Because of my husband's medical problems we could no longer have a wood fire...so, this one replaced a woodburning fire in our fireplace. It looks very realistic, get some heat from it...we have large livingroom and, of course, it is not made to heat a large room or your whole house. It works great for us because I can still have the beautiful ""effect"" of a fire in the fireplace. Ours is very quiet..we LOVE it, when it wears out we will buys another of the same product. If we downsize houses, my husband can build a fireplace frame for it and we can still use it. Was a good buy!!!!