Electric Fireplaces

Plug in and hardwired fireplaces

Most of these units plug into an ordinary 110 to 120 volt household outlet and run 750 watts on the low setting and 1500 on the high, which works out at around 5000 BTU. That is the practical ceiling for anything on a standard plug, because a 15 amp circuit is rated for continuous loads well below its peak.

Several units here are built to be hardwired instead, and some of those offer a choice: 120 volts for the usual output or 240 volts for roughly double it. That is the single most consequential decision on this page, and it has to be made before the wall is closed up instead of after. If the wall can have a dedicated circuit brought to it, the heat question opens up; if the unit will live on an existing outlet, the 1500 watt figure is what to plan around.

Electric fireplace widths

The range runs from 26 inches to 100. At the short end a unit reads as a fireplace: a contained opening with flame in it, which sits in a chimney breast or a built in cabinet the way a firebox would.

As the width grows the proportions change and the unit stops reading as an object and starts reading as a line of light across the wall. At 74 and 100 inches it is a wall treatment, usually set into panelling or stone, and the flame becomes part of the room's architecture. Where exactly that changeover happens depends on the wall, which is why a tape goes up before the size.

Electric flame without heat

Almost everything here runs its flame independently of its heater. That is what separates an electric unit from every other kind of fireplace, and it is why they turn up in bedrooms, offices and apartments as often as in living rooms.

A gas or wood fire is a heating appliance that happens to look good. An electric one is a lighting effect that can also heat, which means it can run in August with the air conditioning on.

Flame and glass options

Since the electrical side is largely fixed by how the unit is wired, the differences between ranges sit in the flame and the glass. Some units are single sided; others are three sided, with tempered glass on the front and both ends so the flame is visible from more of the room.

The flame itself is produced differently from one range to another, and that is the thing to ask about by name rather than to assume: some use colored light over a fuel bed, others project a moving image, and a few generate a water vapor effect. Our range spans several makers, Dimplex and SimpliFire among them, and the controls vary with the method: flame color and brightness settings, thermostats that hold a temperature, remote and app control. What a flame looks like across a hundred inches of glass is better judged on video than from a photograph.

An electric fireplace needs no flue

Because nothing burns, there is no combustion air to bring in and nothing to vent out. That removes the two things which make a gas or wood fireplace a building project.

What remains is the electrical supply and an opening sized to the unit. The clearances that apply around it, and above it where a television is going, are published per product and vary between them, so they belong in the wall design and not in the install. Your electrician settles the supply side.

Recessed, wall mounted and built in

The same unit is often installed three ways: recessed into the wall so the glass sits flush, hung on the surface like a television, or built into joinery with a mantel and surround. The look is completely different in each case and the product is the same.

If the intention is a stone surround around the opening, the marble fireplace surrounds range covers that side, and the fireplace inserts page covers units built to drop into an existing opening.