Broan-NuTone 659 Fan Heater, 4" Round, White

Gave this product a good review when we first installed it almost five years ago, but changed my mind today. For almost five years this fan, light, and heater have worked quite well, but I was vacuuming the outside plastic grill today and saw that the heating unit had badly melted the plastic grill! This makes this unit unacceptable to me as it could have caused a fire in my home! We have ordered another one today, but have chosen to buy from a different manufacturer hoping the design of the new one will make it safer.

I checked out a lot of reviews on heater/fan combos for my bathroom. I finally chose this one because of the features and good price. I've had it for about 2 months and the fan and heater work great. I wasn't sure what to expect with the noise level, but I find it to be very very quiet. When my husband turned on the fan for the first time, I couldn't even detect the noise. I thought he was messing with me. Then I listened carefully and could hear the white noise sound. The heater is a bit louder than the fan, but still very quiet.Regarding the light feature, we already had lighting in our bathroom so we decided to put a small 7 watt nightlight bulb in the fixture. It works great for late night bathroom runs. No need to blind yourself with a bright light. The nightlight does the trick!One suggestion if you are installing one of these in your bathroom, buy a timer switch for the fan function. We bought one with 10, 20, 30 minute options so I can hit the timer button and the fan will run for that amount of time, keeping the moisture down, and I don't have to try to remember to turn it off. I highly recommend considering this. I've read that it's good to have your bathroom fan run for 20+ minutes following a shower...so having the timer allows you to have it run for that amount of time and you don't have to worry about remembering to come back to the bathroom to turn it off.Overall, we really like this fixture. The fan and heater do the job well. Also, we love the quietness and the option to use it as a nightlight.

When my house was remodeled in 1986 we installed a Nautilus heater/fan/light, a unit with the exact specifications of this Broan unit. What I didn't know back in '86 is that the contractor not only kinked the ventilation hose but also misaligned the exterior vent. Consequently I was only getting about 25% of the expected airflow. Well, that caught up to me a few weeks ago when the old unit caught fire. Thankfully there's a safeguard built in that shut it down, so the only damage was to the unit itself, but that left me searching for a replacement. And, I must say that I applaud the design; it's held up surprisingly well given the lousy installation and airflow challenges.I have a small bathroom and wanted the easiest possible installation so I chose this, a virtually identical replacement for the old unit. Because it's modular I could have simply swapped out components, but given the age of the old unit I chose to replace the whole thing... Despite having to crawl around in the attic to do part of the work it only took about an hour to complete the job, 45 minutes of which was getting the old unit out without breaking anything around it. The new one went in flawlessly. Now that the ventilation is working right too, I find it to be a much quieter yet more powerful fan that the original but I'm not sure how much of that is the unit and how much is the hose. The heater is a bit noisier, but not overmuch. I chose an LED bulb and it works great. All-in-all, I'm very glad I did the swap out. It looks much better than the old unit too.Is it the best heater/fan/light out there? No, not at all. But, for the money it's a great value, one that does everything it's supposed to do. I'm planning to swap out another one in my second bathroom later this year too, just to have an upgraded device, and have no hesitation about purchasing this again.

I purchased the Broan 659 with heater. It installed very easily but the heater burned out the first month. I sent back unit and received a identical fan. Relplaced and the heater lasted 2 months. I give up and am disappointed with Broans quality on this product.

I used this to upgrade a 30 year old Nautilus heater/exhaust/light located in a downstairs bathroom. I believe Nautilus is one of the predecessors to Broan and it had the exact same housing dimensions as the 659 - so I took a chance that I could remove the heater/fan/light/lens components from the old unit and swap out with the components from this unit. Worked like a charm. Took me less than 15 minutes. The rebuilt unit runs much quieter than the old unit. Very happy.

We paid to have the unit installed, and two minutes into testing the heater function, it died because the internal fuse blew. Looking at the insides there is no visible defect or reason for the fuse to blow.In the old days they used to sell things with reset-able circuit breakers. Not this unit. Amazon sells a replacement, for $12. And it takes two weeks to ship. If the new fuse blows immediately again, this review is going down to a one star.

I agree with some of the other comments. My first attempt at starting up the fan and heater was not very good. The fan was terribly loud and there was no way this heater was rated 2.5 sones. Before I decided to send it back I took off the cover to see where the noise was coming from. I unplugged the heater/heater fan and it ran very quietly. I saw that the wires to the heater plug were rubbing against the heater fan. Relocated the wiring and now fan is pretty quiet. Glad I took a second look at the box. I now would rate this fan at least 4.5 star rating given the price and noise level.

Bought this to replace the old one that didn't have heat. The old one was round in shape, while this one is rectangular, so when I installed it, I had to fill in a 3 inch gap in the ceiling. Not a big deal, but if you're not used to doing this type of work, you might find it pretty difficult as I had to add some bracing in the attic for this to secure to. Was a good value for the money, as months later it's still working just fine.