat source. Hot air rises, so if you ever plan to use the fireplace, the TV will be in the exact wrong place. You're also right in that it's really too high up to be comfortable to watch, IMO, unless you can put your seating really far back from it to decrease the angle (and if you put it THAT far back, you probably won't be able to see the TV that well). Find a nice piece of art to put up there instead.

To answer your question, though, components are usually hidden in a nearby closet, crawl space, extra room, etc (when I worked at Best Buy, I saw a photo of a setup that one of our home theater techs did where all the stuff was in the office that was on the other side of the wall. Or, if there are built-in storage units on the sides, it's possible to put the components in there and then run the cables through the wall. It depends on the setup of your home, but if you're hell-bent on putting it there, they'll find a place to hide the stuff.
 
We have this on our main floor...our fireplace is a gas fireplace and there is a fairly thick piece that seperates that two. We usually watch movies and stuff in the theater room (on the bottom floor) so we don't have anything set up...and I'm not sure where it would go if we did decide to add something :smile: We've lived in this house for 10+ years and the last TV we had (which we had from the time we moved in until about 6 months ago) wasn't affected at all by the fireplace
HTH
 
Mine is above the fireplace and the AV equipment is in a cabinet next to it. And before someone decides to give me their two cents about why it shouldn't be there...

I had a home theater installation pro come to my house and design the space. If you hire a good home theater pro, they may be able to set it up in a way that it won't damage your equipment. However, my home theater space was designed and put into place as the house was being built. Since your is already built, there may be a whole bunch of issues with retrofitting...
 
If it's a gas fireplace, you're probably fine. Even with a wood one, the wall that the fireplace is on isn't supposed to get hot. I know ours doesn't and we use the fireplace a LOT. I still wouldn't put a flat screen there, though, because even if the heat didn't bother it, I'd think the smoke/ ash could :shrugs:
 
In the lounge in my old apartment building there was a TV above the gas fireplace but it didn't really give off much heat. It was just a puny little sad looking flame.
 
I think my best bet is to add a mantel on the fireplace and have a professional figure out what to do with the wires and the cable box and hope for the best that nothing bad happens. Thanks for the inputs.
 
We have a flat screen on top of our fireplace, because we live in a loft, and there really isn't any other place in our loft to put a TV (for our family area). We had a really cool fireplace facade built which created shelves underneath the TV for our cable box and DVD player. I am more than happy to post a pic of this so you can see if this is something that's doable for you. Let me know and I'll do it when I get home from work tonight.

Otherwise, so far (and we have lived there over 2.5 years) and haven't had any "melting" or overheated equipment (knock on wood). I guess it just depends on the fireplace facade/unit. Ours is natural steel so it's very thick and sturdy. It isn't that high, and the TV isn't mounted on the wall but standing on the TV stand on top of the fireplace facade. We also have a gas fireplace, so maybe that makes the difference, as well. IDK.

I hope this helps.
 
We have a flat screen on top of our fireplace, because we live in a loft, and there really isn't any other place in our loft to put a TV (for our family area). We had a really cool fireplace facade built which created shelves underneath the TV for our cable box and DVD player. I am more than happy to post a pic of this so you can see if this is something that's doable for you. Let me know and I'll do it when I get home from work tonight.

Otherwise, so far (and we have lived there over 2.5 years) and haven't had any "melting" or overheated equipment (knock on wood). I guess it just depends on the fireplace facade/unit. Ours is natural steel so it's very thick and sturdy. It isn't that high, and the TV isn't mounted on the wall but standing on the TV stand on top of the fireplace facade. We also have a gas fireplace, so maybe that makes the difference, as well. IDK.

I hope this helps.

Thanks I would love to see a picture to get an idea.
 
As promised, here are a few pics of my fireplace. I apologize but I completely forgot that we still have our Christmas lights up. Oops! But you'll get the point...
 

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