Cost Benefits and Considerations for Electric Fireplaces

Electric fireplace with a burning coals and red-orange background

At Comfort Solutions, we’re proud to provide a variety of modern fireplace options for you and your family. One such option, and one of our most popular, is the electric fireplace.
An electric fireplace offers many benefits, potentially including cost benefit. To find out whether this is the case for you, we recommend laying out the different costs associated with an electric fireplace, then combining them into one larger number. Let’s go over some important areas.

Initial Costs

Depending on the style and size of your electronic fireplace, your initial costs can vary widely. A small basic unit might cost $200 or so, while a more complex built-in unit could run up into the thousands and require professional installation. If your unit will require installation, be sure to factor in these costs during your calculations.

Energy Costs

All the energy that an electric fireplace uses is converted into heat, which means that electric fireplaces are 100 percent energy efficient – no extra heat is escaping. In many cases, owners of these fireplaces find they require less use of central heat in their homes, and this can lead to significant cost savings without reducing your comfort.

Maintenance Costs

Electric fireplaces don’t urn combustible fuel, meaning they don’t deal with the kind of corrosion that can shorten the lifespan of other types of fireplaces. With this in mind, the overall cost of an electric fireplace can be fairly evenly spread over a period of up to 10 years, often even more.

Calculating Totals

When you’re considering the purchase of an electric fireplace, assess the overall costs combined. Add the initial price to energy and maintenance costs, estimating how often you plan to have the unit running on average. Ten years is a reasonable expectation for the life of your fireplace, so multiply your energy costs by 10 to get a rough estimate of the lifetime operating costs. From there, subtract a rough estimate of 10 percent reduction in central heat usage.
For more on the costs involved with an electric fireplace, or to find out about any of our new fireplace choices, speak to the pros at Comfort Solutions today.