Customer Reviews

Holmes HH3690-U Silent Micathermic Whole Room Radiator

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought this heater last fall and it worked fine throughout the winter. Kept the family room comfortable. Went to use it this fall and when I first turned it on it smelled funny and then a few minutes later it burst into flames!!! Unsafe and scarey!! DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS DANGEROUS HEATER!!!

Heater worked fine first year of ownership. Pulled it out the closet this fall and saw little wisps of smoke coming out. I figured it was just dust burning off, but after a few minutes a saw and heard some pretty big sparks coming from it. Luckily I turned it off before it caught fire like some of the other unfortunate reviewers here!!!

Worked great for one winter, that was it....won't come on at all now. I have old heaters with fans that still work after 30 yrs. What's up with this piece of crap?

I bought last winter and it worked fine. Wormed up pretty good and I tought that I made a good choice. But......I started using this fall and it worked fine for a couple days. Then I heard sound like something snap, so I turned around and looked. The heater was sparkling and smork was coming out. DO NOT buy!

I bought this heater a year or so ago at home depot. Despite repeated episodes like mine (check out the YouTube video), the company has not issued a recall. If we had not been home, and had somehow forgotten to turn it off during our absence, I hate to think what would have happened.

I have used the Holmes HH3690 heater for 2 winters, every night, overnight, in our master bedroom.
It has 2 settings high and low. The low setting is more than sufficient (with built-in thermostat) to maintain and heat the room. It is so quiet, which is our #1 requirement for the master bedroom. This is a wonderful heater and I highly recommend it. I plan to purchase another one for our guest bedroom, as we turn off the forced air/heating at night to conserve energy. I tried another brand (Bionaire) thinking all microthermic heaters are the same. They are not. The Bionaire is noisy on high and makes occasional popping sounds on low. I plan to return the Bionaire.

I have had excellent service from the two I have. So far anyway. These were free replacements from Holmes for recalled water type heaters. These are on their third winter running 24/7 usually full bore from Oct to April. I have seen the You Tube video about the heater mentioned elsewhere and would ask folks to take note of the large dog with the weapon sized tail. Does anyone suspect that could have been the problem in the first place? Another possible problem is that it was near a freezer as I recall. Talk about maxing out a circuit. As with most heaters, on high setting it will pretty much load up a circuit on its own, so take that into consideration when deciding where to plug it in. The same line as your freezer might be a bit much.
But lets not judge and talk safety. I have forced air propane heat. It is very costly to run. My electric heaters do a reasonable job for a fraction of the cost. I will not leave the house with electric heaters plugged in and have my main heating system ready to go. As far as hot to the touch comments by another poster, heck yes, it is a heater not an air conditioner. Its not red hot like heaters of old and you won't hold your hand on it for long. Having said all that, do I trust them, plastic and all? Comments by others have only shored up my beliefs. Don't leave the house with these things PLUGGED IN. And one final comment. When you operate these things use common sense. Turn thermostat down, plug in, set to whatever temp-or in my case full bore. To turn off, turn thermostat down prior to unplugging. If you see a spark at the plug in, na na.

We got this heater several years ago. We never use the high heat because it causes the circuit breaker for the bedroom to open. The low heat is half the amps and works fine for us. We also set it at the low end of the variable heat dial, so it doesn't stay on constantly. We have never had a problem with crackling or fire such as what I read in the other Amazon reviews of this product. So far it has worked well for us so I have to give it a high score. However, we will keep an eye open and never leave it on when we leave the house.

Note: If you use an extension cord with an inferior current rating, the cord can overheat and smoke and smell, especially if you set the heater on high.

After over a year of use, the heater malfunctioned and caught on fire. Fortunately the fire was discovered quickly, but there were a lot of flames for an 'Oil Free' unit sitting on carpet and pad over concrete. Something had to be fueling the fire other than the burning plastic because carpet and pad doesn't burn like that.
Don't Buy It! If you own it, Return It. The Holmes group has SIX DEFECTIVE UNITS on record at the US Consumer Product Safety Commission ([...]) that it had to recall for starting fires, so I would recommend returning anything by Holmes.

I bought this item recently. So far I used this heater about 3 times. The Holmes silent radiator takes about 3 min(s) to heat up, but not fully. It takes longer time before it reaches it full protential, which is not much. The radiator does not transfer heat throughout the room. In other words, the heat stays concentrated within a small area. The room space where the unit sits is a 10 by 10 (this is a very small room). The temperature outside when I used the item yesterday was about 56 degrees. I needed an additional heater in the room. The frame of the radiator which is medal gets very hot which could be a hazard. I do not recommend the purchase of this radiator.