Southern Enterprises Fairfax Media Weathered Oak Electric Fireplace Review

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List Price: $1,049.99
Sale Price: $440.29
Today's Bonus: 58% Off

The entertainment center is well built (quality wood pieces) and relatively easy to put together. It is also a very attractive piece of furniture. The reason I am only giving it a 4 star rating instead of a 5 is due to the side cabinet doors are open wood with no glass (which would have made it a much more attractive piece of furniture) and that the electric fire place was only "gold tone" fire flames and not very realistic looking. The fan on the electric fireplace was also quite loud and distracting. We replaced the electric fireplace with a 23" Spectra fireplace and added glass to the side doors and now we have the entertainment center we were looking for.

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Grill Alert Talking Remote Meat Thermometer Reviews

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I used the thermometer about 7 or 8 times and it stopped working. I have seen several reviews complaining that the probe fails so I'm hoping that's the problem.

Update 2/27/08: I ordered a new probe from Brookstone for $25 (incl. shipping) and it is a much sturdier design than the original. I assume they were getting a lot of complaints and returns so they redesigned it. So far the new probe is working fine. Interesting to note, I gave a negative review of this product on their web site and they never published it, although they sent me a thank you note for my review.

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I received this for Father's Day last year. I was skeptical but it actually works. I can put some tri-tip in the smoker and hang in the pool or chat with guests while keeping an eye on the large LCD display. The range is very good, I can sit in the pool with the display next to me on the deck (at least 20-30 feet away) or go back inside the house. It beeps and talks to you a few minutes before your food is at the desired temperature. I use it primarily for beef, and the settings (rare, medium, etc.) are pretty accurate. This is especially good for large cuts of beef since it is often difficult to gauge whether the meat is pink inside or not. I would highly recommend this. Easy to set-up, then all you do is select the type of meat and the desired cooking level. Pork and seafood default to only one setting choice (well-done) but you can just use the temperature readout to cook to the desired temp.

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I have owned several of these and given a few away as gifts. I LOVE how well they work when they are brand new so when mine failed I bought new ones assuming I just got a lemon. THEY ARE ALL LEMONS. My observation of several units is that the average service life is from 3 to 6 uses. Sometimes a new probe fixes the problem ($20 ea) sometimes nothing (including hitting the reset button) helps. Look at other product reviews on different web sites; they all complain about how quickly the unit fails. You may also notice that several different brands all look alike with the same screen indicating that they are all the same unit sold under different brand names.

With all the bad reviews of these things the firms selling these things should consider the ethics of selling something this expensive that only works a few times. Unfortunately the other brands of remote thermometers, from what I have seen, all seem to fail after only a few uses. This is a real drag because when they work, they work great, and I guess that's why I am so annoyed.

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Have I owned one of this make and model? No. But I have owned 4 or 5 of the Webber units that are essentially the same design. I have also owned 8 or 10 of the probes that stick into the meat.

The thermometers are great when they work. They are so good that, even knowing the design flaw, I keep buying them and replacement probes.

The receivers and transmitters all work well and seem to have an expected long lifetime. The probe is the Achilles heel in every make and model of wireless thermometer. Within the metal, flexible shielded cable that runs from the probe to the transmitter are small wires. Small weak wires. Small fragile wires. Small worthless wires due to their failure rate.

If the user closes the lid of the BBQ or smoker on the metal shielded cable between the probe and the transmitter, the internal wires WILL fail. It may take 2 or 3 times, but they will fail. If the metal shielded cable is kinked or bent too sharply, the internal wires will fail.

A couple of years ago I was on the Webber customer service line (again) requesting a new probe because the wires failed. I asked the customer service representative if she owned one of these wireless systems and, to my surprise, she said "Are you kidding? I would NEVER own one of these". I asked her why and she said "I have a full time job, 7 days a week taking calls just like this one people complaining 8 hours a day, 7 days a week because the probe failed".

Now, if I were her boss, I would have fired her on the spot. From a consumer's point of view I found this conversation somewhat alarming.

This summer I will probably buy another and attempt to keep the smoker's lid from crushing the tiny worthless wires but eventually I will fail and so will the probe.

