Mounting things on a wall with a fireplace behind it?

Darkewolfe

As I've probably mentioned, I'm in a new place. This place has a wood burning fireplace which I will never use (allergies and no gas hookup). Right now it's just cleaned and closed up.

I want to mount a tv on the exact part of the wall where the fireplace is. I figure on getting one of those heavy duty mounts (recommendations for that welcome), and what I really need to know is: Can I do it (masonry screws), what should I figure out before I do it and how can I do it?

Again, no intention to actually use the chimney, but I don't want to damage anything that I'd have to fix later if I were selling the place without knowing about it.

Thanks, all.

Pel

It's certainly possible, but the difficulty is tough to say. Pictures would help. Are you talking about covering up the actual fireplace door or just putting your TV on/above the mantle?

Spiritfire

I did the same thing at my first house. We mounted a TV above the mantle of the fireplace. We got a fairly basic mount that would only adjust the viewing angle and then mounted to the studs that we could find... kinda. We thought that the mount was too close to the wall to do any level of cable management once it was up, so we got a couple solid blocks of aluminum (bars about 3 inches wide, 1 inch thick, and 24 inches long) and used them as spacers between the mount and the wall. Why aluminum? I have no idea. My father-in-law got ahold of them. I suppose they are strong, but you can still drill through them. Anyway, we painted them black for consistency and mounted them to the wall studs first, horizontally. Then the mount attached to the bars... though I don't recall if the screws went just into the metal or through them into the studs as well. I want to say it was the former.

On a side note, my wife hated the TV being there. We didn't do any fancy in-wall cabling, so there were cables going every which way off of the mantle. She also wanted the mantle as a place to place things, but the edge of the TV was less than an inch over the surface of the mantle. When we moved to a new home, she didn't want any of that.

Thro

Spiritfire summed it up pretty well. If the area above your fireplace is drywall, it is possible to mount the TV there. However, there isn't a lot of room between the stone/brick/whatever of the flu and the drywall over it, so running your wires back there is really difficult. Also bad if someone ever does make a fire. . .

However, it sounds like you have masonry surface right where you want to mount (no drywall or stud layer). There should be enough room with the wall-mount for the TV to run wires and such. If not use Spitfire's father-in-law's idea of spacers.

To help better, what exactly is this wall made of/look like? If it's drywall and studs on top of masonry, you're fine. If it's a masonry wall, well that depends. Brick and concrete can be drilled into, with some effort. If it's slate/stone just take up reading and going out to movies.

For selling the house later: go nuts with drywall, it's easy to replace or patch and paint. Brick is harder, especially if unpainted, to make it not look like ass.

Darkewolfe

Sorry, there's definitely drywall over the brick. As far as I can tell, there's three studs behind the drywall. It's about four feet across, I'd say, one stud on each side and one center stud.

zepherin

Are you mounting to brick or drywall? You can mount to brick easy enough. Using masonry screws will probably do alright, lead screw anchor or lag shield anchor for heavier mountings. For drywall, use toggle bolts, don't even fuck around with other stuff. Toggle bolts are awesome sauce. Use them. If you don't know how to use a toggle bolt, google a youtube video or 2.

Darkewolfe

It'd be mounted to drywall with studs behind it. I'm just wondering if there are any additional concerns when a flue is directly behind the drywall.

zepherin

Darkewolfe wrote: »

It'd be mounted to drywall with studs behind it. I'm just wondering if there are any additional concerns when a flue is directly behind the drywall.

Oh you've got studs? Then no problem, you can do it as per directions, the TV should mount fine. The flue shouldn't be an issue as long as it is in proper working order, however you may want to make sure you are not venting from a hot water heater or a furnace/boiler into the flue if you are going to go through masonry, honestly though if you aren't using that fire place and there is nothing else tied in you should be fine.

Darkewolfe

zepherin wrote: »

Darkewolfe wrote: »

It'd be mounted to drywall with studs behind it. I'm just wondering if there are any additional concerns when a flue is directly behind the drywall.

Oh you've got studs? Then no problem, you can do it as per directions, the TV should mount fine. The flue shouldn't be an issue as long as it is in proper working order, however you may want to make sure you are not venting from a hot water heater or a furnace/boiler into the flue if you are going to go through masonry, honestly though if you aren't using that fire place and there is nothing else tied in you should be fine.

Awesome. I'm fairly certain there's nothing venting into it, due to the placement, but is there a way that I'd check? Just stick my head up in there with a flashlight and look for a vent? I know 0 things about fireplaces, because my allergies have kept me from using them my whole life.

zepherin

Well the only things that would vent into it of concern are gas appliances, but yeah looking up with a flashlight can do it. Or locate your furnace and hot water heaters, If they are electric don't worry about it. If they are gas find out where they vent. What you don't want to happen is to crack the masonry a bit and let in CO1 from the exhaust of a water heater, boiler or furnace.

Darkewolfe

Ah, there is no gas hookup, so nothing is gas. Thanks.

Pel

If there are studs and drywall, then the process is exactly the same as it would be anywhere else, period. You should only be drilling into studs, not masonry, and if there is a standard wall there, it would actually be very difficult to even touch the masonry unless you were specifically trying. It is also of note that it is, at least in my region and presumably everywhere else, patently illegal to vent gas appliances into a flue that is being used by a fireplace or woodburner, so that wouldn't be an issue anyways.

zepherin

Pel wrote: »

If there are studs and drywall, then the process is exactly the same as it would be anywhere else, period. You should only be drilling into studs, not masonry, and if there is a standard wall there, it would actually be very difficult to even touch the masonry unless you were specifically trying. It is also of note that it is, at least in my region and presumably everywhere else, patently illegal to vent gas appliances into a flue that is being used by a fireplace or woodburner, so that wouldn't be an issue anyways.

True this is against the IBC, however a lot of pre 1990s construction didn't really follow code, or the code wasn't written, and in some cases the fireplace was sealed and the chimney repurposed, often not in code. I think most things these days are direct vent.

Knino209

My question is can I mount the tv if the fireplace is on the backside of the wall to my room