Heat Surge Amish-made fireplace

  • Thread starter Ivan Seeking
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Heat
In summary, the Heat Surge "Amish-made" fireplace is a 1500 watt electric heater that is just a fancy cabinet. It sells for up to $587.00, but can be bought for less at Walmart. It is perfect for any house, but is only rated for 5110 BTU's. The targeted consumer is probably elderly or shut-ins, and the heater is not very efficient.
  • #36
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #37


Proton Soup said:
i think 15A is a common breaker size now for wall outlet circuits. in the past, larger size fuses may have been used. few enough and large enough to be fire hazards.

wall outlets in an actual "shop" in a commercial building may be another story, though. do we have an electrician in the house?

Wall outlets in the USA that have the conventional two vertical slots are limited to 15A, whether in a shop or not. You can have a 20A circuit however. The plug has one vertical and one horizontal blade. The 20A outlet has one vertical slot and one "tee" slot so it can accept devices rated for either current limit. Beyond 20A, there are many sizes/shapes/flavors depending on voltage/current/phases, which is why I usually end up buying the wrong pigtail for a new (non-amish) dryer.

Now that I have butted-in to your forum... This looks like a fun place. Can I stay and play?

I had a little comment about Heat-Scourge fireplaces. My 83y/o dad bought one last year from a USSA-Today ad, against my advice. He was impressed by the claimed energy savings. I was impressed with the huge uninsulated barn they were building them in instead of a workshop, and the fact that several of the electric units seemed to be operating.

Fortunately, they took it back (incl. shipping) without a problem. All of the arguments against this thing are clear to the people here, but here's a little icing. The unit does look really nice, kind of like the ones at Home Repot and Crustco for half the price. It is laminated plywood with what looks like a polyurathane finish (organically grown by the amish I'm sure.) It weighs little, and has tiny wheels that will bury themselves in the shallowest pile carpet. We never plugged it in, but you can imagine what the "flame" must have looked like anyway.

Other than the "amish made" (don't go all lawyer about who made the heaters vs mantles) and "energy savings" claims, the most insulting blow is the size of the thing. To quote a famous musician, "it was in danger of being trod upon by dwarves!" If you see their current TV spots, you'll see what I mean. In every scene, they are careful to make sure that all people (mostly children) are always sitting on the floor next to it, because the arm of the(empty) couch next to it is TALLER than the thing! Even the "dad" is taller while on his hands and knees!

These people score marketing points, but with me they ethically rank up there with the guy who wanted to sell me 200-Tesla (not a typo) magnets that would remove impurities from my house water and make it more healthy by "polarizing" it.
 
  • #38


xykotik said:
Now that I have butted-in to your forum... This looks like a fun place. Can I stay and play?

Please do! Do you know any good Amish games?
 
  • #39


Ivan Seeking said:
Please do! Do you know any good Amish games?

Well, there's Pin the Tail on the Mule, Music-less Chairs, and Hangman is popular among teens.
 
  • #41


Although I agree wholeheartedly this is a fancy, small space heater, does anybody else on here live near Amish? If so, look at the people in the ads. Do the clothes colors look right to you?
 
  • #42


Ivan Seeking said:
True or false: You can get the same amount of heat from a $15 electric heater from Walmart?


True. And the commercials showing bearded Amish hand-assembling these units is false as well. These are made in factories.

And they will not save you money unless you shut off your main heat in other rooms of your house.

A classic rip off.
 
  • #44


rerubin said:
And they will not save you money unless you shut off your main heat in other rooms of your house.

It would actually cost you more money to shut of your heat pump and run these electric heaters.

CS
 
  • #45


stewartcs said:
That's a really low PF for a UPS. Most newer ones are around 0.9. Sounds like mgb bought a cheap UPS! :smile:
Hey, it was nearly $50!
It kept the PC alive during our regular winter brown outs and it powered the cable modem + wireless for an hour when the power went out, so I could stay on PF from my laptop.

I don't understand why they don't quote the actual amp-hours of the battery though - except it would allow a fair comparison of the products.
 
  • #46


I see these ads all over, and I personally think that these should be allowed to continue simply because I find it so humorous and amusing (also, at least there isn't any false information).

Besides the fact that the Amish are really into the whole electronics thing, I find the concept hilarious. I can picture people at home...

"Mom - My room's really cold... could you please wheel in the fireplace?"

Plus, it'd be great to just have a fireplace in the middle of a room, with no chimney or anything, wouldn't it? Guests would be fascinated. ;-)

It scares me that these things must sell, though; otherwise, the company wouldn't have the cash to keep publicizing themselves.
 
  • #47


mgb_phys said:
Hey, it was nearly $50!
It kept the PC alive during our regular winter brown outs and it powered the cable modem + wireless for an hour when the power went out, so I could stay on PF from my laptop.

I don't understand why they don't quote the actual amp-hours of the battery though - except it would allow a fair comparison of the products.

My UPS cost way more than that...

Of course, I'm running a small data center. ;-)
 
  • #48


Maybe the Amish should start working with the guys that make corn cob fueled heaters...makes more sense.
 
  • #49


- On BTU based calculation, Gas heat 80% efficient (BTU) are at least 2 times cheaper than Electric heat 100% efficiency (BTU).
- Normal home electrical outlet(15A) can produce max 15x110=1650 watts max at 100% efficiency.
- This heater is not hand made by Amish. May be China has Amish population. In short I do not understand what is the purpose of such claim.
 
  • #50


Well, ignoring the claims of perfect efficiency which would imply that the Amish recently became involved in the production of antimatter, it just sounds like an electric heater.

More telling perhaps, is that nearly every review for it I've found, from Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001O4CTTQ/?tag=pfamazon01-20 to others were "1 star" with the fond hope that soon negative stars would be forthcoming. So, the claim is to fool gullible people and to use marketing buzzworks to reel them in, oooooold trick.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #51


My neighbor has two of these "Amish Fireplaces". Last night she mentioned that the plugs were hot to the touch. I went over to her house to check them. One plug had melted to the outlet and the other showed melting damage. Previous posts have mentioned that these are rated for using only a few hours at a time, yet people plug them into outlets and leave them on all winter.
 

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top