Mounting TV where fireplace used to be

fryster2006

Complete novice alert! We're moving into the property below next week. Want to mount a TV above where the fire surround is now, the surround won't be there when we move in and the wall will be left ready to decorate.

1) Any issues with mounting the TV here?
2) Will I be able to simply drill into the wall behind the TV, drop down a HDMI lead and TV power supply and have them come out where the vent is below?

Many thanks!
[IMG][/img]Living Room From Door by Stephen Fryer, on Flickr

TheCyclingProgrammer

Above the mantle piece will be too high IMO, unless you're quite far away.

The main viewing position in our living room is about 3m away and I've got a 46" screen mounted with the screen centre about 1.2m high - around eye level - and it's just right.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to drill a hole through and drop your cables through though as you'll need to get them into the flue.

What I did was have a false chimney breast built around the real chimney breast, with a recess for the mount to sit in, fixed to the real chimney. A lot of people like to recess the whole screen but this isn't the look I was going for.

I mounted the TV myself after having the old gas fire removed and capped off. Then a stud frame was constructed, plasterboarded and skimmed along with the rest of the room. I also stuck some rock wool insulation in there mainly for sound proofing. At the bottom of the recess I have a slot that lets me run my cables through the framework and out of a hole in the side (which is now inside an alcove cupboard containing all of my AV gear). I left some string to help pull new cables through.

For power, we had an electrician add a fused connection unit (with switch) to the side of the chimney breast, which powers a flex outlet behind the TV. The TV is hard wired in, the plug removed. This was all done before the false chimney was built.

The original chimney breast just has some hardboard over the opening with a slot for ventilation (because of the recess and access openings for cables it's not sealed in so air can still circulate).

A few photos to give you an idea.

Here's the TV mounted not long after we moved in:



In this photo the false chimney has been built and plastered (we had just mist coated the walls). I've also got hard wired 5.1 speaker cabling in the room which was all channelled into the wall before plastering. The fronts and sub cables are terminated on to speaker outlet plates, the surrounds have the cable just coming out of the backbox as the speakers sit flush to the wall. You can see the centre speaker cable all wrapped up coming out of the false chimney. All these cables terminate on a 5.1 speaker plate in the alcove which are then connected with small fly leads to my amp.



I managed to find a photo of the frame. The second picture shows the recess with the power and cable slot.





Here's the end result all decorated and after I finished building the alcove cabinets. Looks a bit different from the first photo.

brightontraveller

Yes no real problems assuming brickworks not all shot / damaged offer tv mount to wall in position required pencil mark fixing holes and area you want mains cable, hdmi lead etc to go through

You’ll need 25/32 mm drill bit for hole big enough for hdmi lead, ( you can cut and rejoin but its tricky to do )

Drill smaller pilot hole slightly downwards So hole on chimney breast will be slightly higher on room side than in chimney (makes cables flow easier and if water/moisture is inside it follows cables to ground not out on breast ) then use bigger drill bit as hdmi is biggest that would go through first I’d recommend you cut of mains plug end and feed that through hole in wall and out vent at bottom then fit another plug (easier than making hole big enough for mains lead )

Norman_Castle

For the cables it would be easier to drill through the mortar rather than the brickwork using the largest masonry drill you have then enlarge this hole with light chiseling.

lovinituk

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Above the mantle piece will be too high IMO, unless you're quite far away.

The main viewing position in our living room is about 3m away and I've got a 46" screen mounted with the screen centre about 1.2m high - around eye level - and it's just right.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to drill a hole through and drop your cables through though as you'll need to get them into the flue.

What I did was have a false chimney breast built around the real chimney breast, with a recess for the mount to sit in, fixed to the real chimney. A lot of people like to recess the whole screen but this isn't the look I was going for.

I mounted the TV myself after having the old gas fire removed and capped off. Then a stud frame was constructed, plasterboarded and skimmed along with the rest of the room. I also stuck some rock wool insulation in there mainly for sound proofing. At the bottom of the recess I have a slot that lets me run my cables through the framework and out of a hole in the side (which is now inside an alcove cupboard containing all of my AV gear). I left some string to help pull new cables through.

For power, we had an electrician add a fused connection unit (with switch) to the side of the chimney breast, which powers a flex outlet behind the TV. The TV is hard wired in, the plug removed. This was all done before the false chimney was built.

The original chimney breast just has some hardboard over the opening with a slot for ventilation (because of the recess and access openings for cables it's not sealed in so air can still circulate).

A few photos to give you an idea.

Nice work! I love seeing decent results like yours.

fryster2006

Thanks for the replies, TheCyclingProgrammer, that looks really great and in an ideal world that's how we'd do it. But cost limitations means we are looking for the cheapest/easiest solution. There was a gas fire in place before it was removed, are we likely to run into any issues with gas pipes that may be hidden?

In terms of height, we wouldn't have it too high, it's currently sat on a cabinet in our house which is the perfect height, so would use it's current height as a guide

TheCyclingProgrammer

lovinituk wrote: »

Nice work! I love seeing decent results like yours.

Thanks, I'm especially proud of the cabinets as I'd never built anything like that before. Made the lot from scratch although I had the doors specially made.

We've since had shelves fitted on each side too, really completes it.

TheCyclingProgrammer

I can't remember what we spent in total but the carpenter charged us £450 to build the framework and plasterboard it, remove and replace the window board in our bay window and fit a new loft hatch and ladder. The framework took him a day and his day rate was £150. Plus materials, maybe another £100.

We had the entire room plastered but just having the breast done itself probably wouldn't cost too much. Only snag is you really need to remove the coving back to the corners and have new coving fitted, which we had e plasterers do for us.

We removed the old coving ourself and I ran all of the cables and fitted the TV mount, and decorated myself.

Could probably do the whole project for around £600.

Andrew_Ryan_89

Just one tip, make sure you get someone to do it properly. I took a recommendation from a painter I had round my house. It was his uncle or something.

For £120, he said he would mount the TV and supply the bracket and something to plug up the holes. The guy was an absolute clown. Our TV was hung above our electronic fireplace which was on plasterboard in front of the real chimney.

He went straight in without checking any gaps between the walls and so on. He ended up making a complete mess, cutting through the metal boarding and never plastered anything up. He also took a ring of metal I had on the TV stand and use to plug the wall up.

Cost me another £150 to get someone to fix it, thread the wires through properly, use proper bolts for the bracket and patch up what he done.

Also, make sure the person hanging the TV doesn't do a OTT job. We had one guy come over to quote on fixing the problem. All he had to do was patch everything up and make new holes for the TV. He was talking about chasing through an entire section of the wall, installing some electronic iscolators or something and basically turning it into some massive job. I asked him why can't he just make a new hole and have the cables come out of there?

Completely dismissed it. Needless to say, despite his numerous positive ratings on the website I found him on, I just turned him down.

vacheron

We did something similar when we moved in.

I left the chimney (Pre-cast flue) where it was and ran the cables down the inside of the cavity wall using a piece of 40mm PVC drain as a conduit.

Pics here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6j4177un8cn8u1z/AABTNIEhtBy3xIEo9o8sGhBaa?dl=0

phil24_7

I have my 55 inch tv mounted above my open fireplace.

Neither me or my wife find it uncomfortable to watch and not 1 guest has said it is too high (and I have some very honest friends! LOL).

I have used D trunking (that just happens to match the grey on my walls perfectly) for the cables until I renovate the room when they will all be chased into the wall.

Regards
Phil