Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Hope this helps others- I like to get as much info as possible when buying something like this. Was in the market for an electric fireplace insert for the first floor back room of a townhouse that had no shot of a wood burner option, and a gasser would have been possible only through some substantial and very expensive alterations. I had looked at some rather expensive options, such as the top shelf units offered by a company that rhymes with shmimplex... they looked pretty solid but the pricing was quite hefty. I came across this unit while searching and it 'appeared' pretty good via pics and reviews, (also, I emailed and harassed the company for a vid of operation- something missing in all of their marketing material). I decided to give it a shot based on the vid (included below) that was sent; the flame effect looked pretty good *for an electric*. Good stuff: It showed up rather well packaged, and without any visible damage. Dimensions were as posted and slid right into the cutout I had prepped in the fireplace surround. It's pretty straightforward; 3 flame settings- high, high with more colors, and low. The blower heater is something like having a hair dryer blowing warm air on you, not too bad. The logset looks pretty good as long as you don't try to jam your face up against it. The flame effect looks pretty nice and is accurately portrayed by the vid from the company; it's actually better than I had expected. You're not likely to fool anyone into thinking it's real flame, but bang for the buck this is probably one of the best out there. Things to note: I tried to get a pic of the fireplace's backdrop scene (but the plexi cover proved to be too reflective); for some reason I had thought it was a textured brick backdrop, it's actually a flat print. Would have preferred the few extra bucks for an actual brick textured background in there. Not a game changer, but it's not clearly shown elsewhere. The blower draws air from the back of the unit to force it through the horizontal slot on the front; this means you need to design your enclosure with a source of air and sufficient clearance in the back- in my case, it's not visible but the dark equipment shelf above the fireplace was actually cut back to allow air down into the fireplace. no big deal.