We want a fire for our living room. It’s a relatively recent new-build and we don’t want to put a wood burner in (something something baby robins), but we do want a warmer living room and a warm focal point. I’ve been looking at electric faux wood burners which definitely claim to be the answer here. You can spend between £100 and £1500 on these things. I don’t mind spending towards the upper end of that, but even the posh ones won’t fool anyone who looks closely.

The thing is – I will know it’s not a real log burner, so can I suspend my disbelief and enjoy it? Or will I be upset that I’ve allowed fakery into my living room?

WDSTWT?

I’m assuming it’s just an electric heater right? Might look a bit like those electric fake fires you got in the 1980s…

We moved into a house with a gas fake wood burner and we thought it was rather naff and we would get rid of it but then I started reading all the stuff about wood burners and air pollution/asthma etc. Ended up keeping it – doesn’t get used that much but when it’s on I don’t sit there feeling cheated by it’s fakeness.

This decades electric log fire thing, as above… Your call.

This sort of thing: https://www.woodburnerwarehouse.co.uk/acr-neo-3c-electric-stove.html

We have one new our new extension, we looked at both Wood and Gas but baby Robins aside we felt that either due to inconvenience or the fact they kick out so much heat, it wouldn’t get used that much and we’d spend most of the time looking a metal box in the corner. With the electric one, you can have the effect on all year round without the heat

I think ours looks good ( i was against it at first) and when people have looked at photos of the room thought it was real. But you are spending a grand on a glorified fan heater.

Please tell me you haven’t put your Christmas tree up yet.

Why not just put up a electric panel heater and save the space? Can’t say i’m a fan of the one linked to above.

Could you just put this on?

No, it’s from last year, I just don’t photograph my living room that much. It’s to give the room a focal point that’s not the TV. The room is gas centrally heated, so it is very rarely used as a fire only to boost the temp mid-winter.

Thanks Stainypants.

We have decent gas CH but our living room is the coldest part of the house, which is irritating on cold winter nights.

Option B is to install some bigger radiators if we decide not to go for the faux wood burner option.

Been considering this too, the woodburner the previous owners installed is nonsense in a smokeless built-up area and when it’s burning it makes the room way too hot unless it’s baltic outside.

You really need to find a showroom as they never look right in photos/video but I thought the Dimplex optimyst ones looked pretty good.

We have a Dimplex one – it’s so bleedin’ noisy I refuse to put it on! We didn’t pay a lot for it though.

It’s basically a fan heater strapped to the bottom of a stove type shape. 🙂

There’s one in the rental I’m in currently

I turned it on. It lasted 10 minutes.

Sounds like a gas boiler.

So my advice is. Get what ever you consider on in a quiet room before you commit

some of the gas ‘log burners’ look pretty good, mostly I think because you’re used to seeing a log burner behind a pane of glass (unlike an open fireplace).

it sounds like you might just need to balance your radiators though, make sure the one in the living room is wide open and close the others in the house a touch, should do what you need. Its unlikely the room is cold with the rad running at full temp.

Went through the same thought process recently. We got a Bioethanol. Real flame no flue required or nasty ppm 2.5 particles or smoke.

https://www.imaginfires.co.uk/burford-bioethanol-fireplace

Picked it up 2nd hand so pretty cheap.

Its unlikely the room is cold with the rad running at full temp.

We’ve got two tiny radiators (one is 3 ft wide, the other is 2 ft wide, standard height) in the biggest room in the house. The house was built with wiring for a built-in fireplace so I guess they were assuming buyers would spec that (but previous owner didn’t). But as it is, I can never get that room to be warm enough without the rest of the house too hot.

So my advice is. Get what ever you consider on in a quiet room before you commit

This seems like important advice, thanks.

I think I just need to go and have a look at them and see if they look any good.

We’ve got a cheap one.

It’s good enough to fool the dog when it’s on.

It overall saves us money as it’s only heating the only room we really use in the evenings.

It looks like a sove when switched off.

Switched on you’d have to actually be looking at it to realise it was fake. It’s just a load of orange and black flickering ‘wood’ behind a glass door. Once you’re reading a book or doing something else it’s just in the background.

If the fake fire effect really bothers you, just get the absolute cheapest one or a second hand cast iron stove, or stack the fireplace with logs and hide an electric heater in the room somewhere for when you need a boost.

We’ve got a cheap one. It’s fine for an evening for background light and warmth. It’s not brilliant but better than nothing.

Ideally we’d have an inset gas fire but no gas feed to the fireplace, floor is on concrete base and to get the gas pipe to the fireplace would have to rip up the currently good engineered wood flooring in the hallway.

We will upgrade at some point, but only once the ground floor of the house wants refurbishing (new floor will probably undoubtably result in scope creep to mean new kitchen plus new central heating boiler too)

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This is our gas fakie – as above wouldn’t have installed it myself but in no hurry to get rid of it.