Anyone have any experience in various outdoor heating options? Living in the UK, pleasant outdoor temperatures happen for approximately seven minutes each year.
We have no electrical power outside, and I imagine getting a line outside would be expensive. So our options are self-contained solutions.
The main requirement is, of course, ability to put out a decent amount of heat without everyone having to huddle in the same 3-ft square area.
Go with the patio heater. Our summer in Ireland is even cooler than yours. We’ve got two of them, and they’re constantly in use. You can run them either on butane or propane just by changing the adaptor on the gas hose. We use butane, because it’s available in every service station locally, but I understand they run hotter on propane: it just saves us a special trip to B+Q to stock up on the cylinders.
My wife’s cousin has a chiminea: by comparison it’s smelly, smoky and gives off much less heat. It also has to be cleaned out and the ash disposed of after every use.
How much does the gas cost, and how long does it last you?
We use Calor gas. It’s about €25 or €30, with a €25 or so deposit on the cylinder. It’s a little hard to say how long it lasts, because we use the same gas for our barbecue, and the cylinders tend to be changed back and over as required. I’d guess the cylinder lasts eight or ten hours or so.
Here’s the UK site for Calor. We use the 7kg cylinders, which seem pretty standard over here.
https://secure.calor.co.uk/ordercalorcylinders/default.asp?PageType=butane
Yikes. £25 for ten hours sounds hella expensive!
What sort of heat radius do you get? Is it warm 10 feet away?
Yes, you’d definitely feel the benefit at 10 feet. I suppose it does sound expensive, but we have the gas for other uses, and we’d probably only use it for maybe an hour or two at a time.
£2.50 an hour for intermittent use isn’t so bad.
Yeah, it’s just that if you planned on using it most evenings for a few hours, it sounds like it’s gonna cost £50 a week or so. £100 if you use two. Far, far beyond our weekly budget!
The chimineas sound a lot cheaper, even if they’re not as effective.