Let’s say you have a new home and your architect asks you what kind of fireplace you would like the home builder to put in it? These days wood fireplaces aren’t even allowed in new homes in regions all over the US. Gas fireplaces are a direction that some people are choosing to go. However, they have their own issues as well. This is where electric fireplaces come in.
Electric fireplaces are quickly becoming the superior fireplace choice for modern homes. From superior heating solutions to superior fire effects without any of the typical fireplace hassle, electric fireplaces can elevate your home if you get the right one. Of course, when choosing the proper home decor, you have to be careful to avoid tacky electric fireplaces that only do more harm when it comes to interior design.
In the guide that follows, we will talk about why electric fireplaces are superior to a wood-burning fireplaces and superior to fireplaces that use gas logs and log sets. Before you jump into the showroom and buy one of the first electric fireplace low-class products that catch your eye, we will also talk about which flame effect is the most superior, and which fireplace brand you should check out.
Here Is Everything That You Can Expect To Learn In This Post:
- What Are The Issues With a Wood Fireplace As a Heating Solution? – If you think a wood fireplace is still a good idea, think again. This section will talk about the common types of wood fireplaces and the multitude of problems that you will be facing if you choose to use one in your home.
- Is a Gas Fireplace a Good Heating Solution? – When it comes to heating, fireplaces that use gas logs, whether vented or vent-free, can be a slightly better solution than using a fireplace that burns wood. In this section, we will cover the types of gas fireplaces you can use in your home.
- What Are Some Gas Fireplace Brands? – If you think gas fireplaces are the right direction for you, here are some brands that you might want to consider for your home. This section will cover fireplace models from brands like Glo, Lennox, and more.
- What Is IHP? – In this section, we will talk about IHP and its product lines.
- What Are The Different Types of Electric Fireplaces and Why Are They a Superior Heating Solution Than a Wood or Gas One? – If you have decided that electric fireplaces are the best fit for your home, this section will cover the many different types of electric fireplaces, which ones to avoid, and what the overall benefits of electric fireplaces are over other heating alternatives like wood and gas fireplaces.
- Which Flame Effects Are Considered The Best for an Electric Superior Fireplace? – Not all fire effects are created equal. This section will talk about fire effects in electric fireplaces and which one is the most realistic looking.
- Are MagikFlame Fireplaces a Superior Fireplace When It Comes To Both Fire Effects and Heating? – Here we will highlight everything about MagikFlame fireplaces that make them such a great choice for your home.
While wood fireplaces come with a log of nostalgia, they also come with a lot of issues. Here are the most common types of wood fireplaces:
● Open Hearth – This is the basic style wood fireplace that has an opening under a chimney for you to build a fire.
● Enclosed – This is the same as an open hearth, but with an enclosed gate instead of directly exposed flames. This makes it a little bit safer and more heat efficient.
● Fireplace Insert – This is a simple insert to convert your open-hearth fireplace into a more efficient enclosed version.
● Wood Burning Stove – These are traditionally for cabins and rural homes. They radiate heat into a small home and can be used for cooking. You can also classify pellet stoves here, for a more environmentally friendly take on wood stoves.
● Fire Pit – This is essentially an outdoor fireplace that is really just a novelty instead of for limited use.
There are quite a few reasons you should probably avoid wood fireplaces, even if you already have one in your home. Here are the problems you have to deal with:
● Fire Safety – An exposed flame and flammable soot building up inside of a chimney are two very serious issues to consider when using a fireplace. Both of these are reasons that wood fireplaces are one of the most common reasons that houses catch on fire.
● Harmful Emissions – Smoke fills your home and can cause serious breathing problems. Along with this, you have to consider problems with carbon monoxide poisoning due to an incomplete burn of the wood logs.
● Hassle To Use – You have to split logs, build your fire, keep an eye on the fire, stoke the flames, and clean the fireplace when you’re not using it. This all adds up to a lot of regular work just to heat your home.
● Heat Loss Problem – Many people don’t realize just how much heat is lost through the chimney. This means you have to go through a lot of wood in order for your home to stay warm.
● Smell – No matter how good your chimney is, smoke will get into your home and will cause a smell to linger in the air for long after the fire is extinguished. This smoky smell gets into the fibers of your furniture, it gets into your curtains, it gets into your carpet and rugs, and it can even get into the clothes you are wearing. The problem with this is that you will get used to the smell, so you won’t realize how bad it makes your home smell when guests come over, or how much you smell like a fireplace when you leave your house.
● Stains – Over time, the same smoke that will leave a smell within your home will also begin to cause your walls to yellow, as well as any lighter colored furniture or carpet in your home. Additionally, it isn’t uncommon for soot to start building up on the wall above the mantel, not just within the chimney itself.
● TV Damage – While it may seem like a good idea to mount a TV up above the mantel of a wood fireplace, this is a very bad idea. Doing so will leave you with a broken TV, and this type of damage usually isn’t covered by any kind of TV warranty.
● Wood Storage – Because you need so much wood throughout a cold winter, you need a good amount of space to store all of that wood. This can be difficult for people with smaller yards with no proper wood storage locations.
● Expensive To Build – If you don’t already have one of these built into your home, the construction costs of adding one are incredibly high. It is a huge undertaking that will require professionals to do a complete overhaul of a section of your home. However, this is even if it is legal to build a new fireplace onto an existing home where you live. In many places, you are only allowed to use wood fireplaces in older homes, not build them onto new homes.
Gas fireplaces can be natural gas, propane, and even some other rarer examples. Many are rated safe by EPA standards, however, there are some issues to be aware of when using one in your home.
