Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This heater does work very well and might have gotten 5 stars from me except for one thing. I have another of these Big Buddys and they have always (for many years until now) had a low power but very functional squirrel cage type blower built inside the top of the unit. It does increase the efficiency quite a bit by directing wasted heat out the front. This blower runs on batteries or on an a/c adapter. The a/c adapters are still shown as a recommended additional item to go with the new heaters. The new heater I ordered indeed has a battery compartment door. It was frustrating to try to remove the battery door normally with the spring clip release as it simply would not release. Finally I used small screw driver to pry it and discovered it was actually glued on, and then it popped off. Inside was a battery compartment with battery placement instructions but with no terminals and the a/c adapter plug hole is simply filled with silicone. Upon inspecting the inside through the top vents I could see a blower housing with no blower. I called Mr Heater and was told a bs story of how "tariffs" "forced" them to not include a blower but then not tell anyone it no longer was included. I told the agent they should have just charged $10 or whatever more instead of secretly degrading a previously great product and blaming "tariffs" and pretending there was no change. I returned unit and located last years model at a local hardware store which has a blower and it certainly does work better with the blower as I had both types functioning to test. These are fairly wind stable also as the glowing panels will relight the pilot in a pretty stiff breeze, but if the direct wind is real strong the pilot can be extinguished, but the unit will safely just shut off. Note that these are surprisingly far more wind stable than the bare Mr Heater tank top heaters which a medium strong wind can cause a scary "flame out" overheating malfunction where the whole thing roars and turns red hot, not safe at all. There are lots of the old model red Big Buddys out there still with blowers. The gray Big Buddys all have blowers too. It works OK with no blower, but they are better with blower. Stop recommending the a/c adapter to go with the new no-blower ones.