Hi,
The price of the 13.4 kw propane gas heaters is about £90 - £100
nowadays but I have heard many people say that they are great but you
have to huddle round the heating pole.
I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. I cant remember
how much he said they were or what make/model they were.

My patio is 26ft x 9ft so i suppose its long & thin.

Does anyone know whats the best way of heating such a space?

Should I use the 13.5 kw gas type you see in B&Q or is there something
better?

The gas ones seem a bit big & bulky.

I saw an old thread that mentioned infra red heaters, but i think it
was about a year old and semed to say the heat blows away easily in
the wind.

My pation is quite breezy.

Thanks

tom wrote:
Hi,
The price of the 13.4 kw propane gas heaters is about £90 - £100
nowadays but I have heard many people say that they are great but
you
have to huddle round the heating pole.
I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used
some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. I cant
remember
how much he said they were or what make/model they were.

My patio is 26ft x 9ft so i suppose its long & thin.

Does anyone know whats the best way of heating such a space?

Should I use the 13.5 kw gas type you see in B&Q or is there
something
better?

The gas ones seem a bit big & bulky.

I saw an old thread that mentioned infra red heaters, but i think
it
was about a year old and semed to say the heat blows away easily in
the wind.

My pation is quite breezy.

I can't quite understand how a gas one would have its heat blown away
any more than an electric one of the same power. I recommend a
sweater, anyhow: kinder to the planet, and it follows you about.

--
Mike.

I can't quite understand how a gas one would have its heat blown away
any more than an electric one of the same power. I recommend a
sweater, anyhow: kinder to the planet, and it follows you about.


I cannot understand why anybody wants to compete with nature and try to
'heat the evening up'. A few years back I was involved with the Kuwaitis who
were trying to 'Air Condition' Kuwait. We had built some boats for them and
would insist on leaving the doors open, they complained that the Air Con
didn't work :-((((((( Do you leave your front door open with the Central
Heating on ???????????????????? Do you leave the car windows down with the
Air Con on ?????????????

Mike
who never appears to be amazed at the stupidity of the general public

I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. Just found out its an algarve 2 1.3kw electric heater costing about £140.

I know jumpers are an option but its just nice once it gets dark,
after eating outside to have some form of heat rather than all 5 of us
having to go & get jumpers.

The one thing i cant find out is how wide the path of heat is.

p.s Its about 3m deep, the heat that is.

tom wrote:
I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used
some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. Just found
out
its an algarve 2 1.3kw electric heater costing about £140.

I know jumpers are an option but its just nice once it gets dark,
after eating outside to have some form of heat rather than all 5 of
us
having to go & get jumpers.

The one thing i cant find out is how wide the path of heat is.

p.s Its about 3m deep, the heat that is.

Excuse for a pub-crawl. I don't know where you live, but there may be
enough pubs using them near you for it to be feasible to try out a
few.

I'd say the spot would need to be very sheltered for the heater to
make a difference. The mad Irishman installed one in a
specially-constructed very smart paved hole in the ground, and I
thought at the time it might have had a fair chance of working.

I do think they're a bit of a fad, though: we wouldn't usually put
the central heating rads on the ceiling. Perhaps a small electric
blanket on a bench-seat, or one of those electric heat pads for each
chair, would make more sense. (I assume they're safe, especially with
a circuit-breaker; but I'm no electrician.)

--
Mike.

"tom" wrote in message
...

I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. Just found out its
an algarve 2 1.3kw electric heater costing about £140.

I know jumpers are an option but its just nice once it gets dark,
after eating outside to have some form of heat rather than all 5 of us
having to go & get jumpers.

The one thing i cant find out is how wide the path of heat is.

p.s Its about 3m deep, the heat that is.

If the electric infrared are anything like village hall heaters we come
across, they work over about 30' while they are on you are warm, as soon as
they go off freezing! the garden ones have the advantage that they can be
directed, but really if you started with jumpers on the backs of your chairs
you could save yourself some money trying to heat fresh air is a waste of
time :~)

--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs)

On Sat, 07 May 2005 16:46:48 +0100, tom wrote:

Hi,
The price of the 13.4 kw propane gas heaters is about £90 - £100
nowadays but I have heard many people say that they are great but you
have to huddle round the heating pole.
I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. I cant remember
how much he said they were or what make/model they were.

My patio is 26ft x 9ft so i suppose its long & thin.

Does anyone know whats the best way of heating such a space?

Should I use the 13.5 kw gas type you see in B&Q or is there something
better?

The gas ones seem a bit big & bulky.

I saw an old thread that mentioned infra red heaters, but i think it
was about a year old and semed to say the heat blows away easily in
the wind.

My pation is quite breezy.

Thanks

I've always thought the concept of patio heating to be bizarre and
profligate. Consequently I know little about them, but here are some
thoughts anyway.

Infra red (IR) radiation ('light', if you prefer) is like visible
radiation (light). It doesn't blow away. But I can see why air heated
by a bottled-gas heater will. I presume the bit at the top of such a
heater gets red hot and will emit IR radiation. But a large proportion
of the heat will just go straight up and blow away.

