Honeywell HZ519 Digital Low Profile Silent Comfort Heater

I use this to heat the bedroom at night so I can turn down the heat in the rest of the house. The space is about 17'x17' and this does the job nicely. My only complaint is that the digital thermometer does not have a backlight when adjusting it. I have to use a flashlight to adjust it in the dark.

Great heater. Does a fine job of heating my dining room or bedroom, which is exactly what I bought it for. The only issue I have is that I live in an older building and it regularly trips my breaker. It's irritating, but the heater itself works great and does the job perfectly. The auto off is a great feature too. I think it turns off after 12 hours which is perfect.

I own five of these, and heat my home with them (and five upright oil-filled types).

Pros: usually safe to touch, non-electronic glowing badge-type overheat indicator, timer, quiet, five-year warrantee, great flexible 16-gage 3-wire cord (stays cool), appears to be of highest quality, inexpensive.

Cons: Although there is a bright bulb indicating the unit is on, the LCD panel is unlit by it, so you can't check the indicator easily when it is dark. This is important, because the heaters sometimes reset themselves to maximum, so you need to look at the panel repeatedly during the night.

The timer only works for shut-off, not for timed turn-on, so you can't use it for programmed heating, such as warming up for the morning, or warming up for return in the afternoon.

Timer and temp settings are lost when powered off (no back-up battery or constant power to the panel from the plug).

Temp settings unpredictably reset to maximum, so you can't leave these heaters on unattended (for instance, to keep the house above freezing when going out for the day or a weekend). You may come back to a house at 80 degrees, at great electric expense.

To repeat, on all five of my units, if I have them set at some lower temperature, say, sixty-five degrees, I may come back some time later to find it at eighty degrees. So I must constantly go around checking them.

On one of the five units the tilt switch burned out. Not from being tilted, just from being on for a few months.

Many of the high-raters of this heater mention these same problems, but don't consider them as bad as I do. That is probably because they don't use the heaters as much as I do.

Many of the low-raters of this heater don't understand that all 1500 watt heaters put out the same amount of heat, and don't understand that a thermometer near the heating element is bound to read higher than one across the room, and don't understand that a convection heater is bound to be slower than, but ultimately equal or superior to, a fan-forced or radiant heater of the same wattage. Oil convection heaters are even slower, since the oil has to heat up first. Radiant heaters lose heat out the window if pointed at an unshaded window. There is a theory that radiant heat is equivalently comfortable at lower power use. Fan-forced heaters' fans will eventually fail, sometimes causing a fire.

Some reviewers mention the poor instructions, and how important they are. Much better instructions are available online. The controls are not obvious; you are sure to misuse them if you don't have the online instructions. Basically: to set the temperature, turn the unit off, turn it on, press the Temp button, use the up/down buttons to set the temperature, and then don't touch it again. If you subsequently touch any button it will reset to maximum. At first the indicator will show what temperature you have set it to try to get up to. After a while, the indicator will show the actual temperature at the unit - you can no longer check the temperature it is attempting to attain. Ignore the fan icon: there is no fan. If the clock icon appears (unintentionally), you have double-clicked, and must start over. The thermometer icon shows you have set the temperature. When the temperature blinks, it has attained the goal you set.

I have owned a few "fan forced" heaters and this Honeywell product is far superior to any of them.

Completely quiet and has a low profile so it is not the center of attention in a room, and delivers steady, room-filling warmth.

Be careful when comparing other makes and models; some units only have a temperature gauge and not an actual thermostat. This unit has a thermostat and will automatically turn on and off while maintain a steady room temperature. (While those with only a temperature gauge will not)

One note of caution - when the heater is initially turned on, the default setting is "continuous run". If you don't select the "temp/timer" function, the heater will run continuously on high power until it is shut off. This can turn a room into an oven in a hurry!

Overall this is a great product.

I can go on and on about this heater. All I will say is that it is absolutely awesome and worth it's wait in gold. Trust me!! I researched many heaters and found the Consumer Reports review on this one and bought it. No regrets and I could probably make a lot of money if I became a Honeywell salesman, I rave about it that much. The only negative, and I say that lightly, is I wish there was a light up display option. Even that isn't even that bad.