Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

For starters, I think this is the first time I’ve taken the time to write a review. I was just a little frustrated how poorly this product was ranked after I committed to buy two of them.

I actually bought this product from e-bay as they were running a big sale. However, I buy a ton from Amazon and always compare prices to theirs and often look at some of the reviews. As with any other item, there are almost always a lot of likes and dislikes. This product had plenty of one star reviews which kind of scared me. Then, I looked at the intelligence level of the reviewers. The fan was “noiser” as opposed to “noisier”. One star because the remote didn’t have batteries, really??? It wasn’t made out of wood, it was plastic on wood. Not true with mine, it’s not oak or anything, but it is at least veneer. It only raised the room “2 degree” my old one raised it “8 degree”. Firstly, more than one means “degrees”. There were some other reviewers that had experience with more expensive units that said this performed “comparably” for the price. I went with the more educated people and bought two of these units. I’ve only been using them for two days and I’m actually pretty impressed. I use these for localized heating because I run a pellet stove in a 2,850 square foot house. The heat simply can’t make it to all areas. I was using some smaller electric faux stoves that worked fairly well. However, not all of them I had have built in thermostats. These units do and they seem to work pretty well. I had one in my bedroom (big bedroom and master bath) and set it at 65 degrees last night. This morning, my atomic clock was reading 63.9 degrees. Close enough considering I have the blower pointing away from the clock. I’m sure it would have been higher if I pointed the heater towards the clock/thermometer. This was on the low (500W) setting. I have not even used the 1,000W setting yet. This product is advertised to help supplement your existing heat and to be efficient at doing so. I don’t pay that much attention to my electric bill, but it’s 1,500W which seems to be the max for all of these small stand alone units (for the most part). I have oil heat which I have not used for two years since installing a large pellet stove, thanks to my free Obama money at the end of 2011. But, as mentioned before, the heat can’t permeate through my entire house well. I use some ceiling fans to move the air around but that’s not enough to get the upstairs warm. Yes, I understand, heat rises, but apparently, not as much as I would like. So, in a nutshell, this seems to work great to heat a room locally. It also has an auto on/auto off timer. I have not used that either, but figure the auto on will work nice to come on a couple of hours before you get home. It’s not like an alarm clock. You have to tell it to come on in a certain amount of hours. Other complaints included that the display shows the setpoint, not the actual temperature. OK, some people will want it one way, some the other. It seems to hold the setpoint fairly well, so I’m OK with that. Another heater I have displays the actual temperature of the heater, so it is consistently hotter than what the actual room temperature is. Lastly, some people complain it’s too loud. The filter on my fishtank, which is called a Whisper filter, is louder, so the volume does not bother me. Seems fine. I guess that’s enough said, I think it’s a pretty good product. While it may not completely heat your trailer, it’s pretty good for keeping some larger rooms that need a boost nice and cozy. I’d recommend to a friend.

Pros:
Attractive package that you can easily put a picture or plant on top of
Fully assembled upon arrival, including the wheels (which are stable as opposed to one review)
On/Off Timer
Remote (except for the added .00 you’ll have to pay for two AA batteries)
F/C temperature display
Directional heat as you can point it where you want the heat to go

Cons:
People seem to have had problems with the vendor they purchased it from when they were dissatisfied
Doesn’t have the fake logs and flames that the faux heaters have that most people actually enjoy
Won’t walk my dog or make me coffee in the morning (just had to come up with a complaint like the other one star reviews)

Sorry if I insulted anyone’s intelligence, but some of those reviews really are comical.

Happy New Year

I decided on this particular heater over others because it advertises the heater as 6500 BTUs and a five year warranty. When it arrived and I was looking at the box I noticed that it was only 5100 BTUs and has a 3 year year warranty. I thought they had sent me the wrong one but when I compared the model number it was the correct model number. I contacted the company that sent me the heater and they just said that that was the information the Lifesmart company provided them with. To me, that is false advertising!

This heater works perfectly. Some of the other reviews on here mention specific negatives, and I suggest that those people read the fine manual. For example:

Comment: “The Thermometer is inaccurate by a few degrees in most.”
Correct. If you read the instruction manual, it states that the heater will heat two degrees above the thermostat setting, then switching off. It will switch on again when the temperature falls one degree below the thermostat setting. This is actually how most thermostats work.

