Love, love, love this!!! I can turn it on without heat year around. It gives the illusion of flames reflected on the back wall and is fairly realistic, in my opinion.  It is rather noisy when the heat is on but the noise decreases some once warmed up. It does heat pretry well in a room that is notoriously cold. I give this 5 stars for quality, for realistic flame and for heat output, even with the noise.