 Attractive, quiet, efficient heater |
| Review Date: November 28, 2005 |
| Reviewer: J. Gladstein, Ellicott City, MD USA |
| This is a great heater. Operates primarily with remote control. Small and QUIET! Only drawbacks that I've come across are that 1) the temperature dial is a little hard to read and 2) you can't set it on a carpet, because the anti-tip mechanism is a little sensitive, but probably shouldn't be on a carpet anyways. Works perfectly on dresser top or hearth. |
Delonghi Makes a Very Good Heater
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| Review Date: December 9, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Keensight, Brooklyn, NY |
| This is a medium size heater that can heat from a small room to a medum and a half size room very well in less than 3 to 10 minutes depending on the size of the room. The thermostat is great. If it gets too hot just turn down the dial until you hear the fan turn off and just leave it. It will turn back on and reheat when the room temperatures lowers. The only cons I have with this heater are 1) that it does not have a timer and 2)one can barely see the numbers on the thermostat dial. Although it really doesn't need a timer because of the anti-freeze thermostat and although the numbers on it blends in with the dial just using a color marker pen can bring out the numbers so they can be read without having to use a magnifying glass will do the trick. |
i've bought this wonderful heater, and satisfy
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| Review Date: December 27, 2005 |
| Reviewer: foz, |
| this heater is incredible amazing, heat up very quickly and efficiency. Heat up my bedroom within minutes. I don't even have to touch it again once I set the temperature, it automatically turn on high >> medium >> low >>off itself. what a wonderful heater.!!! |
Exceptional Little Heater
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| Review Date: March 22, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Sunday, PlanetEarth |
I can't say enough good things about this heater. I've used plastic fan heaters for years, mostly Holmes. But Holmes seemed to have none that fit the bill this year, so I decided to get 3 different DeLonghi ones. This is the one I've used the most. I'm using it to heat a large bedroom, and it does so without any problems on medium heat. It has more safety features then any other heater I've ever owned also--it will turn off if badly jolted, if tipped over, if any vents are blocked, if it starts to overheat for any reason. It also will not turn on if it's not on a hard flat surface. This is very reassuring with the pets. I personally would prefer not to have a remote control heater, but for such a terrific little heater, I'll use one. :)
P.S. And when I bought this heater from Amazon, it costs less than $40! |
Fantastic thermostatic operation!
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| Review Date: January 10, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Suzanne Vozzo, New York, New York |
This is a fantastic seemingly small heater. But it is a mighty one!!!
This heater comfortably warms my main basement room which is approx. 25 feet x 25 feet. I leave it on the medium setting and the thermostat works excellent: the heater does not stay on constantly. The heat temp rises to a nice warm, toasty level; shuts off and when it gets a little chilled, goes right back on. The best heater I have bought! I went thru 4 heaters last winter till I finally found this one that is still functioning!!! |
Yes you can hang it on the wall
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| Review Date: October 20, 2005 |
| Reviewer: T. Mueller, Manitowoc, WI USA |
| WE have one of these and you can hang it on the wall. The back has wall hanger hooks and a little button that turns the unit off if it is not flush with the wall. It works nicely. This is where the remote works nicely, too. |
Great space heater!
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| Review Date: November 9, 2006 |
| Reviewer: J. Hunter, |
| It swivels, has a remote and a tipover safety feature, and you can mount it on the wall if you desire. It works wonderfully, providing plenty of heat when you need it. |
Unbelievable quality at the price!
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| Review Date: November 9, 2006 |
| Reviewer: H. Lee, Rochester, NY USA |
| Just buy it! When I bought it, it was below $30. It works quietly, with remote control. By the way, there is a safety device on the bottom. So, you should put something hard under the device, if you want to use this machine on the carpet. |
So far So good!
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| Review Date: August 24, 2006 |
| Reviewer: HL, New York United States |
I have an office that is a decent size, on the smaller size- but has a very large window and thin walls so it is arctic cold at times. I purchased this heater based on the reviews and the remote control...the remote is great, as is the safety feature. I have only had it a couple of days, but so far I am very happy. I have the thermostat cranked up as high as it will go and the heater on the highest setting and its so quiet I can barely tell its running. My office heats up so quickly my coworkers have been stopping by to warm up!
