To put the amount of heat lost into perspective, think of a basketball, which is about the size of a cubic foot of air. A conventional chimney draws up to 24,000 cubic feet of air per hour. Basically, it's like throwing 400 basketballs down the chimney every minute. Basketballs aren't cheap, and neither is wasted thermal energy.
While wood fireplaces don't usually generate much heat for a room, it may be even more unlikely that they can heat an entire house. Unfortunately, this means that much of the heat can also be sucked into a chimney too quickly for it to actually heat a room. Supplemental zone heating from electric fireplaces also allows you to use less energy to heat your home, reducing energy consumption and heating bills. Although the cost of electricity varies by region, on average, it only costs about 3 cents per hour to run the flames and 9 cents per hour to run the flames and a heater configured to turn off automatically according to a thermostat.
I'm thinking of modeling this as a plate with a large central heat source, rather than a plate with several small heat sources around the edges. The amount of heat produced by a Regency wood burning fireplace varies greatly, however, typical units produce between 38,000 and 80,000 BTUs, enough to heat a room of any size. There are generally several features to increase efficiency, such as baffles to redirect airflow in the unit and allow greater heat transfer, and various materials, such as soapstone, to absorb and retain heat. This traditional-style wood burning fireplace was specifically designed to produce as much heat as possible while offering a large viewing area.
Fireplaces can't heat a room as well as a wood stove can, but you'll still feel warm sitting near an open fireplace. Regency Classic R 90:70,000 BTU wood fireplace The fireplace that produces the most BTUs is the Regency Classic R90 wood fireplace with 70,000 BTU. This additional safety feature makes electric fireplaces safer for use in small areas and homes with children and pets. The rapid flow of air through an open fireplace can mean that much of the heat is lost through the chimney instead of being used to heat a house.
So instead of heating every room in your house that you're not using at the time, you can turn down the thermostat and heat the room you use most frequently with your electric fireplace. Energy-efficient electric fireplaces turn off the heater once the ideal temperature set on the thermostat is reached, so there is no risk of overheating the room and wasting energy. If gas fireplaces don't fully heat the room, this could be due to an inadequate heating system, environmental conditions, or a faulty unit.
