Rather than using other forms of fuel such as firewood or gas, an electric fireplace is a form of fireplace that uses electricity to generate the heat and flame effects.

A key benefit to using an electric fireplace is that as long as there’s an electrical supply powering an electric fireplace it can be left running for as long as desired. With an electric fireplace, there’s no need to setup, maintain, put out and clean the fire.

An electric fireplace has two main components:

• The flame effects
• The heater

We’ve discussed how an electric fireplace works in more detail here, but the flames effects are typically created by reflecting light onto the back of a screen to imitate the look of flames, while the heat is commonly generated by a form of heater such as fan forced or infrared.

As long as an electric fireplace is plugged into one of your standard home electrical outlets or hard-wired into your home electrics, then these components of an electric fireplace will be able to run indefinitely, within reason.

While the flame effects in an electric fireplace typically won’t be a major safety concern, the issue lies with the heater.

Electric fireplace heaters work much like a space heater, in which electricity is used to generate heat.

The most common type of heater found in an electric fireplace can be a fan forced heater, while infrared heaters can typically be found in more expensive models of fireplace because they can generally heat a larger area.

These forms of heaters draw a lot of power and can get very hot when operating, particularly on the higher heat settings.

Our electric fireplace stove uses a conventional fan forced heater to produce the supplementary heat for the room. A blower forces cooler air from the back of the fireplace over a heating element, and warmer air is blown out into the room.

This heating element can get very hot during longer periods of operation.

As electric fireplace heaters draw a lot of power, for safety purposes electric fireplaces should always be plugged straight into an electrical outlet and never plugged into any form of power strip, surge protector of extension cable. (We explain outlet requirements for electric fireplaces in more detail here.)