I am interested if anyone has legitimate information about mounting a 50" Panny over a brick fireplace. I was told by the salesperson at a local Best Buy that Magnolia Home Theater, the installer for them will not mount a plasma in brick. I have read several post on various sites that say you can mount the TV in brick, using concrete anchors. My plan was to have the bottom of the TV to rest on the mantle to preclude the total weight of the TV being applied directly to the brick mounts. Best Buy had a great buy for the Panny 50TH-PX600U and I would like to buy, but am reluctant to buy and have an encounter about the mounting. Any information appreciated.

I had a 42" plasma mounted on our brick fireplace back in early 2003 (Best Buy's installation sub-contractor actually did it. They even cored (2") through the brick facade to get access to the air space between the flue and facade to run the wires up into the attic and back to the HT cabinet). They used anchors into the brick and mortar to secure the mount. We never had any problems. My guess is that 2003 plasma weighed about the same as today's 50" plasmas or close to it. You might call some other home theater speciality shops in your area and find out if they will install on fireplaces and the costs associated with it.

My 50" has been anchored in brick for about 3 months now. I've got 6 concrete screws/anchors in the mount and it's not about to move. We positioned the mount so that no screws would be going into mortar. That might be overkill, but it made me feel better. It's as solid as the wall itself and it only took two of us about an hour to do it (two people to handle the hanging of the set). Now having said that . . . I have an older home where the building brick that was used is completely solid and that may not be the standard for homes now. That's something you might want to check out.

Not sure why they are saying that. Buy the TV there and Hire your own installer. If you can do work around the house, installing a plasma is easy. Use some www.tapcons.com and you will have an easy install.

Coming from a construction background and not an AV/HD one, I can tell you that securing anything to brick can get quite complicated.

But it can be done, and I've secured things to brick that dwarf the weight, size, and cost of a standard plasma television.

Where there's a need to affix something , a company will come up with a solution.

Quite a few years ago I was involved in securing lentils (angle irons) to a building that was essentially coming apart.

We used a product from Hilti (http://www.us.hilti.com/holus/modules/prcat/prca_navigation.jsp?OID=-12136) that was a two part adhesive.

It had the "sleeve" system described by the previous poster.

Simply, a hole is drilled through the brick to access the cavity that is behind it. A screen sleeve is placed in the hole. The epoxy is squeezed into the hole via a powered dual chamber "caulking gun". A disposable tip with an auger type device mixes the two chemicals.

The screen allows the epoxy to stay inplace and coat the cavity , then a threaded bolt is inserted.

When I first worked with it, the next day we attempted to mount a lentil with predrilled holes in it, onto the bolts. One of the the bolts didn't line up with the lentil. We called Hilti and he said spin a nut on the the bolt (3/4 thread) and hit it with a maul or 3lb hammer.

The rod/bolt bent before the epoxy gave, after only drying overnight. :eek:

In fact we quickly found out that the tips for the gun were disposable because after only 10 minutes if you tried to use the gun the material in the tip was dried and would blow open the cartridges. We soon realized that there were only a certain amount of tips shipped with each set of dual cartridges. So creating enough holes to inject with the epoxy to efficiently get the most time out of each tip was essential.

Bottom line is......

It can be done, but to do it right is the trick.

If your looking for anchoring system for a brick wall with a cavity behind it, this is the one I'd recommend.

Installing your mount to brick should not be complicated at all. Putting bolts in epoxy is overkill. This set weighs less than 100lbs.

Go with 4 to 6 Tapcons like Chris said and you'll be good to go. Install in the brick instead of the mortar. If you want to test it, you can hang on the mount and jump up and down like a monkey.

...My plan was to have the bottom of the TV to rest on the mantle to preclude the total weight of the TV being applied directly to the brick mounts.

That is probably not a great idea. Though there are people that have done it, the panels are designed to be supported from their mount points on the back panel rather than from the external chassis.

Yes, make sure you use a wall mount. If you do this, you should not need to rest the tv on the mantel.

A word of caution if mounting a plasma over a fireplace...

If you have vent-free gas logs in the fireplace, you really don't want to mount a plasma over it! ALL of the heat from the gas logs comes out the top face of the fireplace and up the wall above it. That's NOT what you want for your nice, expensive plasma TV.

I have a vent free gas fireplace and heat is not an issue for me. I'm sure each situation is different and it could be that my mantel sticks out far enough to block the majority of heat as it rises. There are many, many people with above fireplace mounts that have no problems.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/Kr8z1/PIONEER%20PRO-1540HD/Transporter%202/Transporter2.jpg

Make SURE the anchors are in the brick-not the mortar joints. Tapcons work great!!!

I'm in a bit of a different situation. I bought a builders spec house as it was nearing completion. The fireplace and surround had already been installed at this point. Its a "REAL" fireplace.. Ie the entire thing is built out of stone and mortar. ITs massive. I can post a picture if need be.

We would like to hang a plasma on this beast. I've been thinking of sever different ways to do it.

My main concern is that I don't want to destroy the stone by anchoring tapcons directly into it. It would be a total PITA to fix up later if we ever wanted to remove the plasma. Is it at all possible to anchor into the mortar or am I really asking for it? Fixing the mortar if I mess it up is pretty simplistic compared to finding natural cut stone that matches the piece I've messed up if I tap into the stone itself.

The other issue that I'm dealing with is that the stone is uneven. I think I can get around this by installing spacer blocks and running the tapcons through these blocks to level out the face.

I'd have an installer do it but everyone I've talked to really has no more of a clue how to do it than I do. Maybe I need to find a mason have him chisel out the mortar and then sink lags directly into it and have him re-mortar?

Make SURE the anchors are in the brick-not the mortar joints. Tapcons work great!!!
Actually I have had to go into the mortar on one job because the brick was so hard I could not drill through. I used Tapcons. Still hanging today.