Keeping Your Home Theater Clean & Healthy

To keep your home theater running smoothly and looking its best, we review some basic maintenance and cleaning tips.

We take for granted that our TV, DVD player and other home theater components will work without fail. But while these devices have become increasingly dependable through the years (with some notorious exceptions), there’s no getting around the fact that situations beyond one’s control can reach out and zap them right before your eyes. 

So it’s important to do what you can to insure the health of your HT. While there’s not enough space to list all the possible ways to go about doing this, we can discuss some of the most common problems and offer some real-world solutions from our experience.

Keep Things Secure
Loose cords and wires can be unsightly at the least and deadly to small children and pets at the worst. Companies making twist-ties and tube enclosures for holding wires together and PVC cord and wire channels for hiding them are legion; finding the best solution is just a matter of browsing at a Best Buy or looking online at a Crutchfield, Amazon or any other web site. Some folks can have wiring go through their walls, but most of us don’t have this luxury (in addition to housing codes, electrical work of this nature can be dangerous). As example, our home theater in the living room consists of a front projector on a stand with an HDMI and AC cable running some 14 feet to the component shelf against the wall. Rather than having this exposed, the cables are held inside a sheath matching the color of the carpet, with thinner sheaths covering the wires leading out from the wall to two free-standing surround speakers (had we any wiring on the walls, camouflaging wire channels would have been used). Meanwhile all of the A/V cables, AC cords and Ethernet wiring found at the component shelf has been bundled into tubes. There are also devices that provide for power cord management while adding surge protection. Belkin’s Conceal Surge protector (it hides cords and leads them away from the outlet while blending in with the wall baseboard) and Compact Surge Protector (routes the cords in one direction) are two examples.  As a result of this, accessing, replacing or adding new cables becomes easier to do while also decreasing the strain on the existing infrastructure.

Keep Things Clean
Dust is no friend to consumer electronic devices. Regardless of whether your components sit on a shelf or inside a rack or cabinet, there’s going to be some dust accumulation. Not to mention other debris such as pet hair or smoke ash. Wall mounted displays or projection screens aren’t precluded from this either, since bezels will catch dust quite readily, and static will draw debris to a screen. In general, using a lintless, all cotton cloth is recommended, and remember the idea is to lift the dust off, not just smear it around. I’ve had great success using the Audio Duster, a 14” sheepskin duster head that easily reaches behind components (the natural lanolin attracts and holds dust, which can be twirled away between the hands later outside). For cleaning and polishing screens, micro-fiber cloths will work well -  aided by a spray designed to not only be anti-static but free of alcohol and ammonia. This can be found from many vendors, such as Klear Screen. Just remember to never apply any kind of cleaner to the surface of the screen directly.
 
Cleaning the general area around the components can be done with a vacuum cleaner, provided care is taken with any loose wiring and making sure no power spikes occur from the vacuum that could put a component at risk (we don’t recommend using a regular vacuum cleaner to pull dust away from components). Small “dust-busters” work well for hard to reach areas, as do the tiny keyboard-type vacuums that run off of batteries or USB power. These can be used to remove dust from tiny cracks and crevices - for example around the lip of the disc slot of a Playstation 3 or even on a DVD’s disc tray. And having a small LED flashlight when poking into dark corners will prove immeasurably helpful as well.

Keep It Cool
All HT components generate heat - the amount varying with the type. Some have built-in fans (aren’t we glad we dusted already), but most rely on just dissipating heat away from them as they run.  Since heat rises, it’s important to have space above a component - especially if two devices are stacked one on top of the other (something we don’t recommend doing). There’s a reason why home theater furniture often has a large piece, if not the entire back missing. But without a way to move that heat around, a device inside of an enclosure gets the sauna treatment.

Since few family members will subscribe to keeping the room cold when it’s 10 degrees below outside - we suggest using fans to keep the air moving. Just putting a small fan in the corner and having it blow over to the other side can be a start, but real solutions come from dedicated fan units that are designed for consumer electronics. These consist of a shelf with integrated fan that sits above a top-vented device or even below it, such as the Dual-Mode Component Cooler. The Cool-Stick works within the miniscule confines behind a wall mounted Plasma display. Through use of fans such as these, heat build-up will be significantly reduced, resulting in longer life and better operation of all the components.

Keep It Juiced
Electricity is the driving force behind CE devices, and losing power even for a split-second can be disastrous. Having a surge protector to watch out for vagaries in the AC supply is a given, and while price varies depending upon manufacturer or model, the value does not. I recommend Panamax’s Flat-panel AC line conditioner/surge suppressor (MFP500-EX) which mounts directly to a flat-panel display or wall, and their component styled MAX 5400-EX with eleven outlets and dual digital meter display of the incoming AC voltage and current draw. They also have a model designed for protecting a plugged-in powered subwoofer, the Max 2 Sub.

AC safety, however, should also be extended to use of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS). These are well-known to computer users who appreciate being able to save their work and shut down the PC instead of having it just die on them.  There’s real value in having components attached to a UPS; for example, if the bulb of a rear-projection display or front projector gets terminated without having been allowed to cool down as it shuts off. Unexpectedly cutting the power can result in shortening the life of the bulb by as much as 30% and since the bulb can retail for as much as $300+, that’s something you’d want to avoid having happen.

Home theater maintenance may not sound sexy, but it’s a sure way to guarantee years of enjoyment from all of your CE devices.