Love this fireplace. I wanted this shape because it was going on a wall to the left of our TV and I didn't want the fireplace to look like another TV. The "fire" provides cozy ambiance and love having it on while we watch TV. But it is a fake fire, folks, so don't expect it to be super realistic. Haven't used the heater yet--but when I turned it on to test it out definitely kicked out heat but it was a bit on the noisy side (you can clearly hear the fan running). Not unpleasant, but may interfere with TV watching. The heat does come out of the top of the unit--just FYI. I mounted ours to plywood panels for a raised effect. The plywood panels were mounted to 1x2's (which were mounted to the wall studs). The fireplace mounted directly to the plywood panels (making sure the main hanging hardware was mounted into one of the 1x2's). I painted these panels and left a small gap in between each one--which easily solved the problem of hiding the cord. These panels were cheap at a local home store, but look nice painted (see photo for visual). I just felt like the fireplace needed something to beef it up a bit, and this project was inexpensive and super easy to do.