Comment: “The power cable is thinner than what other leading safe room heaters have.”
I am not sure what this means. A power cable’s gauge (thickness) will be proportional to the current (amperage) by which it is engineered to draw. The thickness of the copper wiring does not correspond to safety, and would only become a safety issue if the thickness of the wire were not rated for the current of which the appliance draws. I would hope to assume that the engineers at Lasko are well aware of the very established standards for wire gauge versus current drawn, and without wasting my time analyzing the gauge of wire and the appliance’s current, I’m going to assume that it’s more than adequate.

Comment: “this tower fan will not heat a large room effectively.”
Correct. The appliance is rated for medium sized rooms, as stated on the packaging.

Comment (paraphrased): “The thermostat (auto-temperature) only works on high.”
This is incorrect. Please read the manual. Switching from high to low is also the mechanism by which you disengage the thermostat. If you switch from high to low, or from low to high, then you simply need to push the (+) or (-) thermostat buttons to re-engage the thermostat. The thermostat functions on both high and low.

Conclusion:
This heating appliances works great, and it functions in accordance with the manual. A recommended purchase.

Scroll down to read:

1) My ORIGINAL REVIEW of this product (at that time I gave it four stars)
2) My LATER REVIEW (dropping to three stars)
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ORIGINAL REVIEW:

The main things I LIKE about this little heater are:
* It has quiet operation, and heats up a room very fast.
* I also like the design, it’s simple and easy on the eyes, and like how lightweight it is. Even a two year old could lug this around without getting tired out.
* It has an easy-carry handle built in.
* It heats quickly and the oscillating feature distributes the heat nicely. It does an efficient job of turning electrical energy into heat.

The main thing I DISLIKE about it, which I’d imagine would be a major concern in a house with pets or small children, is that it doesn’t turn off when knocked over. This could be extremely hazardous. It’s not an issue for me because I place it in an area where it’s not going to get knocked over. But if a friend with a young boisterous child dropped over, I would unplug it first. There’s also a bit of a smell to the one I just bought today when it’s in use, but I expect that’s because it’s new and it will burn off. The old one doesn’t have a smell.

I also don’t like that you have to use it on full power (1500 watts) to use the thermometer feature. I don’t need that much heat and don’t want to blow out a circuit breaker, so I prefer using it on the 750 watt setting…but that means I don’t have the thermometer option. The easy timer feature does work in both modes, so I just set it for an hour and forget it. So this isn’t a deal breaker for me.

By the way, I saved over 00 last winter by using electric heaters in the coldest weather, instead of heating with oil. (That’s not a typo… I saved over two grand.) The savings come from both the fact that electricity is currently cheaper than heating oil (which gets outrageously expensive), and, using small heaters allows a person to only heat the rooms that are in use. In the winter I use the furnace in the morning for ten minutes to take the chill off of the air, and in the evening for the same reason. I have these two Lasko heaters and two oil-filled heaters, which I use in various rooms in the house to keep it warm and toasty. It is a HUGE savings over the cost of oil. The house stays warm enough that I don’t need a shirt or shoes, and I’m saving a huge amount of money in the process.
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UPDATED REVIEW (November 20120

I’m changing my review from 4 stars to 3 stars.

A year after buying this model, I needed a second heater for another room, so I bought one with the same specs. Same name and model number. Should work well, right?

Wrong. The new one “looks” the same from a distance but are not identical. The new one is a little smaller and the color of the plastic casing is a little different. Evidently there was a redesign after I bought the first one, and different materials are being used.

If that was the only issue, I’d still be giving it four stars. (Last year’s model still works great.) But the new one had severe problems. It worked twice, for a half hour or so each time. Then the third time I turned it on, it developed an extremely loud, obnoxious fan with a grinding sound, like the sound of a loud kitchen blender or food processor going full tilt. Not exactly a relaxing fan sound. I don’t know if this is a one-time flaw, or if when Lasko did the redesign, they went with cheaper materials, like a cheap fan that would fall apart after being used one or two hours of use. Whatever — I took it back to Target, where I bought it, and got a refund.

It’s a shame because the one I bought last year is still working well. But the new one got less than two hours of use out of it before going kaput.

While I can’t say for sure, I suspect that the problem is that Lasko went with cheaper materials this time round. It saves them a few dollars but at the cost of consumers dealing with problems after purchasing it. Or maybe it was just a fluke and I got one with a bad fan. But it’s made me cautious about buying from Lasko again.

Heater circulates the heat throughout the room doing a great job. I have purchased a second heater. The heater developes a lot of heat.