Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Disappointed in production quality of unit. Upon installation, when turned on the unit made loud rubbing/ grinding noise. With flame speed on fast, noise occurred every 5 seconds and on low flame speed, noise occurred every 17 seconds. I didn't feel like going through hassle of returning since its a large product so I inspected the unit and found that flame screen appeared to bowed inward. I did not want to disassemble unit in case I decided to return it later so I decided to shim it. Found that rubbing noise disappeared if the bottom center of flame screen frame was separated from back wall of unit at 1 7/16" (movement of 3/16") so I cut a small piece of a 2x4 (since actual thickness is about 1 1/2") to use as a shim and wedge it in under the bottom plate of the flame screen. This resolved the rubbing noise and is not viewable; have used unit for hours now with the noise not returning. Questionable if item I received was new. It appeared to be a new item with the exception that there were handprints all over the back glass. When running without the heater on, there is a noticeable hum from the flame motor. Noise would be comparable to noise from a running computer or quiet fridge. The noise is not of concern to me as it is in my office that has a computer running constantly but if you plan to use this in bedroom while sleeping, it may be worth consideration. When heater is on, the noise the blower makes is acceptable and seems on par with any other unit I experienced. Heat output for my room was fairly good. I am using this in my home office which is 11'x13'. Office is in my basement and fully insulated for noise control and solid core doors; wood floors over concrete so cold does soak through floor. Placed thermometer on opposite wall of heater and ran heater; main HVAC for my house was off and it was nighttime so no other variables contributing heat. Room was 68.2 at start, at 30 mins 69.2, at 60 mins 70.6. Room was noticeable hotter than 70.6 at halfway or even 3/4 of the way across room from heater so unit did nice job of heating the room. Flame does not look real but I didn't expect this to look like my real gas fireplaces; I haven't seen one that truly looks real. I find that this adds a nice ambience and have nothing negative to say about the appearance. I wish that it had a setting to randomly cycle through colors but I knew this didn't have it prior to purchase. The crystal embers do reflect back onto the flame screen depending on viewing angle but again I believe that is to be expected with this type of product. Installation was very simple as this mounted on the wall like a flat screen TV. The mounting bracket comes with drywall anchors but the predrilled holes on the bracket were 16" on center so I used some screws I had in my garage and attached the bracket directly to the studs. When mounted on the wall, total depth to face of glass was 4" even. I normally don't write reviews but since it was a larger item and I have had issues returning larger items, I thought I would share my experience and hope it was helpful. I gave a low rating for this product as I feel a new product should not require troubleshooting and repair but otherwise, this would have been a good product for the price point.