Lasko 751320 Ceramic Tower Heater with Remote Control

Rating

I take one star away for the cord, otherwise this is a great product that heats nearly as well and as quietly as a kerosene heater of the same size.

The cord though is a genuine design flaw. It gets rather warm when plugged in and should be replaced with something a bit more heavily insulated and more abrasion resistant. One bad scratch and this thing will be waiting to explode and start a fire.

Noting the problem with the cord, I’m a bit leary of leaving this heater unattended, though I have left it with the timer on to shut itself off several times and no problems yet. As it gets older though, it’s more likely to have a problem of course.

BOTTOM LINE: Great heater, though it really needs to have a heavier cord. And this is such a cheap improvement in the design that I can’t figure why Lasko wouldn’t have included it if for no other reason than consumer safety confidence in their product.

I recommend the heater, but add that you should be very careful to make sure the cord is in good shape as you continue to use it.

We are looking to replace ours for general use just because of the cord issue, though I will continue to use this heater in my muck room–where I keep and work on my bicycles.

Rating

I bought one of these at Wal-Mart for $28 (their normal price is ~$42). Since it is a 1500 watt ceramic heater, it heats as well as any other ceramic heater that draws that much current, so nothing to comment about on that point. What that means is it will heat up your room, but it will take a while if it is not a small room. To be expected. Since it is not a radiant (quartz) heater, unless you stand very close, you will not feel a lot of warmth until the ambient T goes up and that will happen from the ceiling area on down.

It operates quite quietly (fan and rotation)and is not annoying. The rotation is smooth. The remote is a very nice touch and handier than I thought it would be. The LED display is bright, but located on top, so you can’t see it from the front of the unit if you are seated. A design flaw, I think. The three warranty is nice. Cobstruction is pretty much all plastic, so I wonder how well the heat grates will stand up over time when the plasticizers evaporate out of the plastic. Nice styling. There is a handle, but someone stopped thinking too soon and there is nothing for your fingers to grip, so you cannot pick it up sercurely with one hand.

As the other reviewer said, the cord does get warm, but not hot. The insulation is the same thickness as in other space heaters I looked at not really fragile. I don’t think there is cause to worry here. It does not appear to be UL listed, however, which may be common among cheap space heaters and is slightly disconcerting. Probably a cost control measure.

Overall a nice unit with no serious flaws and adequate heating.

Rating

Purchased this product from Home Depot in January of 2006 and used it to heat a very small room, which it did well enough. This year after using it for about a month on and off, the heater would shut down after running for a short time. I cleaned the vents located in the back of the unit and it now appears to be working okay.

The power cord does appear to heat up to an alarming temperature.

Nice featuers: Oscilating movement, timer and remote.

Bad: Power cord heats up to where it is nearly melting. It will shut down if rear vents get clogged. And it does’t do a good job of heating up a larger room. I wouldn’t use it for a room larger than a 10′ by 12′ bedroom with 7′ ceilings.

Rating

Reading the other reviews of this product I realized I had to write one of my own to help potential purchases realize they will really be missing out if they bypass this heater. This is the fourth space heater I’ve purchased in the last two months and finally one I can keep.

My living room has three sets of glass french doors, high ceilings, and lots of windows. It is very hard to heat it, but there is no central heating system, so I have to rely on space heaters. I tried the expensive Vornado (over $100), which didn’t make a dent in the cold, the noisy Honeywell oscillator (which not only gave me a headache it was so loud, but also didn’t provide quite enough heat, though it heated better than the Vornado), and the WindChaser radiant heater (which left the room freezing cold but made me sweat at the same time, extremely unpleasant). Finally I found this item.

It heats the room to the point where it actually shuts off sometimes, having reached the desired 65 degrees at night or 70 degrees in the day. The fan is as quiet as the Vornado when on high and is even quieter when on low. The quietest heater I’ve ever found. And as for the cord, while my oil filled heater does have a thicker cord and I do notice that this cord gets warm where that one doesn’t, after 96 hours of continuous usage, it is just barely warm. Hardly anything I would worry about starting a fire, though a thicker cord would be a good investment for the manufacturer to make.

Given the natural limitations of space heaters, I think you simply can’t do better than this one. If this heater doesn’t work for you, then an electric space heater isn’t going to do it for you and you should be looking at other heating options entirely.

Rating

We have leased a two-story townhouse. We call the upstairs the Sahara and the downstairs Antartica. Heat rises up, so no matter what temp we turned the central on, the upstairs got hot, the downstairs…. ehhh. So we got one of these for our living room and come downstairs in the morning and turn it on. It makes a major difference. We *love* it. My dad’s wall heater went out so we brought him this until the new one came (2 days later) and had to fight to get it back. We bought him one online and it should be delivered next week. He (like us) liked the silence, the osccilation, the temp control… everything. And we’re not heating just a bedroom, we’re heating a big living room. It makes a world of difference. Love everything about it. Remote control way cool when you’re sitting down and think ya wouldn’t mind having it a tad warmer around you. I’ve read the other reviews, we haven’t had “cord” heating troubles. Just warmth and with the osccilation, it isn’t just blowing one direction, it’s spreading the warmth all around.

Rating

We own two of these towers and love them, but the older one suddenly cutting off every time after a few minutes’ use. We tried the recommended reset method of unplugging and waiting fifteen minutes before restarting — but to no effect. After trying and failing to reach Lasko’s customer support, we did some Web searches and found that someone had fixed a similar problem by cleaning the vents. I inspected mine and found a thin layer of dust that appeared to be clogging the fine vent screening on the back of the unit. After simply brushing away the dust, this fine heating element is again fully functional!

Rating

I’ve had this heater for 2 to 4 years but have been frustrated by the on-board controls that only let you choose 70 or 75 degrees. I doubt the remote would let you choose something in between, but I never wanted to use the remote so I really don’t know. Also, at the tail end of this last winter, the on-board controls didn’t seem to work quite right anymore. However, it was quiet, heated effectively, and had a very small footprint.

So I have just bought a Lasko 755320 from Fred Meyer on sale (10/4/09) for $45 and the cashier found a coupon for me that took another $5 off. I just plugged it in and now I can choose any degree I want! Yea!! Even if I find the digital thermometer a bit inaccurate I’m confident I’ll be able to compensate. If it’s too hot, I’ll just set the temp lower until I find what feels right to me. Vice versa for being too cold. I’ve read complaints about the beeping it makes when you change settings, but I live by myself so there’s no danger of waking up a partner.