Fireplace removal and repurposing space

An electric fireplace is nothing more than a built-in electric space heater in a fancy cabinet. From the point of view of utility, the space heater would do exactly the same thing, exactly as effectively; but of course it doesn't provide the same sort of cheery ambiance that even a simualated fire brings.

Personally, I'd take the room for other things in my own RV over having a fireplace and use a portable heater. That's just me; there's no one right or wrong answer to that query. It should be pretty straightforward to remove a fireplace and repuprose the space for something else. The space likely isn't all that deep, though; fitting a cat litter box in is probably out of the question (at least without it projecting a good bit into the room).

If I had an actual woodburning fireplace in my RV, or even a little wood stove, I'd be very hard pressed to give that up. That's a hypothetical situiaton however.

DrewE wrote:

If I had an actual woodburning fireplace in my RV, or even a little wood stove, I'd be very hard pressed to give that up. That's a hypothetical situiaton however.

There are small wood burning stoves made for boats that could be installed in a trailer. Years ago I saw an ad for one that burned pieces of wood that looked like popcicle sticks.

wgriswold wrote:

DrewE wrote:

If I had an actual woodburning fireplace in my RV, or even a little wood stove, I'd be very hard pressed to give that up. That's a hypothetical situiaton however.

There are small wood burning stoves made for boats that could be installed in a trailer. Years ago I saw an ad for one that burned pieces of wood that looked like popcicle sticks.

Small wall mount pellet stoves comes to mind. They can be easily vented outside.

I just finished up replacing a love seat with an electric fireplace and a telescoping tv lift.

We used a portable e f often so now it’s built in.

If you do take it out you should do it so you can put it back in for resale.
It’s a desired feature for most people.

wgriswold wrote:

DrewE wrote:

If I had an actual woodburning fireplace in my RV, or even a little wood stove, I'd be very hard pressed to give that up. That's a hypothetical situiaton however.

There are small wood burning stoves made for boats that could be installed in a trailer. Years ago I saw an ad for one that burned pieces of wood that looked like popcicle sticks.

There are indeed. I would have to rearrange my motorhome's interior quite a bit to find room to put one in, though; and presumably also take a good bit of care to ensure that it's not too much of a fire hazard. It's tempting, but more work (and money) than I care to expend.

DrewE wrote:
An electric fireplace is nothing more than a built-in electric space heater in a fancy cabinet. From the point of view of utility, the space heater would do exactly the same thing, exactly as effectively; but of course it doesn't provide the same sort of cheery ambiance that even a simualated fire brings.

Personally, I'd take the room for other things in my own RV over having a fireplace and use a portable heater. That's just me; there's no one right or wrong answer to that query. It should be pretty straightforward to remove a fireplace and repuprose the space for something else. The space likely isn't all that deep, though; fitting a cat litter box in is probably out of the question (at least without it projecting a good bit into the room).

On our Mountaineer the fireplace was a option, Ours did not come with it, so we have a cabinet. It has the 15 amp outlet for the fireplace in side. Like others have said it is not very deep. We keep our space heaters in there, and use the outlet for 1 of them.

Ours is in a cabinet counter depth, so if it was put on a hinge you'd have the best of both worlds. Lots of room for the cat while open, and hidden the rest of the time. I'd make a secret passage for the cat and only open it to clean.

a64armt wrote:
Has anyone removed the Factory installed RV fireplace and repurposed the space? I don’t see is using it much. I was considering removing it and building an insert that will house and obscure cat litter box, lined with waterproof paneling, hinged front door, small pet doors for entry.

Thoughts?

Dang I wish mine had a fireplace and you want to remove yours ?

timmac wrote:
Dang I wish mine had a fireplace and you want to remove yours ?

I am surprised at how often we use our fireplace and how well it heats our 40' TT. I thought it was just a gimmicky feature, but it gets a lot of use the first month or so of the season. The space behind the fireplace (about 35% of the TT), which includes the master bedroom, takes longer to heat up, but the space that faces the fireplace warms up pretty well. Enough that we don't use the furnace unless it gets below 40 degrees at night.

Our fireplace is thermostatically controlled. We usually set it to 70 degrees at night and it turns on and off as needed. I am happy to sacrifice a little warmth not to be woken up by the darn furnace every time it fires up.

Perhaps the OP has more space behind their fireplace, but if we were to remove ours, we wouldn't gain much of a cabinet at all. In our TT, the central vacuum canister is to the right of the fireplace and the furnace is to the left. The mantle on top of the fireplace isn't even 1 foot deep, so the cabinet is probably 10 - 11 inches deep at most.

-Michael