[brj]

Hello all.

I'm considering a home at the moment that has a brick wood-burning fireplace centered in the front of the great room.  I'm not talking about decorative brick on a stud wall, but a truly massive chimney of brick serving a dual role as a fireplace and as a wall that separates the great room from the dining room.  (This house was built in 1969.)  The natural place for a TV in this room is a plasma mounted on the chimney with monitors mounted to either side.  It would be nice to avoid a mess of cables running down the brick, but I don't know how you'd route cables through it.

Has anyone done something like this before or have any thoughts?

Thanks!

[whubbard]

I would say that you could drill into the brick, forming somewhat of a tube, but from the amount of brick you describe, this doesn't seem possible.

Are the bricks right on the outside and the TV will be mounted to them? If so, you could do it, but it would take work. You could remove some of the mortar in between the bricks; lay the cable inside, then seal over them with more mortar. However, in the need to remove a cable, it would be a bit of a pain, but that way the wires would be hidden. If you decide to do that, my only recommendation would be to put some extra cables in, as you don't want to have to change them when you upgrade components. If you have a decent amount of cables, you will need to remove a lot of mortar, and it will be a fair amount of work, so you might think twice before doing this.

My other recommendation would be to get a simple white cable tube (a ton of places carry them). Place it right on the brick, and have the wires going thought it. Then paint it to the best of you ability to match the bricks. It probably won't look amazing, but it will look better than a bunch of hanging cables.

Those are the two things I can think of for now.

-West

[mjosef]

one word: conduit

[Legendlime]

[one word: conduit]

If you can't get inside the wall they do sell surface mount conduit.

I have a brick fireplace in my living room and it is built on a cinder block foundation down in the basement. Even though the bricks form a wall, there is a cavity on the sides of the actual "fire brick" fireplace and the "structural brick" wall. See if you can identify a cavity that's accessable from the basement or from the top  of the wall though the attic or upstairs area. If there is, maybe you can drill a hole through the brick and get your cables, at least, close to where you need them. Use electrical outlets, conduit or heating vents as landmarks to figure out where things are on the main floor when you scope it out from above or below. 
 I've got one of my satellites mounted on the brick and I ran shielded cable up though the wall behind the receiver across the attic and I drilled a hole in the ceiling and dropped down to the speaker. My speakers are mounted kind of high because it's a walkway.