Electric fireplace logs work by using light effects to imitate the look of a wood burning fire, typically with logs that glow, but may also have flame effects. Some models will also produce supplementary heat using a fan or infrared heater.

Depending on what features you’ll find in a specific electric fireplace log set, there might be:

  • A glowing set of logslit up from a light source underneath.
  • Flames effects, either in the form of a display panel on the fireplace itself or by projecting the flames onto the wall behind the unit.
  • A heater generating heat either by using a fan forced heater with blower and heating element to warm the air as it passes through, or by using an infrared heater to radiate heat out into the room.

As our fireplace has an integrated heater it needs to be plugged into a nearby electrical outlet before it can be used.

It has a light source located underneath the log effects in the form of a halogen bulb that provides the red-ish glow to the logs when the fireplace is turned on.

Removing the back of the fireplace we can see this light source inside:

In our model of electric fireplace there’s also an object that spins around to provide movement to this log lighting effect, referred to as the flicker motor in the manual.

 

Our electric fireplace logs also provides heat in the form of an infrared heater.

This infrared heater takes up much of the front of the unit and contains two heating elements.

The controls for this fireplace are formed of two switches, with each one controlling one heating element.

As each heating element can be individually controlled by their respective switch, we can either have none, one or both elements on at the same time.

Each heating element produces 600W of heat, for a minimum heat output of 600W and a maximum heat output of 1200W.

When these infrared heating elements are switched on, they warm up and get up to full strength after 30 seconds or so.

 

See our dedicated article on infrared electric fireplaces for more information.

Other models of electric fireplace logs may use a fan forced heater instead of an infrared heater.

Fan forced heaters inside electric fireplaces consist of a blower that forces air through a heating element to warm up the air in the room, and example of which is shown below found in another one of our electric fireplaces.