Ordering an electric fireplace online sight unseen was pretty risky.... ordering TWO of them seemed even more crazy. We wanted these in place, along with some new furniture, before Thanksgiving, so we bit the bullet and ordered them. We are extremely happy with the new fireplace(s) and in fact they have exceeded our expectations! They arrived quickly and were well packaged. In fact, the trim piece (shipped separately) was packaged so well, I would say it was overkill! We bought these primarily for look and ambiance and the fireplace looks even better than we expected! The log set and flames are quite realistic - despite the obvious that it's not a real wood-burning fireplace. These fireplaces have added a wonderful finish to both our family and living rooms. We had no expectation that these would provide any significant heat. The documentation and reviews also never claimed these fireplaces would provide anything more than supplemental heat. The family room is a bit over 400 sqft and the living room about 300 sqft. In addition to the ambiance, we were just hoping to take the chill out of the air and had no expectation these would "heat the house." And of course they don't. However, they provide much more heat that we expected! In fact, enough heat is produced in the front of the house that we have not yet turned on our gas furnace. Granted, we're in No. California and of course do not have extreme weather - although just this morning the outside temps were in the mid 30's. Our house is 65 yrs old and if we don't run the heater in the winter, the inside temp will drop below 60. We're comfortable at 66deg, but colder than that we typically would be running the heater. Of course our house, it's layout, insulation, etc. is different and so I wouldn't go by our results because your situation will be different. But for us, again, the heat output far exceeded our expectations. For example, since we installed, the temp inside several times has been as low as 59 deg. The house thermostat for the furnace is about 15ft from the livingroom fireplace and 20 or more from the family room fireplace. These two fireplaces together have been raising the inside temp to 66-68 degrees. Yes, it takes a couple of hours to reach, but we are so pleased that there is enough heat to indeed, take the chill off. We're giving this a 5 star rating because we are so happy with not only the looks, but the heat performance as well. In all fairness, there are some quirks that others may want to know. The flame feature set is just 3 settings. Fine by us as we're not interested in purple or blue flames.... :-) The "cracking" sound is really just a novelty and nothing we'll ever turn on. And just 2, non-adjustable heat settings. The remote is simple and we love the flame and log set as is and so no need for 8 differrent colors... Lastly, the big elephant in the room is the cost of electricity. We've only been running these less than a month and I fully expect our electric bill to go UP. How much? No idea yet. What I do know is that we've yet to run the old, gas furnace that also chews up electricity from the large blower. So we'll see if there's any cost savings. I kinda doubt it. But we didn't get these to replace central heating. Overall, we are so very pleased with our purchase!