The ones you describe as being like floodlights sound like IR units.
IR heating works by warming the surfaces that the IR radiation shines
on. I would have thought they were the better bet for a patio, if you
must. They will be more efficient and may be cheaper to run than gas
heaters, hence the lower power rating of 1.3 kW. But they will be
directional, i.e. you point them at the people who need warming, so
you may need several. But you can only run a maximum of two off a 13A
extension cable. And the inverse square law will apply, i.e. if you
sit twelve feet from the heater, you only get a quarter of the amount
of heat compared to if you sit six feet from it (but that would also
apply to IR radiation from a gas heater, which is probably why people
have to huddle close to them to keep warm). Presumably bottled-gas
heaters have to be extra powerful for people to feel any benefit, as
most of the heat goes straight up and the whole world gets just a tiny
bit warmer, which is where I came in.

Screwfix do 1.3 kW electric IR patio heaters by Vent-Axia for approx
£135, plus postage: www.screwfix.com

Bottled gas will give you approximately 7 kW-hrs per litre of liquid.
For a 13.4 kW gas heater, that means it'll burn roughly 2 litres of
liquid gas per hour. I don't know how much small bottles of gas cost
and how many litres of liquid they contain, but you can find out and
work out the running costs. The 1.3 kW IR heaters will use 1.3 units
of electricity per hour, at whatever rate you pay per unit, but
probably about 10p per hour per heater. I imagine the bottled-gas
heater will be cheaper to buy and more expensive to run, while the
electric IR heaters will be more expensive to buy but cheaper to run.
You pays your money.....

I think I'd stick with jumpers and internal heating using fuel from
another type of bottle ;-)



--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

I saw an old thread that mentioned infra red heaters, but i think it
was about a year old and semed to say the heat blows away easily in
the wind.

My pation is quite breezy.

Chris Hogg writes
I've always thought the concept of patio heating to be bizarre and
profligate. Consequently I know little about them, but here are some
thoughts anyway.
I agree, anyone doing this outside in UK on more than the occasional
still and balmy summer night has more money than knowledge of basic
physics.

Infra red (IR) radiation ('light', if you prefer) is like visible
radiation (light). It doesn't blow away. But I can see why air heated
by a bottled-gas heater will. I presume the bit at the top of such a
heater gets red hot and will emit IR radiation. But a large proportion
of the heat will just go straight up and blow away.

The ones you describe as being like floodlights sound like IR units.
IR heating works by warming the surfaces that the IR radiation shines
on. I would have thought they were the better bet for a patio, if you
must.

You have two basic problems. One is getting some heat to you, which is
why the IR type might seem a better bet. But the other is actually
keeping the heat near or on you. On an average UK summer evening you
will rapidly lose most of your comfortable body heat unless you are
insulated by a sweater or some form of insulation. If you don't wear one
then the heat you receive from whatever source will be rapidly lost to
the air around you, and if you have a breezy patio then this will be
significant. It will cost you a lot to continually send heat to you only
to have it whisked away by the breeze.

OTOH if you are wearing insulation then the heat is also going to have
just as hard a time reaching you, as it has to get through the
insulation. You may feel warmer, but the loss to the breeze will be
exactly the same. Its really throwing money away.

Unless you can trap the air in some way, and I mean under a roof as well
as walls like in a closed conservatory, then you will never really
benefit - the warmed air around you will always be swept away. Even on a
still night it will rise - heat does that :-) . In a cold conservatory
you might make enough difference to be able to sit in the evening where
you normally wouldn't, but in any unheated room the heat loss will still
be significant and the improvement only temporary.

I can only think this wonderful con is inspired by pubs which think they
can keep more people drinking if they have these things outside, and the
manufacturers who must be laughing, and the electricity and gas
companies. But it does nothing for the environment and is to my mind a
complete and utter waste of money.

I think I'd stick with jumpers and internal heating using fuel from
another type of bottle ;-)

Exactly. I think this is what the pubs rely on, plus the 'idea' that you
are being warmed by the heaters so you should be OK for another few :-)
--
David

"tom" wrote in message
...
Hi,
The price of the 13.4 kw propane gas heaters is about £90 - £100
nowadays but I have heard many people say that they are great but you
have to huddle round the heating pole.
I saw a tv program the other week "City Gardener" where he used some
small electric heaters that looked like floodlight's. I cant remember
how much he said they were or what make/model they were.

My patio is 26ft x 9ft so i suppose its long & thin.

Does anyone know whats the best way of heating such a space?

Should I use the 13.5 kw gas type you see in B&Q or is there something
better?

The gas ones seem a bit big & bulky.

I saw an old thread that mentioned infra red heaters, but i think it
was about a year old and semed to say the heat blows away easily in
the wind.

My pation is quite breezy.

Thanks


Get a chiminea - it's amazing how much heat these kick out, and you're not
needlessly using fossil fuel resources. When we're low on wood (ie I
haven't ripped anything out of the house for a couple of months!) I search
around for knackered pallettes, scrounge scrap from skips, etc, & reassure
myself that it's saving on landfill... (that may be an entirely incorrect
argument, but I'm sure that a lot of it does, and it makes me feel better
anyway!)


--
Richard Sampson

mail me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk