An existing wood burning fireplace is the traditional open fireplace seen in many homes. These types of fireplaces have an open firebox with the chimney located above to help remove waste gases and smoke from a home when having a fire.
Existing open fireplace wood burning fires are generally not very efficient when it comes to generating heat.
Although a fire will radiate some of the heat into the room, much of the heat produced is lost up the chimney. You may need to sit closer to an existing fireplace to feel the warmth of the fire and an open fireplace therefore may not be able to effectively heat a room.
Electric fireplaces are another type of fireplace but differ from gas or wood burning fireplaces because there’s no real fire.
Electric fireplaces require a source of electricity in order to produce heat so can you convert a fireplace to electric?
An existing open fireplace can be converted to electric by installing an electrical outlet with the firebox of the real fireplace and installing a plug-in electric fireplace insert into the fireplace opening.
We’ve explained the main parts of a real fireplace in more detail here but the firebox of an open fireplace is the main area where the fire is created. A fire is built on the hearth within the real fireplace and the whole of the firebox is lined with fire-resistant materials.
In order for a fireplace to be converted to electric an electrical supply may need to be installed within the firebox.
As an electric fireplace needs a source of electricity to work there needs to be some form of electrical supply installed within (or near to) the firebox of the open fireplace.
Many electric fireplaces come with a standard power supply cord that can be plugged into any typical home electrical outlet. When converting a fireplace to electric it’s therefore common to have an electrical outlet installed within the firebox of the real fireplace in order for the electric fireplace to plug into.
Other types of electric fireplace, especially those with more powerful heaters, may need to be direct wired into the home electrics, but an electrical supply will still need to be provided to the open fireplace.
The downside of converting a fireplace to electric is that the fireplace can’t then be used again for real wood burning fires unless the electrical supply is removed from the firebox.
In some circumstances the power cord from an electric fireplace may be able to reach a nearby electric electrical outlet that is located outside of the open fireplace firebox. We have an electric fireplace stove that we like to put in our living room open fireplace during the summer months when the fireplace isn’t being used, as we can enjoy the flames on the electric fireplace without having to turn the heater on.
There’s an electrical outlet located near to the firebox that the electric fireplace power cord can reach.
This allows us to enjoy using the electric fireplace in our open fireplace without the need for installing an electrical outlet within the firebox and losing the ability to use the open fireplace for wood burning fires through the winter months.
However, the downside of doing this is that the power cord remains visible and doesn’t look very tidy as it makes it’s way across the hearth and around the fireplace surround to the electrical outlet on the nearby wall.
If we were fully convert this fireplace to electric then we would look to have an electrical outlet installed within the firebox and install an electric fireplace insert as a more permanent solution.