Amazon Basics Commercial Patio Heater, Stainless Steel, Hammered Black

There's not a lot that you can write about a Patio Heater, so I'll just give you the bare facts.It's bigger than you'd expect around pub size.It gives of tremendous heat but as you'd expect it can be adjusted. The centre pipe connection on assembly can be cut down with a suitable saw and the holes for connecting the burner can be drilled. So ideally you can cut a foot off the height.It looks good and the the construction is rock solid.On assembly it will take around an hour to put together. The manual is fairly basic but is easy to follow but take care with the screws and bolts in the blister pack as they are not number but referred to as large bolt or small screw Etc.On a final note it states that you should use a 9 kg lpg (Propane) cylinder. Good luck with that in the UK as they are rarer than hens teeth. The largest cylinder that will fit is a 11 kg Patio cylinder which is better value, so no problems there. On no account try the 13 kg as it is two centimetres too big in height.

My parcel arrived and we set about the task of assembling it, expecting this to be more of an arduous job than it actually turned out to be, I would advise open all packages and lay them out check all the parts you should have are there, the spanner/wrench that comes with it is a little flimsy so if you have a more sturdy one to had id use this along with a Philips screwdriver. The instructions are clear and simple if you follow them, don’t try jumping ahead thinking you know what you’re doing as you will end up having to back step (as we learned) one thing to note is all of the reflector panels for the top part are wrapped in a blue plastic cover that needs to be removed before use, this is very difficult and takes some time to do, so I would advise as soon as your package arrives find these and unwrap, also try to do so inside we noticed the warmer the climate the easier they came off .Now to move onto the issue with the gas bottles not fitting, I read the reviews and this did put me off slightly but was nothing to worry about, our gas bottle that first our BBQ fits our heater perfectly slides in and out with ease (pics attached). Heat wise it’s amazing the first use gives of some smoke for about 10 seconds this quickly passes, the heat from this is amazing warms up very fast lights first time and uses hardly any gas, this has got to be one of the best things we have bought for the garden.

Overall impression is that for the money this is a great heater. It says it’s commercial grade but I would say it was domestic +. The heat output has a good range even on the low setting.Assembly is straight forward but the blue plastic stuff they have on the stainless steel components is a faff to get off.The instructions clearly state that the maximum gas bottle size is 15kg. From Calor the 15kg is exactly the same dimensions as the 13kg. We went for the 13kg Calor Patio Gas as it’s a pretty standard size and we have local suppliers.Here’s the down side.The bolts that hold the steel column get in the way of the gas bottle handle. The instructions indicate that you install the bolt from the top and nut from the bottom the extra thread further impedes the bottle handle. We swapped the bolts over so that the nut and therefore extra thread is on the top. This helped slightly. The key design flaw is that the three uprights (the black arms around the glass bottle in the photos) are secured to the base with a bolt through the bracket and into a captive nut in the base plate. The 13kg standard patio gas bottle has to actually sit on these three bolts and there is no other way of getting the bottle in and sat centrally. Because they sit on these bolts this raises the bottle height by 5 to 7mm causing the handle at the top to be impeded (see photos). This means it’s a very very tight fit (seriously watch your fingers!) you can’t easily access the regulator and the on/off valve. You are advised to switch the valve off when not in use. There is no way of taking off the regulator when the bottle is installed. To fit the regulator you have to have the gas bottle propped half way in to the housing. They are quite unwieldy. You can apparently get an 11kg patio bottle but there are no suppliers of this type near me. I think they are FloGas.All in all a decent product for the money but you will certainly struggle if you want to fit a 13kg gas bottle.

After reading the reviews I took the plunge and purchased this patio heater. I wanted this heater for my marquee, to warm up the marquee. I was apprehensive that this patio heater would not heat the marquee well, but my brother inlaw Manj said it will, as he had complete faith. He was right, the heater heated the marquee so well that we had to reduce heat. Remember late January 2023 the weather was very cold. This was a huge hit with my guests, so much so that a number of them purchased the same heater. You cannot go wrong with this product, its brilliant. I used a 11kg gas bottle and had no problems in fitting it in. The 11kg bottle was used for 6 hours straight. The assemble was straight forward no issues there. Generally best purchase I made and no regrets. The pictures do not do this product justice. The patio heater is huge. Make sure you also purchase a cover from Amazon. 89 cm diameter top should do the trick.