A unique 21st Century trend has taken grip in large parts of America and has even made its way across the pond to the UK. That trend is the hanging or positioning of flat screen televisions above a fireplace or fireplace surround. The debate rages as to whether this is a good idea or not, but with valid points on both sides you may want to weight up the following points and decide which side of the argument you fall on.
Heat and smoke
Your fire can produce a great deal of heat and smoke, both of which are mostly invisible to the naked eye. It should be common knowledge to most people that electronics don’t work well in heat, and they especially don’t like having their key components covered in dust and soot. The soot can insulate your device on the inside and make it overheat further – ideally you want to have your television somewhere cool and temperate. To illuminate the dangers you might be shocked to learn there were 19 fatalities in the UK from 2011 to 2012 which resulted from accidental electrical fires.
The counter argument against this point is that if you have a television above the fire place then you probably won’t be lighting the fire as you watch your favourite soaps. This argument makes sense, but only if you vow not to use your fireplace for its intended purpose ever again. That’s because if you aren’t watching the television and put the fire on, the television can still be harmed by the heat and the smoke.
Neck pains
Much like any constant strain on your neck, craning to look upwards at your television when it’s hung above your line of sight is an avoidable one. Whilst some think it’s stylish there are many who argue that there is nothing more uncomfortable than having to watch at such an awkward angle, not only does it impact your neck but it can also be harmful to your back if sat fixed in such a way for a long time.
Until recently this argument highlighting the error of fireplace hung televisions was hard to go against but there are now ways to solve this problem. You can buy specialist brackets and supports which allow you to rotate and drop the angle of your television, effectively removing the need to strain your neck.
Line of sight
Closely related to the previous point, there is the issue of quality and the technology and gadget fan will probably be able to give you a detailed analysis, but what you essentially need to know is that the image and pixels on your television screen have an optimum view. Any move to the side, or even up and down, could change the image making it look weak or strangely coloured. When your television sits high up above a fireplace you don’t necessarily get the best view at all.
Once again an upgrade in design can solve this problem, with the option to bring your television down to a better viewing level. The only problem with this is that you most definitely can’t light your fire with the television lowered. However, if you care enough to have the television at the perfect viewing angle for quality reasons then you probably wouldn’t have chosen to hang it above the fireplace in the first place.
The arguments, depending on how you feel about each situation, can allow you to pick sides but what you should consider most of all is the practicality. For some people it is the height of interior design, or maybe you simply don’t have the space for a television elsewhere – in which case you can get a survey done at any point, including when you have a fireplace installed, to get an idea of whether the wall and fireplace can support a television.