Using a surge protector or power strip/extension cable would allow you to increase the distance an electric fireplace is located away from a standard electrical outlet, but you can you plug an electric fireplace into a surge protector or power strip?
For safety reasons an electric fireplace should not be plugged into any form of extension from an electrical outlet, such as a surge protectors or power strips. Electric fireplaces should only be plugged directly into a standard electrical outlet.
Electric fireplaces work by generating the flames artificially, typically using a combination of lights and rotating mirrors in order to project the look of flickering flames onto the front of the fireplace.
As the components in an electric fireplace that produce the flame effects don’t also produce heat like a real fire, electric fireplaces also typically have a form of heater integrated into the unit, such a fan forced heater or infrared heater.
These heaters inside an electric fireplace work much like a space heater (see our other article here explaining why), and so electric fireplaces should be treated much like a conventional space heater would be in terms of where it can be plugged into.
We have an electric fireplace stove and we always plug it straight into a nearby wall electrical outlet, in whichever room in our home we use it.
We never plug it into any form of surge protector or power strip/extension cable. If our electric fireplace can’t reach a wall outlet then we’ll move it to another location where it can.
This is because the instruction manual for our electric fireplace states that it’s not recommended to use an extension lead with it.
The heater in an electric fireplace can work much like a conventional home space heater where a large amount of power is drawn in order to generate the heat.
It’s therefore not recommended to plug your electric fireplace into any form of power strip, extension cable or surge protector.