Infrared heater reviews are an easy way to find out what the owners of a particular brand of heater think about its performance and reliability, and how they rate their overall satisfaction; usually by awarding a number of stars. Heater reviews are the consumer's version of Consumer Reports and the internet equivalent of word of mouth.
However, many reviewers inadvertently omit important information about the circumstances influencing the heater's performance and the resulting review. These are the facts that you can parse by reading between the lines. But first you have to ask yourself:
Is this a real review?
Most of the time it's easy to spot a self serving review. These are usually planted by a company employee or PR firm and go into great detail telling you what an incredible product it is. But sometimes the approach is more subtle making it difficult to spot. These reviews usually take the form of someone masquerading as a hillbilly and littered with intentional misspellings and carefully constructed bad grammar.
Planted reviews are usually among the first posted and intended to stimulate sales. That is not to say the product isn't as good as they say it is, but it is an insulting way to get the point across.
How many reviews does the heater have?
More is always better. A substantial number of reviews indicate the heater has been around the block a few times and many of its short comings have been exposed. Generally speaking, an infrared heater with a rating of 4 out of 5 stars is considered trust worthy. But you can't necessarily take a 4 star rating at face value.
Sometimes a heater, or any product for that matter, can receive a 4 star rating if there are enough 5 star reviews to offset a substantial number of 1 or 2 star reviews.
You can also assume that a product with only one or two reviews is new to the market and therefore has no track record. This leaves you with two options, either be an early adopter and test the heater yourself, or go to any number of shopping site like Nextag to look for additional infrared heater reviews from different online retailers.
Should I read all the reviews?
If a popular heater has more reviews than you have time to read, scan a few of the four star reviews to find out why the reviewer deducted a star from a perfect 5 star score, and then cut to the chase and go right to the 1 star reviews where potential deal breaker reviews like safety complaints are posted.
Fortunately, infrared heaters have an excellent safety record and complaints of this nature are practically non-existent.
What the reviewer is really saying - or isn't
The number one complaint against infrared heaters is too little heat. But complaints about too little heat rarely mention one key factor: How well insulated and weatherized is the room, or home, being heated? It's difficult for a furnace, much less an infrared heater, to maintain heat in a room with poorly insulated walls, single pane window glass, and leaky door and window frames.
Another key factor affecting a heater's performance is the size of the room. Complaints about a heater's inability to heat a "large" room without stating the room's dimensions don't shed much light on the problem, but frequently this complaint is warranted and results from the manufacturer's claim to "heat up to 1,000 square feet."
Sure, an infrared heater could probably pull this off if your home is buttoned up real tight and has an open floor plan. But most homes don't meet these criteria making the 1,000 sq. ft. heating claim difficult to fulfill.
A more realistic expectation is "up to 600 square feet" which is still substantial and easily achievable for an infrared heater in most home heating situations.