In short, this is a great product with a major and easily correctable design flaw. Be prepared that the wires within the shielded cable can and will fail.

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Came right away! Works great. It even warned me when a roast caught fire on the grill. (made a different tone and I went to check) It also gives about a 5 degree warning before the target temp. is reached. The speaking voice is pleasant and loud enought to heard well. Has a belt clip to wear the reciever on your person. I've used it indoors and out, without fail.

Highly recomended!! Thinking of buy'n a second one for the vacation home.

Honeywell RTH221B1021/A 1 Week Programmable Thermostat Reviews

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List Price: $24.99
Sale Price: $19.88
Today's Bonus: 20% Off

I wanted a simple to install thermostat to replace the aging, mercury switched Honeywell items that control our heat and cooling. After researching I decided that a simple weekly timer is good enough, and certainly better that what we had originally. The RTH221B shows the current temperature and can be set to adjust the temperature when you wake, leave, return and night. It is simple to use with 15 minute increments.

Installation says "15 minutes or under" and I found this to be true.

To install:

Turn off power to furnace and thermostat (although it is a low voltage feed, you MUST still do this)

Unscrew the original thermostat from the wall but leave wires attached

Check the color of the wires and which terminals they attach to on the original (look for small letters W,R,Y,Rc etc)

Mark the wires (if needed) with the stickers provided in the package

Unhook wires from the original

Remove backing plate from new thermostat, thread wires through hole and place against wall

Attach backing plate using screws and wall plugs provided

Put 2 x AAA batteries(NOT supplied)in the faceplate

Attach previously marked wired to the matching terminals at the back of the faceplate

Snap faceplate onto backing plate

Read instructions for setting time and programs

Turn power to furnace back on

Pros: cheap, easy to install, good instructions

Cons: would have been nice to include 2 x AAA batteries

Overall a good buy. I fitted one as a test and then bought 3 more.

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Being retired, and having an old failed Honeywell 5/2 day thermostat, we replaced it with this 7-day model for heating only. It was simple enough to replace. The twin wiring was identical and so were the wall mounting hole centers. The directions for set-up were fairly clear. My one beef is that the new thermostat lacks back lighting which the old one had. The letters are small enough where one needs a flashlight during setup, requiring three hands at times, and is awkward for those of us with just two hands. Omitting the back light is inexcusable since the 5/2 twin RTH2300 DOES have back lighting. Another caution is that you need a tiny screwdriver to turn the wire set screws. I happen to have one but I would guess few people do.

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Very easy to install with just a screwdriver. Just match up the wires and it works. It is an excellent way to save money on A/C costs as you can set it to shut off the A/C or at least turn it up after you fall asleep. It has four settings for each day.

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The thermostat is easy to install, programing. I had one for about 2 months and it work as programmed. I discover one additional advantage during Winter storm Nemo. We lost power to 5 days, the Honeywell thermometer is able to show actual house temperature below 50F, while my old mercury one did not. I purchased a second one after the storm and replacing the other thermostat in the house. I recommended it highly.

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Was a very nice upgrade from an old failing unit, good price and more detailed dailey programming than old unit.

Discount ACU_RITE Refrigerator/Freezer Wireless Digital Thermometer 00986

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List Price: $49.99
Sale Price: $29.99
Today's Bonus: 40% Off

I bought this for our RV refrigerator. We have a wired thermometer but I wanted a wireless type to get rid of the wire from the sensor to the display that runs under the door gasket. I was a little skeptical that a wireless thermometer would work but it worked so well I could bring the receiver in the house and watch the refrigerator cool down the night before we left for a trip. The display has magnets for mounting that don't stick to a our fridge (all plastic door), we just stick the display to our stove cover as its metal and right over the fridge. The remotes have two mounts; a suction cup and a spring clamp. The display has a min/max function, alarms and it's large enough to be seen easily. All-in-all its perfect for our needs.

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I'll preface this by saying I bought this b/c my relatively new fridge seems to hold temperature poorly, so I've had a small mercury type fridge/freezer thermometer (hereafter referred to as "Mercury") since shortly after I bought it. The problem with these is that you have to open the door to read it, and I wanted something that I could have a Min/Max reading throughout the day to note down in case I need ammunition to use against the warranty company. Being able to monitor both fridge and freezer temps is a big plus!

