I can tell you a little bit about those electric fireplaces, since our new home on wheels has one. Very nice to look at, but they do require electricity, and even tho they (or at least ours) have a fan, it is a very puny fan, so all of the heat generated comes out the vents, then goes straight up. Luckily, we have a ceiling fan, so we put that on winter mode and let it move that heat back down to us. But I can not really recommend them as a decent heat source...