text: Stay Far Away . . . and I don't mean the fire!\n\nWith two Christmas Lowes Gift cards, I purchased the Allen + Roth Somersville 19.3-in W 40,000-BTU Brown Wicker Design Composite Propane Gas Fire Column (pit).\n\nThis item doesn't work! The control knob must be pushed in to start the propane gas flowing. You can turn it counter-clockwise to adjust the flame, but as soon as you let go of the knob, it pops back out and gradually extinguishes the flame by stopping the gas flow as if it was turned off.\n\nI waited 25 minutes to get a live person at Allen & Roth customer support, only to be told that I would have to call the manufacturer directly for that kind of technical support. 20 minutes on hold later, I get a moron named \"Sophie\" who has absolutely no clue on how to solve this problem. She most likely reads her computer screen to suggest a solution: purge the gas line! She simply could not comprehend that if I was able to get a good flame, the propane was getting through just fine. She had no idea of what to do about a defective control knob, so she looks up the part number and offers to send me a replacement . . . which is out-of-stock and will be available sometime in January!\n\nAfter buying a propane tank and extra lava rocks (because Allen & Roth are cheap with providing an inexpensive bag of rocks), I returned this rather heavy item back to Lowes. They had another one on display, which I had hopes of exchanging for it, but when I reported that it was also broken, their apathetic manager said they sold plenty of them this holiday season with no returns!  Furthermore, he made no effort to remove the additional Fire Column.  I'll bet the will both be still on display for sale (even though they are both broken) by tomorrow.\n\nThis was purchased with two Lowes gift cards as a Christmas present. These people know how to take the \"S\" out of \"Christmas Spirit!\"\n\nI'm sticking with Home Depot and will use my gift cards online.