Heater for a narrow fireplace

[PhilbyWalsh]

Would really appreciate any guidance this.

Problem: We are in an old Victorian house and the radiator (place against outside wall under window) struggles to heat the whole room efficiently. Before we consider adding another radiator in the room we wanted to explore whether there's a way to install a standalone heating device (ideally electric) in our existing fireplace space.

We've previously used a small tray-style bioethanol heater in that space, but it wasn't effective enough for the space.

It's quite a narrow space (40cm wide, 54cm up to the start of the decorative hood, 19cm front to back).

We haven't found any electric heaters that seem suitable for the space.

Any ideas welcome, thanks.

 

[CBW]

You could block the chimney up with a vent and have the electric heater in front. Unless an oil filled radiator, I doubt you’d get much from an electric heater though.

 

[Fred Blogs]

We have a flame effect fan heater in our fireplace although our fireplace is a false one. If that chimney isn't blocked properly a significant amount of your heat will go up there. Our fan heater, 2 KW, is okay but it is expensive to run. We do have two largish double radiators in our living room so the fan heater isn't used much at all. Electric oil filled rads are rubbish as are those ethanol heaters. We did look at putting a wood burner in as I have a free supply of seasoned wood but as they are extremely messy and they stink plus the exorbitant cost of purchase and installation we didn't go down that route.

 

[Mottie]

We have a flame effect fan heater in our fireplace although our fireplace is a false one.

Same here but it’s only been used a couple of times in the last 15 years. Remove the bottom cover and it’s behind there. Worked okay when we needed it.