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Can an Electric Wood Burner Heat Up a Room?

Electric Wood Burner

Do you have a new home? Are you working with a home builder and an architect to design it? Maybe you are just trying to remodel the interior design of the living room in the home you’ve been living in for years. Regardless of your specific situation, an electric wood burner or electric fireplace is always an excellent choice when it comes to a beautiful focal point in your home.

Did you know a good electric fireplace for the living room also has enough heat output to warm 1,000 sq. ft. of your living space or more? The absolute best electrics have a fire effect that looks exactly like a real fire.

That all being said, which electric fireplace or wood burner type do you get anyway? Do you want something that has class, is modern, and sometimes timeless? Or are you going for a more rural farmhouse look with a fireplace stove heater? If you are leaning towards the latter, there may be several more questions that can come up. Is an electric stove enough to heat up a room? Can you use a freestanding electric stove heater as your main heat source? Are there any downsides to a freestanding stove that is electric? If so, what are some good alternatives to a freestanding stove-style unit?

In the post that follows, we are going to answer all of these questions that you think you might have and we will answer many more as well.

Electric Wood Burner Heat Up a Room

  • What Are The Benefits of an Electric Fireplace? – No matter what type of electric fireplace that you are thinking about getting, there are tons of benefits that they have over any fireplaces that use wood for fuel, gas for fuel, or a multi-fuel source. In this section, we will talk about all of the amazing benefits that come with choosing an electric fireplace for indoor use at your home.
  • What Is an Electric Wood Burner? – For people who aren’t quite sure exactly what an electric wood burner is, we will go into the details of what these are and why many people choose to have an electric stove heater like this in their home.
  • What Are Some Common Electric Stove Brands? – While it is easy to want to just search for cheap prices and get the first infrared electric stove you see, this section will talk about brands you should keep an eye out for so that you aren’t completely wasting your money on a lackluster product. We will cover brands like Dimplex, Duraflame, Gazco, and more for your next portable space heater that looks like a wood burner.
  • Can an Electric Wood Burner Heat Up a Room? – In order to be considered a good electric fireplace, you usually need to be able to heat up a sufficient amount of sq. ft. of a home or even a large room. In this part of the post, we will examine just how good these stoves are at heating a home, and if they typically have the sq. ft. heating ability as other alternatives.
  • What Are Some Other Downsides To Using an Electric Fireplace Stove? – An electric fireplace that is trying to look like a wood-burning stove has some specific drawbacks that some people might not really be aware of. In this section of the article, we will cover these concerns so that you can decide if this is really a solution that is the best for your home.
  • What Are The Other Types of Electric Fireplaces That Are Available? – For anyone that isn’t really sure that a stove is the best electric fireplace style for them, this section of the post will cover all of the additional types of electric fireplaces that are commonly found in homes. We will talk about which are best for home use and which should be avoided if you want to be satisfied with your purchase.
  • What Is The Best Electric Fireplace When It Comes To Realistic Fireplace Ambiance? – If you are someone that truly likes the idea of an electric fireplace with a realistic flame effect that can capture the ambiance of real wood-burning, you definitely need to read this section to find out what that fireplace is.
What Are The Benefits of an Electric Fireplace?


Compared to wood or gas fireplaces, there are tons of benefits you can expect to enjoy:

●      No Added Fire Risk Since No Burning
●      No Harmful Emissions
●      No Smoke Stains or Smells
●      Using it is Easy
●      Easy Installing
●      Install in Any Room in Your Home
●      Heat Efficient
●      Supplemental Zone Heating
●      Remote Control To Set The Thermostat and More
●      Flame Effect Captures Fireplace Ambiance

What Is an Electric Wood Burner?


An electrical wood burner is an electric fireplace that is made to look like a rural wood stove, or in some cases, a farmhouse gas stove. They usually have a housing that is matte black and is either made from cast iron or imitating it for a more traditional stove look. While a stove that burns wood typically needs a flue for ventilation, an electric one has no ventilation needs, therefore it isn’t needed to install any kind of piping for smoke to escape.
 
This is typically a free-standing electric space heater with an ember bed in the firebox, with a log set on top with a log effect. There will usually be a 3D flame effect involving an LED flame shown over a simulated log burner. The log burner will just be for show, and no actual burning is taking place.
 
These are typically infrared heaters, with additional safety features like overheat protection if one of the blowers ends up getting blocked.

What Are Some Common Electric Stove Brands?


Some common stove brands will include popular electric fireplace names like Dimplex with units like their DFI, or Duraflame which tends to be more well-known for their fire-starting logs. Another decent brand that might not be as well known is Gazco.
 
If you decide to go the route of getting an electrical stove as your primary electric fireplace, make sure to stick to a trusted brand. Unfortunately, there are quite a few terrible, generic brands out there when it comes to this type of fireplace. The problem with these generic devices is their lack of reliability, poor heating performance, underwhelming fire effects, and the need for replacement only a short year or two after buying one. If you instead stick to trusted brands, you have a better chance of ending up with a device that will last longer, perform better, and look much better while heating your home.

Can an Electric Wood Burner Heat Up a Room?


One of the problems with these stoves is that they tend to be smaller, and therefore have more underpowered heaters inside of them. Not only is there limited room for a decent heater in their incredibly small size, but there is even less room due to the need to fit fire effect technology inside of the fireplace unit as well. Trying to cram too many things into such a small device will always leave you with sacrifices to its performance in the long run.
 
That being said, these devices can usually handle warming a room, as long as it isn’t too big. If you have a large room, or you really want to warm more of your home besides a single, small room, you will likely want to get something more robust like a standard electric fireplace made to look like your typical open-hearth style fireplaces. If you try to use a smaller device with a weaker heater to heat a larger room, a few things are going to happen. First, the room will never quite get as warm as you want it. Second, the heater will be working constantly at its maximum capacity.

