Media walls: what to know before you commit

The most common media wall mistake is building the joinery before choosing the fire. Once a stud wall is up and finished, the aperture is fixed — and every inset fire has its own required size, clearances and depth.

Choose the fire first. Build the wall around the appliance, not the other way round. Otherwise it is easy to end up with a 1500mm opening and a 1720mm fire.

Mind the heat above the fire. Electric units run cooler than gas, but they still exhaust warm air, and a television mounted directly in that path will suffer. Manufacturers specify a minimum separation or a deflector — follow it.

Plan the cables before the plasterboard. Power for the fire, power and HDMI for the television, and a route for whatever drives it. Adding conduit to a finished wall means cutting it open.

Get the TV height right. Media walls tempt people to mount the screen high because the fire takes the lower space. A television well above seated eye level quickly becomes uncomfortable to watch.

Decide the finish early. Micro-cement, timber slats, marble and painted board all need different substrates and different tolerances at the edge of the opening.

We survey media walls before any joinery goes up, and are happy to talk directly to your builder or carpenter about the aperture.