Just so folks understand: Not all Amish have problems with being photographed or even videotaped. It varies from person to person, or family to family.
If you notice in the commercials, you never see the Amish building the mantels (other than a couple of hammer blows), and I doubt that’s because they’re made by Chinese slave laborers. Its to protect the “handcrafted” image people have of the Amish. They’re not out there building them with tools your great-great-grandfather would recognize. They’re building them in a shop with the latest and greatest in power tools, and instead of tapping into the powergrid for the electricity, they’ve probably got a bank of gas-powered generators to run them (or solar, in some cases). Devil’s Playground is an interesting look at Amish life.
The heaters work best in Amish terrariums.
(Much more comfortable when you’re making your skeleton meatier with a crowbar covered in lettuce.)
Infomercialratings.com opinion on the heaters.
I’ve spent hours over there, reading the reviews on various products.
We must be neighbors. I’m in Wooster.
I also like the fact that they appear to be working in the hay loft of a wooden barn. The Amish are all about barns, right?
I take it there’s a TV commercial, too? Dang! I guess I’m watching the wrong channels.
then what?
‘Amish police, pull over.’
I’ve been trying to warn you people about the Amish since 2000
So are they in league with the Nazi groundhogs?
I’m gonna start selling Amish laptops.
'k, let’s see here…
- we have “mantles” standing in for “mantels” [mantle is an accepted, albeit sometimes considered archaic, version of mantel…no harm done Sigmagirl, just sayin…]
- those cheap, imitation Amish actors standing in for the real men, errr Mennonites?
- Chinese pyrotechnical displays in place of a real fire works?
- plus, no fan, just radiant heat
All this with a strict limit of 2 per customer? I’d best be gettin’ on the phone now!
This ad seems to expect us to believe that the amish are like magical fairies or something. Why should we expect something that’s made by the amish to be better than something that was made by, e.g., anglicans? Do they possess wondrous powers of making stuff?
The Amish can be, though not all of them are, of course, bigger sticklers about quality than the Japanese are. My brother worked with a group of them, when they were installing fixtures inside a Wendy’s, and he said they found a cosmetic feature was 1/32nd of an inch off and promptly called the factory (Amish owned) and proceeded to give the folks in the factory the most severe dressing down imaginable without any profanity.
A local station did a test of various heaters. The amazing Amish heaters came out as poorly performing and overpriced.
I love the ads though.
Found this article trashing the heater in general. The mantle is apparently mostly pressboard and veneer.
Not necessarily. But tourists think they do. This is why there is stuff like “Amish Spicy Popcorn” and “Amish Pasta” that have little or nothing to do with Amish culture (and possibly little to do with any person that is or was Amish). But it says Amish, and people will buy it. I find it an interesting phenomenon.
When purchasing goods labeled Amish, it behooves the customer to verify the origin. My husband and I got an enormous kick out of the heater ads the first time we saw them. 
There are, of course, many very skilled craftsmen among the Amish. They do have a culture that I think promotes hard work and diligence, which can translate to excellent quality. But, no, they don’t have special fairy dust or anything.
I meant to mention this, but missed the edit window.
The guy in the pictures - with the short white beard - doesn’t look quite right for the part to me. I’m not an expert on the different flavors of Anabaptist we have around here (there are at least five different sects of Amish as well as steel-wheel Mennonites, “regular” conservative Mennonites, and Apostolics, and if you’re sharp you can tell by looking which sect someone belongs to), but he looks more like a conservative Mennonite to me, or possibly at the most Beachy Amish. For one thing, his beard is trimmed. For another, his pants have a zipper. Most Amish, to my knowledge, use buttons or hooks and eyes to fasten pants.
space heaters are pretty wasteful. I’m all about the Japanese heaters (Kotatsu) which is basically a table with a heater underneath it. You toss a blanket over the whole thing and chill with your feet/legs under the blanket, keeps you amazingly warm and doesn’t damn the old electricity bill too much
I will say this about the Mennonites – and this was a real eye-opener for me. We had terrible tornadoes in Gibson County a few years ago. In areas where the Mennonite communities were hit, other Mennonites from all over the country were soon there to bring whatever was needed to get houses and barns restored and furnished and farms running again. And the Mennonites whose property had been damaged knew beforehand that others would be coming to restore them. That’s just what they do for each other. It was very moving. They have been very peaceful and reliable. It is Mennonites who tend my father’s grave.