Rinnai FC510P Ventless Propane Heater, Energy-Efficient Space Heater with Programmable Thermostat

I RARELY leave reviews for products I buy on Amz. But I felt obligated to leave one for this heater.Yes, it’s expensive, no I haven’t tried the cheaper models like Mr. Heater etc. I researched all of them, and the reviews and researching Rinnai on Google, I couldn’t find one bad thing written about them. These heaters frequently rate as the #1 heater on top ten lists.After getting it hooked up and running, I see why! The heat output was instantly notable.I live in a 1200 sq ft old farmhouse, drafty, but not too bad. We started this heater up the first evening, and ran it through the night. Our house went from sub 60F to 72F by the morning. The entire house! Not just the room where the heater is. It would have gone higher had I set the thermostat higher. WHich I should mention, the thermostat works perfectly and will ramp the unit up and down automatically (if you set it to do so). In fact, as I write this, the unit just shut itself down, and it’s in the low 30s out this morning.I actually considered turning the unit down to like 66F, because it was making me too hot while sleeping and our bedroom is upstairs. This thing really heats up the whole house, I’m absolutley blown away honestly.The install was pretty easy, i bought the Mr. Heter appliance hookup kit on Amazon and it cam with all the proper fittings. Rinnai includes one shutoff valve, and the kit comes with the other one you need. I went to home depot and bought their HomeFlex CSST yellow gas line and the appropriate fittings, basically just the hose and two termination fittings. Drilled a hole in the floor, ran the hose into the basement and out the sill board, then connsected that to a 125lbs propane tank. I have no idea how long the tank will last before I need to refill, but the technician that delivered the tank seems to thinkabout 2 months, we’ll see. It was only $235 to fill the tank, so compared to heating oil at over $5 per gallon and running my furnace with the electric, this is at least 300-400% cheaper per month. LGB!I was thinking about buying another one of these heaters for the other end of my house, but honestly I don’t need it. This unit alone does the job!If I could give 10 stars I would. I gave only 4 stars for install because while it’s easy, I would suggest most people have a pro install it for them because you have to be pretty confident in your ability to leak test the fittings and line properly, or you could die.EDIT - Update 2 years later - The heater is still functioning like new. It still puts out a ton of heat. I clean the filter every month or so. I'm extremely impressed by this unit. It runs through about 100 gal of propane per month, but again, I keep my house at 70-72F throughout the entire winter. The unit basically runs the entire winter, ramping itself up and down automatically as the set temperature is reached. This is still way more cost effective and efficient that my oil burning furnace which I have now not used for the past 3 years.

We have a 450 sq ft cabin that is spray foam insulated. This heater was installed today in near zero temps. Once installed, and turned on. It was easily able to maintain a 72-74° temp inside the cabin. Please remember to open a windows as this heater does not produce carbon monoxide. But does produce carbon and it can replace all existing oxygen. So cracked a window and enjoy the wonderful heat.

In addition to direct vent gas stoves, wood stoves, and the usual forced air natural gas, I've had vent free heaters for about 12 years. They do great in areas of your house that might be hard to heat, or even in a great room with lots of Windows that needs supplemental heat. My application is this: this heater is the primary heater in a room that is about 20'x20', has one wall that is mostly glass, and the home is in the mountains at 6600 feet of elevation.The install was super easy. I was a little concerned when I read the instructions and there were all sorts of warnings about not installing the unit at high elevation (I think they rec not installing above 5000 feet). There was even a complicated pressure adjustment that you were supposed to do,many after attempting the access the area to do it (and failing to even gain access) I decided to just plug it in and see how it performed. I have 2 other direct vent devices (a 200,000 but water heater, and a 100,000 but reznor garage heater) and they both needed modifications to work at 6600, so I was concerned that this heater might be a bust. Turns out it ran like a top with no modifications. Yeah!! And I've been running it pretty hard for about 2 months, and it's been great. Btw, I'm super paranoid about carbon monoxide (CO) and I have multiple CO monitors through the house, and they've all been silent.The thing blasts a huge amount of air (that's good!) and will run at high or low speed, depending on demand. It will circulate air periodically, even when it's at its target thermostatic set temp. Mine also seems to keep the air 2 degrees above the set point (will display / keep room temp at 68, when you set it at 66). I thought this was a flaw, but now I don't care.It's very quiet for the amount of air it moves. It will make a buzzing sound (takes a little getting used to, but no biggie) for about 2 seconds at ignition of flame. If they figured out a way to make that more quiet the dang thing would be perfect!!As far as any concerns you might have about vent free, I'd say that at least in my type of application (mountains, dry environment, house built in 1977) the unit is a slam dunk. Well done Rinnai.