I saw a two-page ad in the Rocky Mountain News this week about some new miracle heater called the ‘Amish Heat Surge‘ and it fell into the category of things that sounded to me to be ‘just a little fishy’. Later I saw a commercial for the same product. Sure enough, after doing some calculations, I figured out that this is just a scam to overcharge people for a cheap electric heater made in China. Searching the Internet, I found a few unhappy customers who fell for it. Even though the heaters are ‘free’, you pay $298 for the ‘Amish authentic wood mantles’ that enclose them. In reality, there’s no reason to wrap an electric heater with a wooden box or mantle. It also has some sort of fake fire effect. Oh, and shipping costs $50 EACH. And they’ll stick you with an extended warranty for $28 each. So for around $770, you’d get a pair of heaters that do the same thing as a pair of $27 electric heaters you can pick up at Wal-Mart.
A 5,119 BTU/hr heater generates about 1/20th the heat produced by a household furnace. It will draw 1.5 kW. For every hour this thing runs, it will cost about $.15 in electricity, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but over a 730 hour month, that adds up to an extra $108 on your electric bill. Electric resistive heat is the most expensive way to heat a house. It costs about twice as much per BTU as natural gas heat. Just to put it in another perspective, a 2,100 sq. ft. house in my home state of Colorado uses about 6 therms of natural gas a day in the coldest winter months. At the current gas price of $1.20 per therm, a typical gas bill is $216/month during the winter months. To heat your house to the same temperature with this electric heater, you’d need to have 5 of these heaters operating at the high setting 24 hours a day. The additional monthly charges on your electric bill for just the heaters would be $540!
The ad talks about only using it to heat zones, which can save on your heating bill, of course, but only at the expense of having some of the rooms in your home being uncomfortably chilly. And you can’t really completely turn off your central furnace without the risk of pipes freezing. In other words, if you put a heater like this in the room that has your furnace’s thermostat, and thus your furnace never comes on, you may freeze pipes in a remote part of the house.
The ad is full of high pressure sales nonsense, such as requiring a special savings code that expires in 48 hours, or you’d otherwise pay $587 each! There is a limit of 2 per household and they need to ‘turn away dealers’ because they can’t keep up with demand.
If you’re one of the people reading this article who bought an Amish Heat Surge heater, please note that I mean no disrespect to you. I’m just tired of con artists using slick advertising to suck people into buying things that aren’t worth a fraction of the sales price.
I don’t care anything if they mantle was made by Amish or doges. I just want to know about the quality of the fireplace insert. Is the price worth it. It’s sold for $249 (insert only). I looked on Lowe’s website and I found some fireplaces that were about the same price but had less BTU’s. There is a lot of bad/false advertisements on a lot of products out there.
I bought this heater and in the beginning of the second winter season of use now it has already broke down. It is not even winter officially yet. Do not buy these!
I like reading all of your comments. The comments about the Amish are the best. The thing you need to realize is that these are made in OH, and just like in IN the Amish do use power tools in the plants. They built the R.V.s the same way in Elkhart, IN. I know b/c I worked along side of them. I have driven past this factory many times. They do have the 15 passenger vans outside to haul the Amish around, just as in IN. It is true that they do not make these things with turn of the century tools, but they are made or assembled by “some” Amish. The point is that they say on their website that the heaters, which is the most important thing, are made in China.
If you don’t believe me about the Amish, pull up any of the Elkhart R.V. plants and you will see Amish plain as day working with power and pneumatic tools.