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Bad design - Lakewood 750 Oil Filled Baseboard Heater Lakewood claims 50 years of experience, but they made a beginner's mistake on this model: The thermostat is placed...

Lakewood 750 Oil Filled Baseboard Heater Product 750 Key FeaturesType BaseboardPower Source ElectricHeating Element Oil Fil...

Loss: $65

After looking at very high priced stand-alone oil-filled baseboards on the web (like Fahrenheat, Q-Mark, Cadet,) I bought this at my local hardware store.

I feel like a fool for even buying this thing. I thought there was a possibility the fire retardant (advertised on the box) could be of a harmless variety. How wrong and stupid I was.

Also, it is not a true oil-filled heater. The marketing is insidious. The heater-elements are not inside the oil-filled reservoir pipe, which is steel (not copper.) It is just a dummy pipe, filled with oil liquid. The heat source, the electric heating elements are housed in a dry, separate, thinner, 3/8″ aluminum tube, running parallel to the 2″ diameter “dummy” oil-filled pipe, about an inch-and-a-half away from it.

THIS 3/8″ TUBE GETS RED HOT. So the safety feature of a true oil-filled heater, the reason many people buy them, does not exist in this unit.

This thin red-hot tube is connected to the steel oil-filled pipe by the only by cooling fins, through which heat obviously travels to the oil-filled reservoir pipe, which, I guess, supposed to store the heat and dissipate it.

Then there is the toxic fire-retardant. Before I continue with this review, it is important that I make one thing clear. I have a severe form of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)- a high degree of nuero-sensitivity to very low concentrations of many (multiple) airborne toxins. My symptoms are acute headaches and pounding migraines, sometimes lasting for days (from a relatively brief exposure to some toxic vapors/gases, even in odorless concentrations.) Technically, MCS is not a medical “allergy” and is not immune-system related.

Before I even used this heater, I took off the plastic end caps to have a look at the construction. That’s when I first smelled a pungent chemical odor inside. The smell provided a warning, which I should have heeded, because when I smelled it my headaches started.

Besides the fire-retardant in the end caps, the plastic-insulated wiring may also have fire-retardant and might be made in China (the heater is “made in USA from domestic and globally sourced parts.”)

I tried taking it apart and washing it. Even replacing the end caps with aluminum plates, and rewiring it, etc. but even the paint of the chassis had absorbed the fire-retardant vapors.

I first used it for three days. The severe headaches continued for the duration of the three days I was using the heater, then I washed it and rebuilt it, but the headaches continued again after that. I was unable to sleep some nights from the pain. I ended up throwing this heater in the garbage.

I also discovered shoddy workmanship in the assembly of the heater. The heating element tube was not mounted flush. One of its electric connectors was almost touching the metal chassis. If it touched, this would have shorted out the unit, or caused a fire. The heater design leaves little room for safe assembly tolerance.

It is really difficult for the consumer to develop cause-and-effect conclusions about fire retardants, with respect to health problems, because there are no consumer laws mandating disclosure of fire-retardant use in products. Sweden has banned all chemical fire retardants, and Dell and Apple won’t use any. The rest of Europe and some States still use one of them. The rest of the States allow all of them. The Chemical Industry maintains they are safe, and claims “fire retardants save lives”, and is taking legal action against Sweden, trying to shove it down their throats. Making a safe product would save more lives.

After three days of headaches, I stopped using the heater.

Why didn’t I just return this heater to the store where I got it, and buy another? Good question. I’m still kicking myself in the butt. Rebuilding it was a lot of work and another $35 in parts/materials. I lost it all.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to make-do accommodations on a product (since there was nothing else acceptable on the market) to accommodate for my MCS medical condition. But in this case, I should have returned it. See my other reviews.

If you want a real oil-filled baseboard heater, you really need to spend $150-$225 or more. You may get a good one. That might be my next move.

Don’t throw your money away on this piece of trash. I went to Lakewood website and there is no phone number for contact. Just a web address and mailing address. It is not a friendly customer service web site.

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