After reading several posts about the electric fireplaces in RVs and how nice they are at taking away the chill in the living, we decided to install one.

Our 5th wheel came with a built in 3 drawer cabinet in the living room area.  The cabinet holds the TV on top, a built in AM/FM stereo radio/tape player, a shelf for a DVD player and Satellite receiver and the 3 drawers at the bottom.

We bought a Classic Flame 23" electric fireplace insert designed to install in a pre-made mantle.  It is a stand alone unit so it is perfect for installing in the RV cabinet. 

I removed the radio, shelf and top drawer, did some demolition on the cabinet to make a hole big enough for the fireplace insert.  I was ready to run a new electrical circuit with a 20 AMP breaker, but discovered the outlet at the cabinet, where we plug in the TV, is on a 30 AMP circuit breaker so it saved me from having to run a circuit.

Installed the fireplace, plugged it in for a test and it worked.   I attached some oak trim around the fireplace to fill in a couple of gaps and it looks like a factory install.

Since the fireplace unit is only 10" deep, It left a large useable space in the cabinet behind the fireplace.  I cut a hole in the side of the cabinet, trimmed it out, put in a shelf and ordered a door from Lowes.  Now my wife will have another storage space to fill up.

The great thing about this Classic Flame unit, it's their Real Flame FX model, so beside the look of flames and embers,  it has sound and what they call spakle.   The sound has 3 settings plus volume control, you can set it for no sound, crackle and wind, or just crackle.    The sparkle is a series of orange LEDs that light up randomly from inside the fake logs, in unison with the pop & crackle sound so it looks and sounds like little sparks.   Here's a link to see the fireplace: http://www.fireplacesnow.com/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=53984

Overall the fireplace gives a nice impression and sound of a real fire and fireplace.  Plus it has a 1400 watt heating element and blower unit for some heat (4600 BTU) on chilly nights or mornings. 

In our RV, the installation was fairly simple using common hand and power tools.  Make a hole and plug it in.

I can't wait to roast some fake marshmallows and make some virtual smores on our next trip.

It really sounds great.  How about a picture of how it looks in your RV?

Is there any teflon in the fireplace at all? We're having problems with my husband's lungs with teflon being on all electric heaters. When the heater is on he coughs all the time, when it's off, he doesn't.

Don't know if there is any teflon. I know these types of heating elements tend to gather dust on them when not in use, so when you turn them on there is a few minutes of burnt particles of dust being emitted by the blower. I'm guessing teflon might be used to keep the dust off of the elements. It seems there would still be dust around the area of the element, as this dust is heated up or burnt off and blown out, this could cause some people to have breathing problems. We just tried the heater for a few minutes to make sure it worked. Maybe someone with more experience using the heat element will provide an answer.

Really sounds nice! I will miss our fireplaces here at home in our sticks'n'bricks homebase house...so this sounds like a great idea to me. Would also love to see a pic.  What about ventilation for the fireplace?  Would it get warm in that space behind it....where you said your wife could stash more stuff? Hope DH will install a fp for us in our 5ver!!!

We did the same thing in our Open Road RV. We had the two door cabinet under the TV and we took the doors off and placed the Fireplace in that space. Worked great! The Carriage we have now has the fireplace built in and we would not trade it for the world...can use it during the summer just for looks with no heat!

I finally took the time to add some photos of the fireplace installation process. These photos were taken with my PDA so please excuse the quality. I will take photos with my Nikon and add at a later date. http://thebearii.shutterfly.com/27

I had an electric free-standing fireplace (combination with heater, low and high) that I found at a second hand store. It was in new condition and apparantly the former owner got a divorce from his wife and in anger cut the plug off. I paid $20. for it, brought it home had the hubby wire a new 3-prong plug on it. During our restoration, I took it out to the coach, removed the extra chair from behind the co-pilot seat and set it in place. Plugged it in, turned it on, then called the hubby for a look-see. He liked so much that he attached a bracket to the wall and a drop hitch to the back of it and locked it in place. We can use it without the heat on just for the serene appeal, and if it is a little chilly we can turn the heat on without having to fire up the furnace.