My Heater Hoopla

The old farm house I lived in near Sarnia had oil heat; it cost $800-$1000 to fill the oil tank and even with me keeping the thermostat as low as possible I still went through a tank every 2 months. That's $400-$500 a month for heat! I found getting a few good electric space heaters worked better and cost my half that oil cost me.

My new Nova Scotia home of course has oil heat ...sigh. What a pain in the butt. Oil here in Nova Scotia is about the same price as in Ontario, so I figured I wouldn't even bother with it. I figured I'd get a couple of good electric space heaters.

The two electric space heaters I have work ok, but they are not enough for really cold days, and of course when the power goes out, which is does a lot here in Nova Scotia, they don't work. 

I decided I needed a third heater, one not run by electricity. I researched the crap out of it and found a propane heater was by far the best way for me to go (comparing price/safety/heat generated etc). 

There are only a few companies that sell portable propane heaters, I found it was a toss up between Mr Heater and DynaGlow. Mr Heater has a better section of propane heaters than Dynaglow does, but Mr Heater had a fair amount of complaints about the pilot light not staying on, on their heaters. However, DynaGlow also had similar complaints 

Both Mr Heater and DynaGlow sell a propane cabinet heater for around $200. I decided that was the style of heater that was best suited for me. I checked all over New Glasgow and sadly no one sold one. All I could find in New Glasgow was Mr Heater's small buddy heater, which was not what I wanted. To get a cabinet propane heater I had to order it online.

Home Depot offered the DynaGlow cabinet heater for $199.99 with free shipping. Home Hardware offered the Mr Heater cabinet heater for $194.99 with instore pick up. The Home Hardware is in Stellarton about a ten minute drive from me. I picked buying the Mr Heater from Home Hardware as the online reviews gave me the impression the Mr Heater was better than DynaGlow, and I thought Home Hardware was a more trustworthy company than Home Depot was ....

I ordered online on Saturday, November 28. Home Hardware took my money on the Monday, said it should be in, in 3-7 days from the order date. 

Around 4pm on the tenth day, I finally get the email it's in. yay! I'm so excited! and just in time! It's suppose to be -20 with the wind chill in just a couple of days,

My son headed into Stellarton first thing in the morning to pick up the heater. He got home with the box, we carefully put the bottom on, hooked up the propane tank and the pilot light would not stay on. As soon as I let go of the knob thing it went out. :(

We googled the problem, did their whole trouble shocking thing. Heck, I went to the store and got a whole new tank of propane just encase our tank was too low. Nope,  nothing worked. The pilot light would not stay on. 

Well, that's just depressing.

We carefully took the wheels back off, packed the stupid heater back up in the box, and my son took it back to the store.The customer service person not only wouldn't take it back , he was rude and insulting to my son! He told my son that because we had ordered it online we had to return it via online.

My son came home incredibly upset. I cried. I was so upset. All the upset made my sarcodoisis flare up big time, so in addition to being horribly upset I also ended up in major pain :(

All I'm thinking is now I'm going to have to wait Gods know how many days to get my money back so I can order yet another heater. How long is all that going to take? Another ten days?  It was Wednesday night, we have -20 temps on Saturday, that doesn't leave me enough time to get a new heater. 

And how dare someone be rude to my son!! When he was polite and did absolutely nothing wrong! Seriously, I'm a mom, anyone who is rude to my son I want to beat the crap out of! 

So, I freaked. I had a meltdown and I yelled at every person I could find to yell at. I wrote Home Hardware a nasty email and demanded a full refund immediately. I found the Home Hardware Facebook group and bitched on there. I found the Mr Heater Facebook group and bitched on there and gave them a really horrible review on their heater. 

Mr Heater responded almost immediately to my freak out and apologized for their heater not working. They stepped right up to the plate and told me they would overnight Fedex me a brand new heater immediately. They had hoped to get it here before the weekend's cold spell. I sat here all day Friday waiting for the heater to show up and yep, you guessed it, it never showed up :(

Meanwhile, Home Hardware head office has emailed me and has apologized. They forwarded my very upset email to the owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware. The owner of the Stellarton Home Hardware was fantastic. The rude employee was fired and the owner gave me my money back in cash. 

The weekend went by, no Mr Heater. Monday I spent the whole afternoon fighting to keep my driveway clear just encase Fedex showed up (we had a snow storm on Monday, got a bit more than half a foot of snow)

Tuesday, the Fedex guy showed up around 9am.

Not only did Mr Heater send me an awesome new cabinet heater they also sent me a Mr Buddy heater! FOR FREE! WOW! That's basically $300 worth of heater for free! YAY! What an amazing company!

The heater works FANTASTIC! Holy shit! I should of got one of these years ago, they rock! It gives off HUGE heat! I'll do a full review on the heaters on my next post as I think they would be great for my off-grid and camping friends.

So, it took me from Nov 28-December 13 to get the heater I wanted. It cost me a shit load of tears, upset, frustration and yelling, but I finally got it! And I actually got it for free. WOW!

I am happily warm :)