Hi, Marilyn. I have an electric fireplace and I do like it. It has a beautiful carved mantle and the logs and flames are very realistic. For the life of me, I can't remember the brand (I'm at work). I've heard negative comments about electric fireplaces but, as I said, I do like mine and have been very satisfied with it.

Actually we have 2, have had them for many, many years, have moved them from home to home,despite buyers wanting them, and in Florida they are just perfect, ours hang on a bracket on the wall, here's a pic. of the one in our master bedroom, went down to 42° the other night, it is so nice to have on then...the heater in it does a great job.The other one which is white brick on the bottom is in our media room.

Here is a link that might be useful:

We installed on in our basement. It is branded Lenox. We like it just fine. Electric fits our need for supplemental heat while giving the ambience of a fire though no one would accept it as being a real fireplace. And, we can operate the flame without heat. Ours in built-in - photos are linked from "My Page"

Glad to see you came out of lurkdom ;)
Ours is one we got at Home Depot, cost was around $250, brand is Charmglow. I like the antique stove look, so that's what we got. Has "burning log" only setting, or heat + burning log. 1500 watts (swear the box had a BTU rating, but that's not on the tag on the back of the stove.)

We use it in our lower level family room, which is 50% below grade. The genius that installed all the ductwork way back put everything on the ceiling (we think it was initially an unfinished basement, finished later on). So the heat registers at the ceiling tend to keep the heat up there, even with deflectors I put on. We keep our furnace set low (67/68) and the family room gets down to 64/66. With the electric fireplace we can get the temp up to a cozier 69/72, depends on how cold it is outside.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

We are getting one on Friday (being delivered). I will post pics once it is up. We are getting this one:

Here is a link that might be useful: Amherst Electric Corner Fireplace

We have a Dimplex--Celeste model in cream. We love the look of it. It has the fire only and heat options. We are using it in a converted three season to four season porch that has 3 walls of glass windows. The fireplace adds just the additional heat that we needed in this area (we had extended the baseboard heating to this area but it was still too chilly). It makes the area very comfortable. This is the link (the price listed here is way off; we paid $450 for it from a local store). We have not noticed any large increase in our electric bill.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dimplex Celeste Unit

I was surprised to see your post valley tha you don't notice a difference in the electric bill. I am curious if anyone else has similar experience. I never really considered elctric for extra heat as I assumed it would be costly.

We also have a Dimplex electric woodstove. We love it. We use with and without heat. It really just costs pennies a day to use. We don't notice it at all on our electric bill. It suppliments the heat from our furnace on chilly mornings and evenings so we can keep the furnace thermastat at a lower temp.

Here is our electric F P. Had it at our old house for 13 years, it was oak and I painted it white when we moved here this summer. I love mine and appreciate the flexibility- you can move it anyplace! :)

Here is a link that might be useful:

We bought one for our new house. It will be surrounded by a custom mantle. We couldn't resist it and took it out of the box and set it on the floor while the framing for the surround is being done.

It is wonderful!

Because it heats our living room very well, we don't even bother with the heat on in the rest of the house. The only heat we have really been using is the fireplace.

I read an article (can't find the link at the moment) that touted how energy efficient an efp is because one does not need to heat the entire home, just the occupied room. For us, that has been very true.

The flames are very real looking. With our surround built into the wall to mimic a traditional wb fireplace, I imagine it will look even better. I didn't care for those premade mantle/fireplace packages at the store, so the insert with a mantle made for our house worked better for us.

The light alone is wonderful to eat by and the remote makes things very handy. Though I love real fireplaces, I lived through a couple incidents as a child that make me weary of the safety issues. Ours is worry-free.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It was just the push I needed to buy this one.

TESSA FIREPLACE

Regarding the additional cost of running an electric fireplace--the Dimplex model (Celeste) we purchased advertised that it cost pennies a day to operate. We were very skeptical as well but have found that there has been no noticeable increase in the electric bill. When we originally ordered it online last year we found it was backordered and finally ordered it through a local store (similar in price but no shipping cost). We still had to wait to get it but saved a little with the no shipping.

ANy guidelines on what size to choose? I have been wanting to get one for the MBR and can't figure out if to get the medium or large size.

This is such a timely post for me, as well, since I've been considering one for our MB. We are on propane and it just went to $2.65 a gallon! Even keeping the furnace set at 65 in the day and 60 at night, I know our bill will be several hundred dollars. We had a gas (propane conversion) fireplace installed in our LR wood burning fireplace several years ago and while it works great, I don't want the hassle of and cost of using propane in the bedroom.

Tanks for all the links and advice!

Diana

We have a Berkeley electric fireplace with the flame only or flame and heat options. The remote control is handy.