Now for the bad news......the digital thermostat. First off, the settings are in five degree increments, rather than one degree. If I set it for 65 the heater brings the room up to about 68 then shuts off. That's fine, but then the room will drop to 63 or 64 and the heater doesn't come back on. I'm either going to be hot or cold. If I set the unit to 70, after reaching 75 degrees it still runs----totally unacceptable. If Holmes improves the thermostat they would have a decent little heater here. Oh, one other thing. There are two output settings, low and high. They only control fan speed. The heater uses 1500 watts at both settings, unlike most other models.
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The heater portion of this unit performs admirably: fast heat generation, quiet fan good for warming small to medium-sized rooms in a short amount of time. The heater does eat a fair amount of current the manual rates it at around 13 to 14 amps, which may be a big deal if you're on a circuit with only a 15 amp breaker. It's also light and compact, so it's easy to carry from one room to another, and doesn't take up much space.The downside is that some of the fancier features of this unit are unreliable the oscillating base tends to bind and gnash gears, making a loud cracking sound. It also seeps oil from the base. Also, the digital thermostat is inaccurate, and has a tendency to lose calibration over several hours. I've purchased two of these heaters, and I've noticed all three problems with both.
As a space heater, it fits the bill well. But be advised that you may not get full use of the other features that you are paying for.
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I want to like this heater, it is so quiet. But, in thermostat mode on low heat, the unit shuts itself off and goes into reset mode, thinking it is overheating. What a shame, all 3 units failed miserably. Thermostat mode works fine on high heat, but I need low heat for a smaller space.Honest reviews on Holmes HCH4954-U Whisper Quiet Twin Ceramic Heater
I get headaches from gas-powered wall heaters you usually see in older apartment units. I thought this might be a good deal for my bedroom. While it does the job, my electric bill TRIPLED in a month. This would be better for sparing use at your office or something. Look for a heater that is a little more energy efficient if electricity costs are important to you.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Holmes HCH4954-U Whisper Quiet Twin Ceramic Heater
I got this little heater for my desk because I work on the cold side of the building. A couple of other coworkers had this model and were very happy with it, so I decided to try it too.One deciding factor is that this unit looks good. There are cheaper heaters out there, but they all look like cheesy plastic. Being in a somewhat public area (I don't have my own office) the heater needed to look nice, and this one definitely fits the bill.
More importantly this heater works very well. As soon as you turn it on, you can feel the heat pouring out of it, with no hesitation. My toes are soon toasty and my fingers no longer frozen. Equally important is how quiet it is. On low setting I can't hear it at all, even when it was sitting right next to me! On high setting the fan is audible, but not distractingly so.
An interesting feature is what Holmes calls "Viziheat". Since there are no glowing coils inside this unit, it might be hard to tell if the grill might be hot. When you turn on this heater, the orange stripes appear on the grill as it heats up. You can see these in the product photo here. When the grill has cooled off it fades back to black. The grill seems to be the only thing that gets hot. When the unit is pumping out heat, you can burn yourself on the grill, but the surrounding plastic housing is surprisingly cool to the touch, which makes it easy to adjust its position safely.
My only complaint about this heater is how poorly the enclosed instructions explain how the thermostat works. This unit has what they call "1-touch" for heat settings. There's only one button on this thing and you press to turn it on, and repeatedly to achieve what temperature you want. Sounds easy, right? What's confusing, and what the instructions don't bother to mention, is what it means when the temperatures are lit up in red or green, sometimes both! It has multiple pages of warnings and safety instructions, but not a single word on why I feel no heat at all when a number is lit up in green by itself. I eventually figured it out, but still, a little less "don't touch the grill when it's hot" and more useful information please! It's sad how most companies are so paranoid about getting sued because a few lawsuit-happy idiots were dumb enough to hurt themselves. But anyway, if you're good at figuring out puzzles, you should have no problems deciphering how the heat settings work on this thing. Overall I'm happy with this heater.