FYI: if the safety button on the back is not pushed in, your heater won't operate. I thought mine was broken until I found this out... |
This is a nice portable heater,for the office,or den..Is quiet,and good for spot heating.
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| Review Date: December 18, 2005 |
| Reviewer: stewart L, flushing ,ny |
| This portable heater is good for use in your office, den or sleeping area..It is quiet and efficient,and is good for spot heating...please keep away from drapes or rugs,and small children,who might mistake this heater for a toy...Otherwise this is a good deal...Mine came with a remote to adjust setttings more easily...4 star rated... |
Great Design, Possible QC problems
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| Review Date: September 30, 2005 |
| Reviewer: amanooensis, Flyover Country |
When I first shopped for this item, there were no reviews here, DeLonghi was not much help, and the manual they published on their website did not show the back of the heater. They mentioned "wall mounting" in the MARKETING information. Why wasn't this part of the USER MANUAL? Trust me, if you have a problem and go to the manufacturer, they will tell you to refer to the manual -- NOT to a website listing that may be long gone.
But it's hardly the most important feature of this product, so it doesn't seem helpful that somebody would go to the trouble to log on here, refute my earlier comments, but say nothing about the heater's performance AS A HEATER.
Well, I now have two of them, and I will try to give some idea what it is like. Unfortunately, it's a mixed message.
GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS.
One of the two units I ordered was shipped in its retail carton. That box was beat up terribly in transit. However -- surprise -- the heater that came in it works fine (so far). So ironically, the beat up box is where we get the good news.
THE GOOD NEWS. I think this product is just great, in the set of features, and the design. It uses DeLonghi's "ECC" -- a very cool feature (I have other DeLonghi models that use it, too). To see it in action, you need to set the "power" (wattage consumption) control to High.
Again, to clarify: the "power" switch does not change the target temperature. It changes how warm the coils get, which in effect controls how quickly the heater warms things up. In anything but a really cold setting, this feature can really cut down on wasted electricity by dropping out of high, to medium or low, once the room is mostly warm.
To pick a desired temperature, you use its thermostat dial, which is not terribly precise, but which is typical for a device like this. The numbers on the thermostat dial are white on white -- a really invisible way to mark a control dial! And they have only vague relation to actual Farenheit degrees. They'll get you into the ballpark, but fine tuning will be up to you and your senses (or a separate thermometer, if you have one).
You find a temperature setting that you're comfortable with, and once that's done, presumably you can leave it there from day to day. If one had to constantly reset that dial -- for example, if it is used by different people with different tastes, or whatever -- I suppose it could be a drag. But it's a fairly inexpensive device, and has a lot of other features, so I can live with it. Speaking of multiple users: if you want to move it around a lot, that is made easy by the light weight and built in handle.
ELECTRONIC CLIMATE CONTROL. Once you figure out a temperature setting, the ECC feature can go to work. Again, you need to *set* it to high, for it to switch downward, or back up, as needed. I do not think it will switch upward from a lower setting to high, if you have manually chosen one of those lower settings to start with.
With ECC, the heater senses how close the current room temperature is to the setting you have chosen, and as it gets closer to that temperature, it lowers the power setting from high to medium, or to low. During the few days I've used it so far, a cold draft kept it from ever shutting off entirely, but it would do in a better-sealed room.
Note: when the heater shuts off, the fan and oscillation also shut off. Unlike other models, the oscillation does not continue unless the fan is on. And the fan can be run without oscillation.
There is a totally separate setting to run the fan by itself (for cooling); but the fan only runs at one speed, and is quite meek. It will not be mistaken for a wind tunnel! The fan always runs when the heater is on, and I'm sure the reason for that is to prevent the plastic case from melting. The only heaters I've seen where the fan can be turned off are ceramic or convection designs, and come in metal cases. So there's a good reason that it works this way.
In any case, the ECC feature has worked great for me so far. For the most part, the heater ran on lower power settings even though I had set it to High. On a couple of nights when the draft got worse, I could see it kick up to high for a while, then go back to a lower setting. The room (15x15) was plenty warm, with not much effort by the heater. I'll probably set the thermostat a bit lower next time I use it, and perhaps it may hardly ever need to use the High setting at all. That would save a lot of electricity.