BOTTOM LINE: for those not wanting to read my drivel below -The AcuRite 00986, after a week of use, works great for me... note that I had no battery issues like some have had. See next part...

BATTERY TIPS: doing a Google search on battery characteristics, I found information [link removed by Amazon...] on Alkaline versus NiMH versus NiCd versus other battery chemistries. One of the very useful pieces of info was operating temperature range. Of note: Lithium operates down to -40C (-40F). Alkaline: 0C (32F). NiCd: -40C. NiMH: -20C (-4F). Well, I have a zillion NiMH rechargeable batteries for kids toys and since I really only care if the freezer goes above a few degrees F, then I figured I'd try NiMH for my sensors, before shelling out $$ on the Lithium AAs. Results: my freezer sensor has captured a temp as low as -13F, so I'd say the NiMH option was a smart move. Even if I have to change the batteries weekly, I swap them out with another set of NiMH and put them on the charger for a few hours. So, my advice to you is to get an inexpensive NiMH charger from somewhere ($10 maybe) and a package of at least 4 (~$7-10), but 8 would be nice, NiMH batteries. I'd recommend any low-discharge NiMH, such as Sanyo Enloops. If you really want to cheap out, get NiCd, but they don't have the capacity that the NiMH batteries do. I know the investment is a tad high upfront, but one set of Lithium AAs is $6, and it's single use. With the NiMH, you can use them hundreds of times, and with 2 each in your fridge/freezer sensors, the back-up ones could be in your kids RC car, flashlight, etc. You'll save $$$$$$ in the long run, if you switch your household to rechargeable in general for AAA/AA type applications.

Ok, all the important stuff over, here is the boring, wordy review/information:

I received the AcuRite version (I'm guessing the Chaney branding has gone extinct) of this product, opened it, installed batteries (more about the batteries later), and within seconds, the transmitters were sending temperature information. I let it sit on my desk for a while, and after the sensors stabilized, they were within 1 degree Fahrenheit of each other, and right at what my home thermostat was set to. Good so far!

I then moved to the kitchen and put the sensors in the fridge/freezer, and mounted the display on the side of the fridge next to the freezer. It probably took between 10 and 15 minutes for the sensors to stabilize at the fridge/freezer temps. I bought another mechanical dial type thermometer (Taylor Classic #5924) from Amazon so I could compare the results with the AcuRite and Mercury. I started my "analysis of performance" by placing AcuRite #2 and Taylor in the freezer, and AcuRite #1 and the Mercury in the fridge. They all seemed to line up well, and I monitored things this way periodically over the course of the next few hours. Because my fridge is my biggest worry, I then moved Taylor to the fridge as well, and placed it somewhere else in the fridge away from AcuRite #1 on a different shelf. This way I could tell if temps across fridge were consistent. Again, everything seemed to read similar temperatures, so I'm confident the AcuRite system is A-OK for me.

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I've had this installed for about 1 month. Both transmitters and receiver are working well. The freezer chest transmitter is located on the basememt floor about 10' (below)from the receiver on the main floor and the 2nd transmitter is in my frige on the same floor (2nd) within 15'. All working OK. So far, I can recomend this product.

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I'll keep it short and to the point. It works perfect. It is great to be able to adjust your temps to where you actually want them. The suction cups do not work that very good in my refrigerator but the clips hold onto the shelves just fine. It recommends a lithium battery in the freezer side but so far a standard battery is working fine for me. If you want a wireless unit this is the way to go.

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We bought $1200 worth of grass fed beef and a brand new deep freeze so we thought we better get a alarm since we keep the freezer in our basement. One alarm is for the freezer and the other is only for the fridge since you can't set the alarming beeper for low enough for another freezer. We bought the special lithium expensive batteries figuring we want to do everything possible to protect the meat. It was a little hard to find a place in the house it would read the sensors and we would hear the alarm beep. But we finally ended up having to put the alarm unit in our bedroom since that is basically on top of the freezer. It worked erratically for 2 months, would alarm about once every 10 days and say the temp went up 20 degrees when nobody opening the door or anything, never figured that out but then about a week ago it just stopped working. We reset it, changed the $10 batteries, stood right next to the freezer and no matter what we do it won't work. So this product ended up being a big waste of time and money. Not sure if it can be returned after 2 1/2 months or not.

