The plight of people wondering if they should mount a TV over their fireplace reminds me of a “Twilight Zone” episode. In said episode, a spaceship carrying highly intelligent beings lands on a distant planet where a group of colonists had crashed 30 years before. When one of the colonists breaks his wrist, the resident physician begins to apply a splint to the man’s arm. But before he gets halfway through the process, one of the advanced visitors waves a wand and the man’s wrist is immediately healed.

The old doctor protests in earnest, claiming that the only way to heal a broken arm is the tried-and-true splint method. But, after examining the man’s arm, he had to admit: the wand had worked. There was no cogent argument he could make to claim otherwise.

There is a valuable lesson here: conventional wisdom is fine, until something better comes along. And there is no better illustration of this adage than when trying to mount a TV above a fireplace.

Why Do People Still Think Mounting a TV Over the Fireplace is a Bad Idea?

As a professional installer, you’ve likely heard all the reasons why it might be a mistake to hang your precious flat-screen TV over the fireplace. The heat will damage the TV. The viewing angle is too high. The TV will be off axis. The list goes on.

However, take one look at a Google search, and you will see how popular of a mounting option the fireplace is for a TV. The reason is that for many homeowners, the most logical place for them to mount a TV is over the fireplace. After all, it’s the main focal point of the room, with many living spaces designed such that sofas face the fireplace at the center.

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Of course, one Google search will also show you that a lot of people still think it’s a bad idea to mount a flat-screen over a fireplace. Remember what I said about conventional wisdom, though? Once upon a time, it was a bad idea to hang your TV over your fireplace, but now, with the right tools and equipment, that couldn’t be further from the truth. So let’s look into why people still think that, and why nowadays, you can hang a TV over a fireplace in a way that’s cost-effective, efficient and, most importantly, safe.

1. The Heat and Soot Will Damage the Electronics

According to some electronics experts, having an open blaze going while your TV is above the fireplace can potentially damage sensitive electronic parts. Nowadays, there is considerable disagreement over this issue; even those who agree can’t necessarily agree on what temperature is considered too high and how long a TV must be exposed to it before damage occurs.

Understanding the clearance of a fireplace is something you want to be aware of when mounting a new, expensive TV. Clearance is a fancy way of saying the minimum distance from a fireplace that combustibles such as a mantel, shelf or flat-screen TV can be placed.

However, you might have already pieced together that if the fireplace already has a mantel in place, then you already know the fireplace’s clearance.

The fact is, if the TV is above the mantel, the mantel will act as a shield from the rising heat. However, the situation changes when you have a full-motion mount with vertical movement that allows the viewer to put the TV right out in front of the fireplace. Look for TV mounts that include heat alerts.

Marc says just about all TVs are generally rated to handle 120 degrees of heat without any damage.

“If you’re dealing with one of these humongous, wood-burning fireplaces and it throws off a ton of heat, it may not be the best idea to put your TV over that fireplace. However, there’s usually a mantel in the way, and the mantel blocks a lot of that heat from going to the TV. Most newer homes these days have gas fireplaces which don’t put off a lot of heat at all.”

“Years ago, people were very concerned with smoke and soot affecting the wires. In the whole time I’ve been in this business, I haven’t heard of one case where that actually happened.”

2. The Viewing Angle Above a Fireplace is Too High for the TV

The problem that enters the picture when mounting the TV over the mantel is that this often puts the viewing angle for the TV well above eye level, requiring the viewer to crane their neck to see the television.

According to the Prairie Spine Institute, “If the TV is…mounted too high, people tend to look up. This could potentially lead to muscular imbalances, and stiffness, particularly of the neck.”

However, this issue is very easily remedied by being very specific on the type of TV mount you select for the project. Pull-down and full-motion mounts offer a variety of capabilities that enhance the TV-viewing experience.

The key words here are “full motion.” There are several mounts that offer tilt capability, as well as articulation. While both are useful, it is the vertical movement which allows the viewer to mount their TV above the fireplace, pull it down to eye level when they want to watch it, then easily move it back when they’re finished. No neck craning, no health problems, no doctor’s appointments.

“If you set your TV to the perfect height, your eyes would be parallel to roughly the center of your TV, but that’s in a perfect world if there’s no fireplace in the way,” Marc says.

“The good rule of thumb for the viewing distance with a fireplace or in any other situation is to take the size of your TV and divide by 0.55 — so a 55-inch TV would mean that the viewer should be about 100 inches, or eight feet, away from the screen.” (Marc goes into this in more detail when talking about the ideal height and viewing distance for a mounted TV).

3. The TV Will Be Off-Axis for Viewing

In addition to the neck-craning problem, there is the quality of the picture to consider. If the viewer is not looking straight at the screen (as they likely would with a TV mounted above a fireplace), the result can be a washed-out image, as the viewer is only seeing a fraction of the light being produced by the TV.

The best picture quality is going to come from watching your TV at eye level, according to Lee Marc, CEO of MantelMount. And, much like with the viewing angle, using a modern, full-motion TV wall mount over the fireplace, picture quality is no longer a concern.

Mounts with vertical capability allow the viewer to bring the TV down to eye level. Since they are now looking straight at the screen, the problem of washed-out picture quality is eliminated. Even for mounts without vertical movement, they can at least be tilted downward to minimize loss of resolution.

Mounting a TV Above the Fireplace Isn’t the Mistake it Once Was

The frustrating aspect to all of this is that despite the introduction of full-motion pull down TV mounts, the number of articles claiming that a TV should never be placed above a fireplace continue to proliferate.

With the possible exception of an aesthetics issue, a high-quality, full-motion mount renders all of the objections moot. Should you decide to mount a TV above a fireplace – or high on any wall, even without a fireplace – remember that the vast majority of articles strongly recommending against it are not taking full-motion mounts into consideration.

Now, armed with this information, the next time you have a customer who is considering mounting their TV above their fireplace but is concerned by articles stating it’s a bad idea, you will be able to explain that it is a fine idea, and won’t be forced to find an alternative location. You can tell them that putting their TV above their fireplace is a fine idea, and you know just the way they can do it.

Spencer Greenwald is the chief revenue officer at MantelMount.

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