Electric fireplaces differ to gas and wood burning fireplaces or stoves, as they don’t have real flames and are powered by electricity.
Many electric fireplaces come pre-assembled, so do electric fireplaces just plug in to work?
Many electric fireplaces simply need to be plugged into a mains electrical supply in your home in order to work. When an electric fireplace is plugged in and turned on at the wall, it’s ready to be used by operating the controls on the fireplace.
I have electric fireplaces in my home and I’ve shown in this article how they can be set up and used in very little time.
Do Electric Fireplaces Plug In?
Electric fireplaces have two main components; one that controls and operates the flame effect, and one that provides the heat.
The flame effect can either be produced by an LED screen, or a light source with rotating mirrors that imitates the effect of flickering flames.
Many electric fireplaces also use a conventional space heater as the way to provide heat to your home. This component includes a blower that forces cooler air through a heating element that heats up the air and provides warmth to the room. The heater on an electric fireplace can also be an infrared heater instead of a heating element and blower.
Both of these components simply require electricity to operate. There’s no requirement for a source of solid fuel or oxygen, which a real fire would need.
As such, electric fireplaces simply need to be plugged into a nearby power socket to work.
Many manufacturers of electric fireplaces, including the manufacturers of my own electric fireplaces, state that they should always be plugged straight into a power socket, and never any form of timer plug or extension lead.
Therefore, electric fireplaces will need to be located in your home near to a power socket, without the need for an extension cable. They should be placed in an area that isn’t confined, with plenty of space around it for air circulation.
Here’s where I place my freestanding electric fireplace when the open fireplace isn’t being used, and also shows it plugged straight in at the wall.
How Electric Fireplaces Plug In
Electric fireplaces have a power cable that typically comes out of the back or side of the appliance.
For example, the power cord for my freestanding electric fireplace stove is located at the back of the unit, at the base where the heater component is.
The images below show where the power cable comes out the back of the fireplace, and how long you can expect the power cord to be.
Electric fireplaces will come with the power cable pre-assembled, and so the fireplace power cord can simply be plugged straight in at the wall out of the box. (Some assembly is typically required and you can see how I put together and setup my freestanding electric fireplace here.)
The socket also needs to be switched on at the wall for the electric fireplace to work.
With the electric fireplace plugged in and turned on at the wall, you can use the controls to turn on the flame effect and the heater.
Here’s what the controls look like on my freestanding electric fireplace:
I’ve also put together a complete guide on how to use an electric fireplace.
Further Reading
Can Electric Fireplace Heat A Room?
What’s Inside An Electric Fireplace
How An Electric Fireplace Works