Fireplaces for a TV Above

Putting a TV Above a Fireplace: What Actually Decides It

Putting a TV above a fireplace is a question of where the heat goes, not of which fuel you choose. Every fireplace in this collection either sends almost no heat up the wall, or carries a manufacturer system that moves the heat away from whatever is mounted above it.

Electric is the shortest route

An electric fireplace heats by fan-forced convection, pushing warm air out the front rather than radiating it upward. Very little reaches the wall above, which is why manufacturers state outright that a television can go there and why no shield, kit or special mantel is needed.

If the goal is simply a fireplace and a TV on the same wall with the least planning, this is the answer. See electric fireplaces for the full category.

Direct vent gas works, with the clearances the manual gives you

A gas fireplace sends real heat upward, so it needs more room above it than an electric one. That does not rule it out. Manufacturers publish clearance guidance for exactly this installation, and the clearances shrink once heat is redirected.

Direct vent is the type to use. It is a sealed appliance that draws combustion air from outside and exhausts outside, so less heat ends up in the room than with an open vent-free firebox, and its glass front contains the fire.

Every direct vent model here has manufacturer guidance for a television above it. Majestic publishes Good Faith Guidelines for TV installations, and its optional Passive Heat system allows a television 12 inches above with no mantel at all. We do not stock that kit, so order it with the fireplace through your installer. Superior states that its fireplaces are suited to a utility shelf directly above, commonly used for a television, and offers forced air and power vent kits. Those are ordered with the fireplace rather than stocked here. Napoleon documents backing the recess frame to carry TV mounting hardware, alongside its heat management kits. Empire prints a television clearance table giving the distance from the fireplace face and from the top of the opening. On Boulevard fireplaces it also builds the kit chain that moves the heat: the Forced Air TV Kit, which needs the Forced Air Heat Management System, the Heat Transfer Kit and the Flex Vent fitted alongside it.

Vent-free gas is the exception rather than the rule. The vent-free models here are Empire Boulevard fireplaces, which qualify because Empire builds a Forced Air TV Kit for them that moves the heat away. A vent-free fireplace without a system like that puts all of its heat into the room and up the wall, and does not belong under a television.

Ethanol is not a candidate at all. It is an open flame with no flue, so every bit of its heat rises into the room, and no manufacturer we carry documents a television above one.

Check the manual for your model, because one of ours forbids it

Guidance is per model, not per brand or per type. One Empire fireplace we sell states in its own manual that it has not been tested or approved to have a television installed above it, while its siblings in the same family publish a clearance table for doing exactly that. It is not in this collection for that reason.

So treat the collection as the shortlist and the manual as the authority. If a model is here, the manufacturer addresses a television above it somewhere in the documentation, and that section is what your installation has to follow.

A non-combustible mantel is a heat shield, not decoration

A concrete or stone floating mantel above the opening intercepts rising heat and pushes it outward into the room, which lets a television sit lower than the bare clearance would allow. It is the reason many installations that look too tight are in fact correct.

See fireplace mantel shelves for shelves that do this job, and non-combustible mantels for the material that makes it work.

The clearance figure that matters is your model's

Clearance to combustibles above the opening changes with the model, the fuel, and whether a heat management system or shield is fitted. A figure that is right for one fireplace is wrong for another, so take it from the manual for the unit you are buying rather than from a general rule.

It is worth settling before the wall is closed up rather than after the TV is mounted, because the fix afterwards is usually the wall rather than the bracket.