While there are models like gas stoves and others to consider, there are really just a few main types of fireplaces:
● Direct Vent Fireplace – These are fireplaces that use a gas that needs ventilation as the emissions are unsafe.
● Vent-Free Fireplace – These are fireplaces that use a gas that doesn’t need any ventilation at all.
● B-Vent Fireplace – This is a ventilation-style fireplace that pulls air inside to be used for combustion.
Many built-in wall gas fireplaces have a colder stainless steel design, however, you can also find some that try to look like a more traditional fireplace but with gas log sets in the firebox. Many gas fireplaces use a thermocouple device. Using a thermocouple means that they still use some electricity in their function.
● Flame Is Exposed – The flame of gas fireplaces is still exposed. This means you have to worry about fire safety.
● Carbon Monoxide – Although they are cleaner due to the lack of smoke, there is still the issue of carbon monoxide from an incomplete burn of the gas.
● Ugly Flame Color – Gas fireplaces are known to almost always have ugly flame colors. This is especially true for the ones that have blue flames that look completely artificial.
● Weak Flame – Gas fireplaces are also known to have weak flames a lot of the time. While special logs can sometimes help break up the flame and make it look like it is flickering, they usually still struggle to look like a real fireplace that burns wood.
● Costly Installation – Gas fireplaces can be quite expensive to install and usually require hiring a professional to do so. This is because of the need of gas lines to be ran, as well as ventilation requirements depending on the type of gas you are using.
There are many brands of gas fireplaces if that is what you have decided to put in your home. Some of these brands on things like Glo, Lennox, FMI, and Quadrafire. Keep in mind that gas fireplaces will vary depending on the brand and what they specialize in. For instance, a Glo fireplace can function completely differently than a Lennox one, and be used for completely different situations. Even if it is a trusted brand, make sure to research the fireplaces thoroughly so that you know you have found one that perfectly fits what you need it for.
IHP stands for Innovative Hearth Products. They are a company that has several different brands of fireplaces that can all be searched by model number on their website. Each of their different fireplace brands tends to focus on a different fireplace specialty and aesthetic look.
Here are the common types of electric fireplaces that you can get:
● Flat Wall Fireplace Mantel Package
● Wall Mount Fireplace
● Corner Fireplace
● TV Stand Fireplace
● Corner TV Stand Fireplace
● Fireplace Insert
● Freestanding Fireplace Heater
● Electric Patio Heaters
● Electric Fireplace Stove
Here are the reasons you should choose electric fireplaces over wood or gas:
● No Added Fire Risk – You aren’t burning a thing in electric fireplaces. This means there is no added risk of a fire like there are with fireplaces that burn either wood or gas as their main fuel source.
● No Harmful Emissions – You don’t have to worry about smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide safety concerns. Only clean, warm air comes out of the blower of electric fireplaces.
● No Staining or Smells – The lack of smoke makes this free of any of the issues that are present like stains or smell from the smoke of a wood fireplace.
● Using it is Easy – When it comes to electric fireplaces, they are very simple to use. Once you turn it on, you just need to choose your heat settings and let the fireplace do the rest of the work. It knows how to put out more heat when the temperature is too low, or stop putting out heat when it rises above your chosen settings.
● Easy Installing – With the exception of installing a wall-mounted fireplace into a recessed wall, electric fireplaces are about as easy as picking a spot where you want them to go, and plugging it into a normal electrical outlet. That is it.
● Any Room in Your Home – Since your only real requirement is an electrical outlet and you don’t even need ventilation, you can easily put electric fireplaces into any room of your home. You can even move the fireplace quite easily if you change your mind of what room you want it in.
● TV Safe – Electric fireplaces are completely safe if you want to mount one above it.
● Heat Efficiency – They use the least amount of electricity possible and don’t lose any heat through ventilation.
● Supplemental Zone Heating – You can get multiple fireplaces for zone heating in larger homes.
● Remote Control – You can control the fireplace without getting out of your seat.
● Flame Effect Captures The Feel of a Majestic Real Fireplace – With good holographic flames, you can have a fireplace that truly looks like a real one.
When it comes to electric fireplaces, you don’t want ones with cheap LED lights or spinning mechanical devices with transparent colored windows. It is important to get flame effects that look very realistic if you don’t want to have a fireplace that looks tacky.
For this reason, you should stick to electric fireplaces that use 3D holographically projected flames like the Holoflame technology found inside of every MagikFlame fireplace.
MagikFlame fireplaces are all around one of the best electric fireplaces that you can choose to install in your home. Here is why they are so great:
● 3D Holoflame Fire Effects – The majestic, ultrarealistic fire effects in MagikFlame fireplaces is due to their unique 3D holographic technology. These 3D flames are projected into the firebox, showing beautiful flickering flames that look just like the real thing. You are able to choose between 30 different flames so that you can set the mood of the room to your exact preferences.
● Crackling Log Sounds – You don’t have just realistic visuals. With the sounds of crackling logs, you have realistic audio to go along with it. These crackling log sounds make the flames feel even more realistic and as an additional bonus, you can also choose to play extremely relaxing nature sounds.
● Infrared Heater That Puts Out 5,200 BTUs of Heat – With the 5,200 BTUs of heat that comes out of the blower on the infrared quartz heating device inside of every MagikFlame, you can easily warm a home of up to 1,000 square feet. While this is plenty for most homes, even if you have an extra-large home, you can still get a second MagikFlame and set it up for supplemental zone heating, saving even more on your heating bill.
● Smartphone App – with the smartphone app that comes with your MagikFlame fireplace, you can easily control every aspect of your fireplace from anywhere within your home.