The remote control works fine. It can control everything on the heater except the thermostat setting, which -- as noted above -- is a rotary dial. Everything else is electronic, even including the oscillation feature, and can be operated from across the room (as well as by the physical switch on the unit itself). To use the remote you will need to supply the two AAA batteries yourself.
SAFETY. One of the reasons I specifically wanted this heater is because it has multiple safety cutoffs. Some are thermal, but I was also interested in the tipover switch. If it tips over at all, it powers down completely. It does not turn itself back on when set back on its base. I've seen reviews of other heaters complain about this, but such complaints REALLY miss the point.
There are two things you want from a portable heater. 1) Heat up the room; and 2) DO NOT BURN DOWN THE BUILDING. Just scan the headlines in any given winter, and you'll find people dying from fires caused by heaters. So, safety is an important buying issue.
There are a million ways that a heater could be tipped over, but one thing you do not want is for an unattended heater to get knocked around -- by whatever cause it might be -- and then turn itself back on. Unattended, it could fall on something flammable, or into standing water, or who knows what. Being upright is no guarantee that it's safe. That's also why the unit also does not automatically reset itself after a loss of power. It's all about safety, and I think this model scores high in that regard.
The tipover switch sensor is in the base of the unit, relying on gravity, and works just like it should. I'll leave it to somebody else to test the thermal cutoff safety switch, or just trust DeLonghi. The unit supposedly sounds an audible alarm in the case of overheating, which is a great feature.
FINALLY, THE BAD NEWS
Okay, so we ordered a second unit. Unlike the first, this one was double boxed and the retail box looked perfect. We took out the heater, plugged it in, and turned it on.
ZAP! SPARK! ZAP! and with that, the heater died completely!
Very scary. That one is being returned to Amazon, and we've decided to make do with the one that (so far) works fine. I would have scored this product a five based on the first unit, which appears to live up to its designers' clever intentions. But I would have scored it a 1 (or zero) based on the second unit, which was at best a huge inconvenience (requiring a return) and at worst, a potential hazard. I think leaving it as a three is fair, under the circumstances.
Considering the difference between these two units, either there is really bad Quality Control at the manufacturer, or something in the distribution channels, or whatever. The first one is just delightful. But the second one? There is no excuse for a brand new product -- shipped so carefully -- to fail so completely and dangerously. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and I feel lucky that it killed itself immediately, rather than emitting sparks two weeks later in a bedroom or some such place.
With that in mind, follow the instructions in the manual for this heater -- as for ANY heater -- and keep it as far as possible from flammable items. That is very hard in most homes, but you need to be conscientious about it. This sort of goes back to the discussion about hanging it on a wall... that was something I contemplated doing, but if I want to get it off the floor, I think I'd rather set it on a metal filing cabinet or something. After all, many homes have plasterboard walls, which is basically gypsum coated in paper.
By the way, the whole thing can be tilted upward or downward, besides the horizontal oscillation. So the floor really is the most logical place for it, I think.
I hope this fills in any information gaps. I think the overall design is great, and the main reason I'm not more worried about the quality issue is because we own two new DeLonghi radiators that are good, reliable products that live up to their promises. I suggest that if you buy it, run it through all the features in the manual before putting it to regular use.
If you watch the price fluctuations at Amazon you can get a very good deal on it. It was out of stock for a long time before we finally got ours, so if you're thinking about it, you may not want to delay. |
Close, but no cigar
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| Review Date: December 8, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Kirk Stephens, USA |
This is a good looking, small unit. The remote control is very convienant and this heater has some great safety features. I dont feel that it gets warm enough however. I live in Vermont and it gets pretty cold. It takes a long time for this heater to have any effect on my room.
If you live in an unusually cold region, I would recommend opting for a bigger sized space heater. |
Jerry Bernstein..DeLonghi Safe Heat heater #DFH550R
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| Review Date: March 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jerry M. Bernstein, |
| ON/OFF button extremely hard to work, maybe broke. Numbers on temp dial very hard to read. Once you get it going, it works OK. |
extremely poor product / non-existent customer service
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| Review Date: November 13, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Robert J. Walters, |
| this DeLonghi DFH550R heater is an extremely poor product and the customer service is non-existent,doesn't have a physical address or phone number and never gives their names...buyer beware...read their absolutely ridiculous return policy before buying...if you open any package they won't take it back...if you write a truthful negative feedback, they'll be after you like " ticks on a hound " !!! |
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