As well as heating element, inside an electric fireplace you’ll find the component that creates the effect of the flickering flames.

Depending on the model of electric fireplace, it will either have an LED screen or a light source with rotating mirrors that produce the flame effect.

An LED electric fireplace works just like your TV or mobile to produce an image.  Wall-mounted electric fireplaces typically have a screen to show the effect of a real fire, as it is helps prevent the fireplace from sticking too far out into the room.

My freestanding electric fireplace uses rotisserie-style mirrors to produce the effect of the flames by reflecting light onto the back of a plastic screen. The amount of space required to create this effect means that my freestanding electric fireplace is much deeper than a wall-mounted one.

Just behind the rotating mirrors further into the fireplace unit is the light source. My electric fireplace comes with a strip of LED’s, but some older types of electric fireplace can instead have a traditional bulb as the light source.

When my fireplace is turned on, the LEDs automatically come on. The LEDs are located inside the electric fireplace underneath the fake logs, and so light up the logs to look like a real fire.

The rotating mirrors located inside the electric fireplace provide the effect of flickering flames. These flames can be seem just above the logs.

To create the flames, a motor at one end controls a series of strategically placed metal plates along a rod. At the rod spins, light from the LEDs reflects off the metal plates and onto the backing screen of the fireplace.