An often overlooked but rather significant benefit to owning and utilizing a portable electric fireplace is the sheer cost efficiency of such a heating unit. While many alternative electric heating tactics significantly cut back on your home heating bills, electrical fireplaces may be the most convenient and perhaps the most affordable way to bring genuine warmth to your home.

There are essentially three reasons an electric fireplace heater is so effective at cutting home heating costs. First, electricity is and generally has been a cheaper resource than oil or gas; this is especially true today. Second, electric fireplaces are localized, room-specific heat generators; while traditional thermostat heating methods warm the entire house, even the rooms no one occupies, a free standing electric fireplace wastes no heat (and thereby wastes no heating costs) and warms only the rooms you install it in. Third, these fireplaces don’t require significant outside costs; while traditional heating methods require expensive resources such as gas and wood and oil, to say nothing of matches and cleaning treatments or fire pokers and other accessories, electrical fireplaces require only an initial payment and then the monthly electrical bill. That’s all you’ll ever have to pay for your warmth.

Depending on the model, electrical fireplaces produce several thousand BTUs of heat, up to about 10,000 BTUs. A 5,000 BTU heater is capable of warming a 500 square foot room. Electrical fireplaces, therefore, are highly efficient and effective ways to quickly heat up individual rooms, without wasting any ambient warmth in parts of the house that don’t need it. If you plan your fireplace installations in advance, you may never have to raise your thermostat higher than its lowest setting ever again (note: it is not a good idea to turn your thermostat completely off in winter months, as at its lowest setting a thermostat just keeps your pipes from freezing).

Traditional fireplaces may be very expensive, requiring accessories such as chimney brushes and fire pokers. Sometimes, old fashioned fireplaces require completely new chimney installations or rewiring, a new fireplace mantel, and they always require significant reserves of wood for fuel. So not only are electrical fireplaces more affordable initially, but they actually prove more cost-effective in the long run, as the only resource or outside expense you need to worry about is your electrical bill. With regular use, average electrical fireplaces cost only about 14 cents an hour.