Although electric fireplaces don’t have real flames, it can be sensible to question whether these types of fireplaces can be placed on materials that may not be fire resistant, such as carpet.
Understanding how an electric fireplace works and where the heater is located will help you to decide whether your particular fireplace is suitable to be used on carpet.
We have an electric fireplace stove and it’s designed to look like a real wood burning stove, with a metal body, large glass front door and legs.
There’s no real fire in an electric fireplace and so electric fireplaces can already be considered a safer form of fireplace compared to other types such as open wood burning or gas.
Electric fireplaces work by imitating the look of flames while providing supplementary heat through an additional integrated heater that works much like a conventional space heater.
The flame effects in an electric fireplace are typically generated through the use of rotating mirrors that reflect light onto the back of a screen in a particular pattern that produces the look of flickering flames.
The heat from an electric fireplace is typically delivered through a fan forced heater, but may be from an infrared or ceramic heater depending on the model of fireplace and the heating technology used.
For more information we have a complete guide to how electric fireplaces work here.
Our electric fireplaces uses the conventional fan forced heating with a blower and a heating element.
The heater on our electric fireplace is located at the base of the unit.
This means that if our electric fireplace stove were to be placed on the carpet without the legs attached the heater would be located directly on the carpet, and it would be unsafe to use the electric fireplace heater in this way.
We needed to install the legs on our electric fireplace when it arrived, and can be the case for many electric fireplace stoves to save on packaging space.
The legs on our electric fireplace help to lift the heater off the floor and make the unit much safer for use on carpet.
Therefore, be sure that you’ve setup and you’re using your electric fireplace correctly and that the heater is located off any carpet.
You can also check the instruction manual for your model of electric fireplace.
The guide for our electric fireplace stove recommends that it’s not suitable for use on long pile carpets.
Therefore, check with the manufacturers guidelines on how to safely use your electric fireplace on carpet.