Types of Patio Heaters

Patio heater buyer's guide

Patio heaters use radiant heat to add about 10 degrees of warmth to an outdoor leisure area such as a patio table, swimming pool area, or just a place to sit outdoors. Radiant heat works like sunshine (minus the ultraviolet rays), warming not the air but objects in the path of its waves. Patio heaters are ideal for geographic areas with long cool seasons that hover around 50 or 60 degrees. They became especially popular outside restaurants and pubs after smoking was banned indoors. Patio heaters are also becoming popular among homeowners, as are fire pits designed to burn log fires safely. Some propane patio heaters are also portable enough to be used for tailgating or camping.

Most patio heaters burn propane, also called LP gas, from the same kind of refillable tanks used by gas grills, while similar models can be hooked up to natural-gas lines. Tabletop patio heaters can use smaller disposable propane-gas cylinders. Wall or ceiling-mounted radiant electric patio heaters are another option. Fire pits and patio fireplaces burn wood -- either firewood logs or quick-lighting pressed-wood logs.

Patio heaters can make relatively mild weather pleasant for sitting outdoors, but tests show that they're far more effective in 60-degree weather than at 50 degrees. Wind, however, is the real Achilles heel of gas and electric patio heaters. (It helps wood fires in fire pits blaze nicely, but also may blow smoke right where you want to sit.) Proper placement -- and often the addition of a wind break or fence -- can make a big difference in the perceived warmth from a patio heater.

Wind disrupts gas-fueled patio heaters more than it does the warmth from electric patio heaters, which keep sending the same amount of heat right through wind. An executive at Schaefer Fans, a company that makes electric patio heaters and distributes gas models, tells us that wind disrupts the flame pattern in a gas patio heater, lowering the warmth emitted on the upwind side and possibly making it too hot on the downwind side. It's the wind chill people feel, however, that makes all patio heaters much less effective in windy weather, no matter how much heat is produced.