TV above fire place?

[Scoot]

I'm thinking about changing our fireplace and mantle and putting a 42" TV above it. This would let us get rid of the big entertainment center in the living room and allow us to better arrange the furniture. There's one small problem: I have no idea how to do it!

I don't want to have a bunch of cords and cables coming out of the wall and looking ugly. What can I do? A couple relevant bits of info: 1) I'm in the process of finishing my basement, so I could easily remove some sheetrock in the ceiling and run any cables from below, 2) I plan on removing the mantle and lowering it a little bit, so the TV's not so high.

What options do I have to do this? I know nothing and would either like to have it done affordably, or do it myself. I'm leaning towards doing it myself, but like I said- I know nothing and am just snooping around with this idea.

Here's what it looks like now:

Please let me know what my options are and what I'd need to try to accomplish this.

[paceman]

If you are able to run cables/power supply up through the basement ceiling through the wall then it should not be very difficult. I did that very thing about a year ago. I mounted our flat screen to the wall. Drilled a hole big enough for the cords, ran them down through the wall to the basement. The tv hides the cables/hole. In the basement I hid all exposed cables with a piece of conduit painted to match the walls. Pretty easy and looks great.

[Scoot]

Thanks for the reply, paceman. What about the cable box, dvd player, etc?

[soldoncass]

Scoot,

There are a hundred variables on something like that, so it will be impossible for someone to figure it all out,with limited info.

Some thoughts I have: Do you have the book on the fireplace? If so it should have how high the mantle has to be, based on distance from wall it sticks out....my guess is 4-6 inches lower is all.

How hot does it get above the mantle when f.p. is going? O.K temp for a t.v.?

What is on the backside of those walls? closet accessable or anything?

You need to figure out where you can put all the accessories...cd/dvd players, speakers?, and a way to get from one to the other with wires. anyplace to put a small cabinet into a wall for them, or bring the wires into the room, to be behind your smaller cabinet protecting the accessories.

Good luck.

[Farmboy1]

Is the fireplace a direct vent outside, or does the venting go up? You can go outside and look to see if there is a vent there. If there is, the vast majority of space above the mantel can be cut out and "inset". You can add some built in shelves for components and install the TV there. Most Gas fireplaces do not kick off that much heat that it could harm a TV, and most people don't have them run long enough anyway. If it does go up, chances are it is a 4-6" round pipe, and most of them have zero clearance to combustibles so you can push it out of the way and frame right up to it.

Most fireplaces also have a shroud around them that can be removed to access the items around it. You can pull this off and verify what is there.

Not knowing your abilities as a do it yourselfer, but this would be problably above and beyond most peoples skill levels.

[Jim Almquist]

You will have to decide where you want all of the other components but my guess is out of sight. That will be downstairs or in a closet close by. If that is the case you will need to get a IR trigger so that you can operate all of the devices remotely like your satellite receiver and your DVD player,PS3 and receiver for your speakers. It will give you one IR eye and it will then transmit it to all of your devices. When you get the path created make sure to allow for expansion and any new devices that might need a direct connection to the TV. Look at were everything connects to the TV now and decide if there is enough room to plug in a cable and connect it to a jack if that is how you terminate your cables. The typical wall mount kit should give you a couple of inch to play with depending on how much tilt you have on the TV so there will be more room at the top and less to play with on the bottom. Be careful not to run any wires in parallel with your AC or you could cause interference or 60 cycle hum through your speakers. Any questions be sure to ask and it sure sounds like it ought to be a weekend of fun

[bottomdweller]

Also I am sure you know, but try sitting in a chair and looking at where the t.v will be. My brother has one higher and it sure gives a person a sore neck looking up higher.

[LakeDocktor]

One thing that I would definitely do since you plan on running the cables up from the basement and finishing it off with sheetrock is to run 2" conduit up to the TV location from the centralized component location. This way, if any of your cables ever fail or you do want to expand, there is a way to get another or different cable up to your TV without much trouble at all. You can get low voltage gang boxes from Menards or Home Depot. I have all my rooms set up with 2 gang boxes. One for power and other with conduit going to component location. I also ran all my speaker wire through the walls. An easy way to do a wall fish is to measure where speakers are going to be. Cut a small hole in the wall. Go downstairs and measure the same distace and drill a 1/2" hole coming down. Take some heavy fishing line and tie a small washer onto it. Drop it into the hole upstairs until you hit the 1/2" hole in the basement. Tie the speaker wire onto fishing line and pull back through the wall upstairs. With the conduit, take a small piece of plastic grocery bag and form a small parachute a little bigger than the diameter of the conduit. Tie it closed with fishing line on a spool. This takes 2 people to complete. On the other end, take a Shop Vac and make sure you create a tight suction with the conduit. Turn the Shop Vac on until the other person feel suction. Once they feel suction have them place the piece of plastic bag into the other end of the conduit and the let the line spool off and in no time you will have the bag in the Shop Vac. Tie whatever cabling you are running onto the fishing line and pull back through. I hope this helps if you plan on doing wall fishes or pulling cables.

[Scoot]

Thanks for the replies everyone- I appreciate the feedback.

[huntnfish]

Scoot, you may want to try and get a hold of Paul in the DL forum. I think he works at site on sound and could probably give you some more ideas.

[CJH]

I have a 42in LCD TV mounted over a direct vent fireplace. The house already had a conduit/tube run from behind the TV to the built in book cases next door, plus it had an outlet already wired above the mantle. Pretty slick setup, nice and neat. We have our mount slightly tilted downward and that is a really nice viewing angle when sitting on the couch.

I would definitely recommend putting in the conduit and the outlet if you are going to be tearing into the wall a little bit. You definitely will want to plan out where you are going to put your components. From the picture it looks like you might have a built in bookcase that might work??

[Scoot]

Thanks again, fellas. I'll try track down Paul in the DL forum.

[luckey]

I just did this at my sons basement. However, being we were finishing the basement, we didn't have your challenges. I ran all wires (not knowing what would be needed we ran Speaker, HDMI, coax, component, and composite cables) We ran them to a cut out near the floor which will be behind a cabinet. Also, don't forget power and mounting. You will want to put an outlet and backer boards behind the TV. The eaisest may be just to cut a large hole (behind where the TV will hang and go from there.

Good Luck.