Electrical appliances have a bad reputation when it comes to heating costs, which is probably why so many of our customers are keen to find the answer to one important question before buying one of our electric fires: are electric fires expensive to run?

In the manner of an urban legend, it has become a widely accepted truth that electric fires are expensive to run in the UK… but is that strictly true?

For many people they are a completely new form of home heating, so what are electric fireplaces exactly?

If you grew up with a fireplace in your home, it was probably an open fire or a gas fire. Electric fireplaces were few and far between by comparison, and certainly nothing like the beautiful appliances now favoured by households across the UK.

Although you might think electric fireplaces are new to you, you are sure to have seen one in action before. That’s because an electric fireplace is effectively a massive upgrade on the trusty electric heater. You will have felt the warmth of an electric heater before, but you probably never associated it with a stylish, contemporary fireplace.

Compared to other types of heating appliance, electric fires are still relatively new to the market, which means a lot of households are buying electric fires for the very first time. With no previous experience of buying the same product, the question becomes: “Where can I buy electric fires?”

If you’re one of those people wondering where to buy electric fires, you’ll find there are plenty of options available. Major DIY chains, online marketplaces and independent heating appliance retailers like ourselves are just a few of the places where you can buy electric fires.

But once you know where to buy electric fires, your attention will quickly turn to where to buy the best electric fires. That will depend on what you’re looking for in an electric fire, including which retailer sells an electric fire with the design you want, what your budget is and ease of collection or delivery.

If you’re planning to install a TV wall in your living room, you’re probably shopping around for wall mounted electric fires to provide the perfect focal point to sit beneath your television.

Wall mounted electric fires is a catch-all terms that covers wall hung electric fires, which are hung on the wall, and built-in electric fires, which are recessed within the wall. In either of these scenarios, wall mounted electric fires will give you the triple advantage of:

1. Creating an attractive centrepiece in your room.
2. Providing a source of heat at the click of a button.
3. Not taking up any additional floor space.

A combination of those benefits and the soaring popularity of TV walls in living rooms across the UK means that wall mounted electric fires are very much in demand at the moment.

Has the glass in your woodburner turned cloudy? If you’ve followed our top tips on how to clean woodburner glass and your stove glass is still milky, crazed or discoloured, there is likely to be more to the problem than the usual ashes and soot that accompany regular use of a wood-burning stove.

The most common explanation for a white residue that coats or clouds your stove glass is the presence of sulphur. And the most common reason for the presence of sulphur is that it’s contained within the fuel you’ve been burning.

One of the questions we’re asked regularly is whether or not it is safe to operate a woodburner without a baffle plate?

A baffle plate is the metal plate that sits almost horizontally at the top of the inside of your stove.

If we pause briefly to discuss the purpose of a baffle plate, that will help us to answer the question of whether it safe to use your stove without one.