Humans have a primal attraction to a crackling flame and the ambience of a cozy fireplace. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright called the hearth the “the psychological center of the home,” and designed all his residences around a central fireplace.
For the majority of humans who now live in urban areas, a traditional wood-burning fireplace is not a practical or healthy option (for reasons we explain below). This reality has made gas fireplaces popular because they pair the beauty of fire with the convenience of a switch and without the hassle of chopping wood and lighting a flame. But because elimination of gas is a fundamental tenet of decarbonized living, and we all love a cozy fire, we need alternative decarbonized hearth options. Enter the electric fireplace. Corner Electric Fireplace
First, a little context on the hearths in American homes. 41% of new homes in the US have a fireplace, yet the traditional wood-burning one is disappearing. New homes with fireplaces of any kind declined by almost two-thirds from 1978 to 2017, possibly because fireplaces are plagued with problems like heat loss through the chimney, indoor air pollution, and risk of fire spreading. However, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ What Home Buyers Really Want, 55 and 48% of home buyers rate gas- and wood-burning fireplaces, respectively, as desirable or essential, and this share has been increasing since 2003.
Research consistently finds that traditional wood-burning and gas stoves are bad for indoor and outdoor air quality and create serious issues for human health and the environment. Burning wood releases harmful gas and particulate matter that leads to respiratory issues for people living in the home and around it. It’s one of the biggest sources of air pollution in the county where we live. Natural gas also pollutes indoors through combustion and leaks and releases significant outdoor pollution, including NOx and carbon dioxide. Air quality districts in California are beginning to phase out any natural gas combustion in the home because the air pollution exceeds that of gas power plants. Other countries have similar issues. In the UK, for example, fireplaces and stoves are now the largest single source of primary particle pollution, greater than traffic and industry!
Fortunately there is a great way to create clean, healthy, low carbon ambience with the feel of old school flames: the electric fireplace is the future home hearth. Because electricity is getting dramatically cleaner every year, with the rise of renewables and the demise of coal, electric fireplaces offer a cozy vibe without any of the negative health or environmental impacts.
Until recently, fireplaces were synonymous with combustion, and the words “electricity” and “fire” were rarely paired together in a positive way. When we think of electric heat, many of us imagine the glowing red, inefficient electric resistance coils that are hardly associated with a comforting fireplace. But like so many new, clean electric home technologies, the electric fireplace has undergone rapid, and appealing, changes over the last ten years.
The electric fireplace is a radically improved, often overlooked, technology that has a lot going for it:
Our 1987 ranch home didn’t have any kind of fireplace when we bought it in 2012. In 2015 we moved a pellet stove from our former house into an addition we built (we’ll cover the pros and cons of pellet stoves in a future article). In 2020, after hunkering down at home during the peak of the pandemic, we decided to invest in some home hygge and create a hearth to define our main living area, hide an unsightly electrical panel, and provide some storage. This simple, affordable project improved our home’s beauty, functionality, and carbon impact.
After much online research, we went to a local Portland electric fireplace store to check out the electric flames in person. We opted for a Dimplex because of the size (20 by 34 inches), which was the right proportion for our design, and realistic flame. We designed a hearth, mantle, and built-in cabinets and hired a local handy-person to put it all together over a long weekend when we were out of town.
The fireplace unit cost $700 and we spent close to $2500 on labor, lumber, drywall, and minor electrical work to build the hearth. This cost includes the plywood cabinets on either side.
The fireplace wonderfully defines our living room, which previously felt a bit anchorless in our open plan living area. It also provides heat, though we don’t turn on the heating element very often because it’s electric resistance, and our ductless heat pump is on the same wall. It came with unappealing plastic jewel-like rocks that sit on an interior shelf below the flame, and we replaced them with real rocks from the Oregon coast.
While we went for the built-in model because of our other project goals, there are lots of options for standalone electric fireplaces. Our product selection was based on the dimensions that best fit our design and had the most realistic looking flame. Depending on your goals, and the configuration of your home, you may consider one of the following:
Wall mounted can be hung right on your wall, like a piece of art or flat-screen TV.
Built-ins fit into a custom structure so they are flush with the wall, like our fireplace.
Inserts are well suited for homes with existing wood burning fireplaces and can sit in the existing opening.
Standalone models allow you to plug a fireplace into any outlet and create great ambience in any room. A great option for renters.
Water Vapor is even an option! These can be filled manually or connected to a water line to create vapor resembling smoke.
While you can find electric fireplaces that cost thousands of dollars (typically the long narrow, built-in variety), all of the models shown here are only a few hundred.
Three years after installing ours, we’re convinced that electric flames are the 21st century hearth. It was a win-win for us by anchoring our living room with a cozy fireplace and highlighting clean energy technology. For those with gas fireplaces, it provides one more opportunity to kick the last bastions of fossil fuels from our homes with an improvement in both aesthetics and air quality. You can enjoy a great looking flame and the coziness that people usually associate with combustion.
For more on electric fireplaces, check out this fireplace guide from Modern Blaze and this Electrify Now video.
This article is part of a series called Decarbonize Your Life. With modest steps and a middle-class income, our family has dramatically reduced emissions and is sequestering what remains through a small reforestation project. Our life is better for it. If we can do it, you can too.
Joe Wachunas and Naomi Cole are passionate about decarbonizing their lives. They both work professionally to address climate change — Naomi in urban sustainability and energy efficiency and Joe in the electrification of buildings and transportation. This passion, and their commitment to walk the walk, has led them to ductless heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction cooking, solar in multiple forms, hang-drying laundry (including cloth diapers), no cars to electric cars and charging without a garage or driveway, a reforestation grant from the US Department of Agriculture, and more. They live in Portland, Oregon, with their two young kids and write about their decarbonizing adventures at decarbonizeyourlife.com.
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