You can’t halt the march of progress and in just a few years we’ve seen the landscape of electric outdoor heaters change dramatically. Gone are the days of patio heaters with identical bulbs and only marginally different boxy housings – 2018 is experiencing something of a renaissance when it comes to outdoor space heating and the products on offer are as diverse as they’ve ever been. We’ve now got stylish no glare heaters and appliances with innovative carbon elements, but while traditional halogen heaters can be installed just about anywhere, these newer models are designed for more specific applications. If you’ve been reading up on outdoor heaters and have seen phrases like ‘this product is best for sheltered outdoor spaces or lofty interiors’ you might not necessarily know what that means. Where do you draw the line with a sheltered space? What do you class as a lofty interior? This guide is designed to act as a primer to bring you up to speed on where to use some of our newer products.
Exposed Outdoor Locations
Best Product: Quartz or Halogen Heaters
So, you may read on certain product pages that some heaters are best for exposed outdoor locations but what exactly constitutes an ‘exposed’ area? You’ll have to use your own common sense to some degree but it’s generally any outdoor area that offers little to no protection against the wind. Many home gardens will fall into this category depending on their surroundings and the proximity of any other properties. Take this house for example: it’s situated at the top of a slight incline making it less protected against breezes and there are no other surrounding buildings to act as a windbreak. If you were to install an outdoor heater on the side of this property, you’d be better off opting for a tungsten element quartz heater to ensure that any outdoor seating areas are comfortably heated. Homes and businesses located on high ground or coastal-facing properties often bear the brunt of any harsh wind and will be well-served by heaters that offer a robust form of warmth. Products like the Ecostrad Sunglo will instantly heat your outdoor spaces so you can relax outside whenever the mood takes you.
Sheltered Outdoor Locations
Best Product: Ultra-Low Glare or No Glare Heaters
Sheltered outdoor locations come in various permutations – they might come in the form of a restaurant terrace covered by a fabric awning, or an overhanging concrete cover in front of a large corporate building. In domestic settings, they’re our verandas, gazebos, or bi-fold door conservatories that blur the line between home and garden. Sheltered outdoor locations have greater protection against the elements, so if your garden doesn’t suffer as much from blustery conditions, you’ve got the option of choosing a gentler form of heating. Overhead cover isn’t the only qualifier for a sheltered space – if your garden is surrounded by tall hedges, fencing or is overlooked by tall buildings, you may still find that your outdoor space is still well-protected against the wind. A sheltered outdoor space gives you the choice between carbon-fibre heaters, which offer a more comfortable but still very robust form of warmth; or no-glare heaters, that produce the gentlest form of heat available, perfect for all-day use. These electric patio heaters are a fantastic alternative for domestic outdoor spaces that get used regularly, but they can be especially useful for commercial areas where customers may sit for protracted periods of time. Ultra-low glare products like the Ecostrad Amalfi are a great place to start if you’re looking for an effective outdoor heater for a sheltered space: they get warm in seconds and provide a soothing, low-light solution for your patio.
Lofty or Open-Plan Interiors
Best Product: No Glare Heaters
No glare patio heaters are the only outdoor products that can be permanently installed indoors as a comfort heating solution. This is because they produce gentle far infrared, a form of warmth identical to our own natural body heat. No glare infrared heaters can be used in sheltered outdoor spaces but they can also be used in hard-to-heat indoor spaces that need an effective heating solution. No glare products, such as commercial ceramic heaters or wire element heaters, are superb for churches, barn conversions, meeting halls and mezzanine floors because they’re able to direct heat straight to where it’s needed. Where traditional convection heaters would struggle to heat a lofty, high-ceilinged interior because warm air will invariably rise above living levels, you can mount no glare heaters on the wall or ceiling and point them to wherever you need reliable heat. They’re not just effective for large civic or commercial interiors because industrial spaces can equally benefit from the use of these heaters. Warehouses, factories and workshops have the additional problem of being poorly insulated, making them that much more difficult to heat using conventional means. Not with no glare heaters, however! You can angle infrared products to workstations and benches so staff are always kept comfortably warm. For hard-to-heat interiors, zero-glare products like the Ecostrad Thermostrip and Heaterstrip are a superb choice.
Matching Your Space to the Right Patio Heater
As you can see, there’s an outdoor heater to match every space, so before you make your mind up, it might be worth having a look at our range to see which product matches best with your layout. You’re not just limited to the basic, unattractive heaters of yesteryear; the selection of products we offer at Infrared Heaters Direct means that you can enjoy comfortable outdoor heating tailored to your space that looks good to boot!
