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.
Thank you Ray 12/21/10. I purchased my unit last winter and I also have this terrible noise coming from the blower. I’m glad I saw your email. I will not be purchasing their unit for repair. Thank you very much.
This thing is basically a 1500w electric space heater. If you want it to look nice and have the flameless fireplace look then it is a good buy. A $20 space heater will do the same thing, so it really comes down to what you want it to do. If you just want to heat a cold room or supplement your furnace, this thing is not for you. If you want it to look nice, and provide a cozy atmosphere then by all means buy it.
Thank-you for your blog. I fell for the ad, purchased, then cancelled my order in 14 hrs on same day, they said it was cancelled. My husband was giving me a hard time about being “duped,” and then I found out my two sisters had fell for the same ad two years prior, and both were bitter about being fooled as their electric bills doubled and within 2 months the flickering flame effect broke. When they called the customer service number both could not get through.
My one sister also had the furnace protruding through the broken lifetime mantle–totally cracked up on one side.
I resent the fact the ad was in the Parade in the newspaper, supposedly built by
Amish (whom I highly respect,) PLUS I had just watched an infomercial with Bob Villa and “Al” from Home Improvement reinforcing my trust in this “new technology” to heat and save bills.