Best Supco 43665 Programmable Wall Thermostat with Auto Season Deals

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List Price: $76.67
Sale Price: $64.25
Today's Bonus: 16% Off

I live in an apartment, and the old honeywell thermostat was pretty basic. And located right above all of my electronics, so guaranteed to be reading the wrong temperature virtually all the time. This thermostat is a huge improvement. With an additional sensor (purchased separately) I can now move the sensor to my location (say, bedroom at night) and the heating system will mainly focus on that area instead of the living room. It can actually use 2 inside sensors and one external (for reference, I guess and all extra purchases, just so you know) and average the inside TC's to control the temperature. I would heartily recommend this setup. And it's not very difficult to program. The face plate can "pop off" the wall mounted base plate so you can do the programming in a more convenient place, like the couch or the kitchen table! Well done design-wise.

Update: Feb 2, 2013.

Well, the control unit has failed after about 2 months. I was just on the phone with customer support, they sent another thermostat when I expected an exact replacement. I'm surprised to see the other reviewer had his unit replaced. I was literally just told that the unit is not available (no longer manufactured, discontinued) and cannot be replaced. I'm not saying that their lying, as they may have decided that this unit is not reliable and have pulled it.

I will try to send the first unit back to the seller and get my money back. Then I will try to order an exact replacement and give it another try as I really do like the unit. It failed when I popped the "convenient" faceplate off to replace the backup battery. While we did get the unit working again in a basic capacity, the programmable functionality is gone. Unlike the other reviewer, my remote unit works just fine, and it can still be set to read off of that remote sensor. It just won't hold any program.

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I have bought two of these for two different homes. They work great if you have an unbalance heating system that gets some rooms hot while leaving others cold. In theory, you can just take the sensor (sold separately) with you from room to room and the thermostat will react to the temperature reading on the sensor, thus heating the room you have the sensor in to the requested temperature. Both houses where I have installed these have very poorly balanced heating systems. It is handy, with a few caveats.

First off, installation can be a bit tricky if your existing system does not exactly match the diagrams in the installation manual. It took me a few tries, but I did get it wired properly in about an hour. If you're not comfortable with handyman projects, don't even look at installing this yourself. On the upside, this is designed for low-voltage systems, so there's not really any way to hurt yourself.

Secondly, this thermostat has WAY too many buttons. I don't even know what most of them do. Unless you are an utter and complete temperature-control geek, the functions and buttons on this are completely over-the-top. So much so that if you ever go to reprogram this you must have the manual, because you'll have a tough time remembering how to do it. Plenty of thermostats get by with four to six straightforward buttons to achieve all the functions a normal person needs...

Lastly, the range on the sensor isn't spectacular. One of the houses I installed this in has some cinderblock walls, and even with line of site to the thermostat, the sensor was out of range. It seems to have pretty good range through drywall, etc., but the cinderblock was too much.

Overall, this can be handy and is much cheaper than any other unit I've found with a remote sensor. If that sensor is what you need, this is worth the money, but if you don't need the remote, skip this one.

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So I'm not going to dump $200 into a NEST, which doesn't even have this feature remote temperature sensor. This is amazing. I can sleep at night and not get overheated or over-cooled in a specific room of the house.

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I ordered this thermostat with the remote sensor and was never able to get it recognize the temperature on the remote sensor. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent a new t-state and remote. I could not get these to work even after spending time on the phone with customer service. I send back the 2 remotes and 1 t-stat. It works fine as a t-state EXCEPT the cover latch broke on both so the T-stat has the buttons showing. Great idea terrible execution.

Discount Radiant Heater, 1500 Watts

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List Price: $45.99
Sale Price: $43.07
Today's Bonus: 6% Off

This item was exactly what we needed to heat up a back bathroom to keep out the winter chill.. it was a replacement for one exactly like it. My wife uses it all the time and would purchase it again if needed..

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