Third, this constant maximum capacity work will leave you with a much higher energy bill than you are expecting. Fourth, this constant high usage running will also make it degrade quicker so that you will need to get it fixed or get it replaced after just a short while. Think of it like a car. If you drive it wisely and maintain it, it will last a long time. However, if you try to take it down to the racetrack and push it to its maximum capacity for days on end, it won’t be long before the thing breaks down and parts need replacing.
 
In short, these units are an okay solution to warming a small room, but you should look into other alternatives if you need to warm a large room or your entire home.

What Are Some Other Downsides To Using an Electric Fireplace Stove?


Unfortunately, there are some definite downsides to these stove units besides just their underwhelming performance when it comes to heating a home. The first downside is directly tied to the size issue. Because these units are limited and size and need to leave room for a heating device inside of it, they are also going to be making sacrifices to the fire technology, not just the heater. This will leave you with fire effects that just don’t quite feel like they are capturing any kind of realism. Often, this leads to these units looking tacky and cheap within your home.
 
Another issue is in many models, build quality is rather poor. Because these typically aren’t the flagship fireplace of an electric fireplace company, they are more of an afterthought. They are usually made for people that can’t afford the higher-end fireplaces, and unfortunately, it shows. Parts used, the material it is made from, and the build quality itself can all suffer in the hopes that they can lower the cost enough to price it at a cheaper rate.
 
If you have an existing fireplace and you want to convert it into a fireplace that is electric while still keeping the original brickwork, chimney, and mantel, they sometimes get one of these stove units and just place it into the opening of the existing fireplace. The issue with this is that these aren’t made to be proper fireplace inserts. They don’t take up space properly and it just sits there, confusing most people who show up at your house. Instead, if you have an existing fireplace in your home, you should just focus on getting a proper fireplace insert that fits snugly and truly makes your traditional fireplace look like a real fireplace, even while being completely electric.
 
Lastly, electrical stoves tend to look really weird and out of place in most modern homes, unless you live in the countryside and prefer a strong, rural, farmhouse kind of decorating style.

What Are The Other Types of Electric Fireplaces That Are Available?


If you are second-guessing the idea of using an electric stove:

●      Fireplace Mantel Package For Flat Walls – These are some of the more common electric fireplaces that you will see and also the ones that best capture a traditional look of a real fireplace. These are units that usually come with a mantel you can choose from. They are placed on the floor, up against a flat wall, making them look like you have a real fireplace.

●      Corner Fireplace – For all intents and purposes, this is a fireplace that functions the same as a flat wall mantel fireplace. The only serious difference you will notice in these is the shape. They are designed so that they can snugly fit into the corner of a room. This is useful for people that want to save space like in an apartment or if it is a smaller room.

●      TV Stand Fireplace – This is an electric fireplace heater that is built into a TV stand or an entertainment center. The upside of these is that you can put the two main focal points of the living room into one single furniture piece, saving space in the process. The downside of these is that they suffer from a space issue just like the stoves. While the unit itself can be big, the heater is limited in size due to the need for shelving and cubby holes for media devices and media collections. On top of that, you are left with less shelving space for these things due to the need for the fireplace built into them. Again, trying to do too much in a limited space often requires sacrifices to be made. Plus, if the unit becomes damaged, you are now basically replacing two different pieces of furniture for your home rather than just one.

●      Corner TV Stand Fireplace – This is simply a TV stand or an entertainment center fireplace unit that is built for a corner rather than being placed against a flat wall. This suffers from the same downsides as the TV stand fireplace above, however, it is made even worse by the need of having it fit compactly into the corner. If you truly want a corner TV stand that is a fireplace, instead of getting an official TV stand fireplace, get a standard corner fireplace. You can just put your TV on top of that without sacrificing important fireplace space for shelves. These days, most people use streaming services exclusively anyway and streaming apps are built right into TVs. The lack of need for a cable box or a media collection means your space will look much cleaner and more organized.

●      Wall Mounted Electric FireplaceThis is a modern style electric fireplace that can be mounted on the wall using specially designed mounting brackets instead of just placing the fireplace on the floor. These units can also be installed into a wall recession so that the fireplace is completely embedded in the wall. While the wall-mounted fireplace can sit completely flush with the wall, it can also stick out slightly if you prefer more depth. Whether or not you can install your fireplace so that it is completely flush will depend on the thickness of the fireplace you buy and the clearance behind the drywall of your home.

●     Electric Fireplace Insert – These are the ones we already talked about previously. This is an electric fireplace that can fit perfectly into the firebox opening of a traditional wood-style fireplace. By inserting one of these into a traditional fireplace, it will be completely electric and no longer have a need for wood burning. On top of that, you can use these inserts with third-party mantels in case you don’t really like the ones offered by the manufacturer. You’ll notice that the inserts and the mantel package fireplaces are almost identical other than the mantel itself being included in the latter.

What Is The Best Electric Fireplace When It Comes To Realistic Fireplace Ambiance?


The best electric fireplace on the market is MagikFlame. Here is what you can expect:
●      30 Ultra-Realistic Flame Styles – These are indistinguishable from the real thing.
●      Crackling Log Sounds – This further immerses you in the fireplace realism.
●      5,200 BTU Heater – The 5,200 BTU heater can easily warm a room of 1000 square feet.
●      Smartphone App – Adjust the thermostat and heat settings, change the flickering flame style, and more with your phone.

Traditional White Electric Fireplace Mantel & Insert with Sound and Heater
Stand-Alone Electric Fireplace Insert with Sound and Heater
Modern White Electric Fireplace Mantel & Insert with Sound and Heater
European Style White Electric Fireplace Mantel & Insert with Sound and Heater
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