I purchased the 8-element heater. I was very impressed with the heater in its entirety. The 8 element heater comes in a wood finish. Online I was worried that the wood looked to like it belonged in my grandmas house. But the wood was a little bit darker than I expected so I found that pleasant. In my opinion, the all-wood look is slightly outdated, but it is not the worst thing I could have brought into my home. We are trying to use less of our old home heating system (expensive), so we got this to help supplement the heat in our home. We have been keeping the house heater at about 65 and then using this 8 element heater to heat up the rest. It is not meant to heat an entire house. It is meant to heat a large room. We use it in our living room, that is connected to our kitchen and hall. It does a good job, though we keep the doors to all bedrooms closed. Most other fan-type heaters I have had in the past blow the hot air past the heating elements and are quite hot directly in front of them (sometimes dangerously hot), but do little to heat the overall room temperature. This heater is designed to circulate the air of the room through it, and gradually bring the room temp up. This heater has a very light air flow so you can be in front of it and it will not feel like it is burning a hole in your skin. It has a red glow coming from the elements, so if you put this in a room you are sleeping that may or may not bother you. The noise level is very subtle, it is a light sound that is constant. That being said, I do not think this would bother anyone trying to sleep with it. It keeps moisture in the room and does not completely dry out the room. I can feel the moisture or something (not sure what) in the air when I breathe. I am have very sensitive lungs and I can feel a difference when I walk into the room. It is “something” that was not there before. This heater is semi-programmable, meaning you can tell it to shut off in so many hours (1-12), and you can tell it to turn on in so many hours (1-12). This “programming” is only temporary, not daily. So when I tell it to turn itself on in 8 hours, it will come on in 8 hours and stay on until I turn it off or set a time for it to go off that day. Think of it less as programming and merely setting a timer. Each time the timer is used, it has to be reset again. This feature has been nice because when we shut it off at night, we set the timer to come on about an hour before we wake up, making the living room/kitchen much more pleasant in the morning. It also has wheels that allow it to roll nicely on the carpet. It is also never hot to the touch (outer wood area). We have cats that can easily jump on and lay on this heater. The front grill area (where the hot air comes out) is only very hot directly in front of the grill (first 2 inches). After 3 inches from the heater, the air is just pleasant and warm. To test this heater for small children or infants, I placed my hand as close to the hottest parts while the heater is on full blast as if I was an infant looking for a firm place to support myself; it was uncomfortable at first, making me want to pull my hand away, but not harmful. It was only after leaving my hand there after about 5 seconds did my hand start to burn, and I had to pull it away. I feel confident that this heater would be extremely safe near small children. So the only perceivable danger would be if furniture was placed within 2 inches of the front of the heater. Since I have not been using this heater for more than a month, it is not fair of me to comment, at this time, on any type of electric bill increase, but I will add to this post at a later date on this matter.