Electric fireplaces in the interiorFireplaces for the first timesolid fuel appeared in medieval Europe. They served for heating, lighting, ventilation of the room, cooking. Nowadays, fireplaces play a mainly decorative role in the interior. Today, creating a wood or coal fireplace can be an expensive and troublesome pleasure. To equip a fireplace in an apartment, you need to obtain permission for redevelopment, draw up a project, coordinate it with many authorities (BTI, Fire Supervision, etc.), carry out a number of construction works, equip a chimney and a ventilation system. All this is terribly troublesome and expensive. In a country house, a fireplace is more accessible, especially if its construction is carried out simultaneously with the construction of the building, according to the general design.
What should you do if you want to get one?your own fireplace and avoid a lot of problems? The easiest option is to install an electric fireplace in the room. Such products are lightweight, compact and have an elegant appearance. They are fire-safe, do not require fuel, do not emit soot or smoke, do not require a chimney and are free of all the other troubles that accompany a real classic fireplace with an open fire. Their installation is extremely simple. All you need to do is take the fireplace out of the box, put it in the right place and plug it into a socket. After that, the room will be filled with warmth, flame reflections and coziness. An electric fireplace costs 5-10 times less than a natural classic solid fuel fireplace. And you will get a flame that is almost as bright, but created artificially.
What's inside?
In addition to the heating element that producesheat, the most important and very interesting detail of the electric fireplace is the mechanism responsible for the imitation of flame. It can be arranged in different ways. In "pseudo-wood" models, pieces of red silk or red foil are often used, which oscillate in the air flow created by a special fan. At the same time, inside the firebox there are dummies of burnt logs and scatterings of charcoal, made of artfully painted plastic. They are illuminated and shimmer with all shades of red, like natural ones. The design is complemented by a system of mirrors and colored backlighting. As a result, the effect of a play of tongues of fire on a screen located near the back wall of the fireplace is created. Such an imitation mechanism can be quite complex.
The heating element in electric fireplacesA heating element or electric coil serves as the heating element, sometimes paired with a fan with a silent motor. Often, models with a coil use a reflector located behind the heating element. Then the heat is reflected in the direction of the front of the fireplace, and an infrared heater effect occurs, to which you can bring your hands and warm up. Laminar flows of warm air emanate from a working electric fireplace (without a fan). They slowly spread throughout the room, practically without raising dust. The body of the device does not heat up, so the fireplace (depending on the type) can be installed in a variety of places in the room: near a wall, in a corner or in the center. There are high-tech style models designed to be hung on the wall like a picture or a plasma panel. The design of the fireplace ensures that air flows around the heating element through internal channels. This ensures that almost 100% of the energy from the heating element is transferred to the surrounding space.
Fireplace and electronics
Modern electric fireplaces are equipped with a convenientcontrol system. Many models have a built-in thermostat to maintain a set temperature in the room. It switches off the heating element in time and thus saves electricity. Electric fireplaces often have remote control with a remote control. In this way, you can regulate not only the thermal modes, but also the external parameters of the flame, brightness, intensity.
As a rule, the heating power of fireplaces is1–2 kW. On the one hand, this allows you to heat a room up to 20 m2. On the other hand, such a fireplace can be plugged into a regular socket, because it consumes no more energy than an electric kettle. And for decorative purposes, the fireplace can be used not only in winter, but also in summer (with the heating function turned off).
