Electric fireplaces for apartments and rentals

Buy a freestanding unit, or a linear one you can surface-mount. Electric fireplaces need no flue, no gas and no combustion, so nothing about them requires altering a building — but most installation advice assumes you are recessing into a wall you own. A stove needs a socket. A surface-mounted panel needs four bracket fixings. Neither needs a permit, an electrician or a conversation you would rather not have.

The physics are the same and the shopping decision is not. Four things move up the priority list in an apartment, and none of them appear in a standard buying guide.

• Reversibility. Can this leave with you, and what does the wall look like afterwards? A stove leaves nothing. A bracket leaves four filled holes. A recessed unit leaves a hole the size of the fireplace.
• The circuit, in an older building. 1,500 W is 12.5 amps continuous. Older apartment wiring frequently has fewer circuits serving more rooms, so what else is on that circuit matters more than it would in a newer house.
• Shared walls. A fan-forced heater against a party wall is audible on the other side of it. This is the consideration most likely to cause an actual complaint, and it is the one nobody writes about.
• Floor area. A freestanding stove needs clearance in front of the glass. In a small living room that is real floor space you are giving up.

Quick picks: nothing permanent

Ranked. The running cost column is computed from each unit's rated wattage, not quoted from a manufacturer. Tap a row for the full write-up.

#	Product	Best for	Cost per hour	Price
1	Duraflame DFI-5010-01 3D Infrared Fireplace StoveA freestanding stove that needs a socket and two feet of floor. No screws, no brackets, no conversation with anyone.	Asking nothing at all of the building	27.5¢1,500 W · 5,118 BTU	$259.99 · View on Amazon
2	R.W.FLAME 36" Ultra-Thin Recessed & Wall-Mount FireplaceSold as recessed or wall-mounted, and the wall-mounted half of that is the one renters want. Four bracket holes, not a hole in the drywall.	Hanging on a wall without cutting into it	27.5¢1,500 W · 5,118 BTU	$239.99 · View on Amazon
3	Touchstone The Sideline 36Recessed or wall-mounted, from the one brand here that publishes a real manual and a real heater specification.	A rental where you want it properly documented	27.5¢1,500 W · 5,118 BTU	$449.00 · View on Amazon
4	R.W.FLAME 60" Ultra-Thin Recessed & Wall-Mount FireplaceThe same surface-mount flexibility and two-stage heater at sixty inches, for anyone with a proper living room and a temporary lease.	A long wall in a bigger rental	27.5¢1,500 W · 5,118 BTU	$254.99 · View on Amazon
5	No photo TURBRO In-Flame INF36-W 36" Wall-Mounted FireplaceOne of the few linear units offered with an optional floor stand, which turns a wall-mount fireplace into something that needs no fixings at all.	A standing base instead of a bracket	25.7¢1,400 W · 4,777 BTU	Check price on Amazon →
—	Dimplex IgniteXL 50" Linear Fireplace (XLF50)An excellent fireplace and the wrong one here — it wants 2x6 framing, a recessed cavity and ideally an electrician.Skip this one	Nothing in a rental	27.5¢1,500 W · 5,118 BTU	$2,744.99 · View on Amazon

#ad Buy links are affiliate links — we earn a commission on Amazon purchases at no extra cost to you, and it never changes the ranking. How this site is funded. Running cost is computed at 18.34¢/kWh; see what these actually cost to run.

A fan-forced fireplace makes two kinds of noise. The fan itself is airborne and stays largely in your room. The other kind is the heater assembly cycling — a click and a change in pitch every time the thermostat calls for heat — and when the unit is fixed to a party wall, that travels through the structure rather than the air.

There are three ways around it and they are all easy. Put the unit on an outside wall or an internal partition rather than the wall you share. Choose a freestanding stove, which is mechanically isolated from the structure by the floor. Or run a two-stage unit on its 750 W setting, which cycles far less often than a 1,500 W heater in a small room. Our page on infrared vs fan-forced covers the quieter mechanism if noise is your main concern.

Nothing on this page needs an electrician, and that is the point of it — every unit here runs on an ordinary 120 V socket. What does need attention is what else is on the circuit, particularly in an older building where one circuit may serve a whole room or more.

• Straight into a wall socket. Never an extension lead, never a power strip, never a multi-way adapter. A 12.5 amp continuous load is precisely what those are not built for.
• Not sharing with another heater, a microwave or anything else with a large continuous draw. Watts, amps and your circuit has the arithmetic.
• If the breaker trips, that is information rather than a fault — the circuit is telling you the load is too high. Move the fireplace to a different one.

We are not going to pretend to know what your lease says, and it is worth thirty seconds rather than a deposit. Most standard leases are relaxed about a freestanding appliance and specific about fixings into walls. Some prohibit portable heaters outright, which an electric fireplace arguably is.

The practical version: a stove is almost never an issue, a bracket usually is not but is worth asking about, and anything that involves cutting into a wall needs written permission you will not get. If in doubt, the freestanding option at the top of this page removes the question entirely.