How much does it cost per hour to run an electric fireplace?
In Swannanoa, where storm rebuilding is still underway, an electric fireplace is cheap to run — about 1.5 times your per-kWh rate per hour — and a clean, simple add to a renovated room. But given what this valley went through, we say it plainly: electric makes no heat in an outage, so it belongs alongside real backup heat, not in place of it.
A fair fit for a rebuild, with one honest caveat
Storm damage pushed a lot of Swannanoa homes into rebuilds and renovations, and demand for new fireplaces and stoves came with it. Electric has an honest place in that: for a rebuilt Grovemont room, it's a plug-in unit with no venting, no permit, and a predictable cost — about a kilowatt and a half per hour times the rate on your bill, plus pennies for the flame-only glow. What it can't be, especially here, is your power-outage plan. It's a single-room, roughly 5,000-BTU supplement that goes dark exactly when a storm takes the grid down.
Old masonry, damp air, and the gas alternative
The 1940s-to-60s homes around Grovemont came with original masonry fireplaces, and river-valley fog, cold-air pooling, and damp air are hard on those old chimneys. Swannanoa sits on natural-gas mains, so if a rebuild is the moment to get real, outage-proof heat, a sealed direct-vent gas fireplace with battery-backup or millivolt ignition keeps warming a Buncombe County home when the power's out, and costs less per BTU than electric to run. Electric handles the extra room; gas or wood handles the storm.
We've rebuilt hearths here
We've helped many Swannanoa Valley households rebuild their hearths, and we're just 15 minutes east of our Asheville showroom. Call (828) 545-0525 for a free in-home assessment across electric, gas, and wood, with a straight answer on what keeps heat in the house.
Fireplace help in Swannanoa
We install and service fireplaces throughout Swannanoa and the rest of Buncombe County — just 15 minutes east from our Asheville-area showroom.
Related questions
- How much electricity does an electric fireplace use?
- Does the flame effect alone use much electricity on an electric fireplace?
- Does an electric fireplace draw electricity when it's switched off or in standby?
- Can an electric fireplace plug into a standard household outlet?
- Do electric fireplaces come in 240-volt versions, and do they put out more heat?