Pound-for-Pound
Fire & Heat showdown
The Best Patio Heaters of 2026: Propane vs Electric, What Each Costs to Run, and Which Ones Are Allowed Under Your Roof

Some links here are affiliate links — if you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you (sometimes with a discount for you). It never changes which products we recommend — and we name the SKIPs to prove it.
- contenders compared
- 8
- owner ratings · Amazon
- 21,411
- data last verified
- September 2026
An empty patio is expensive real estate. You paid for the pavers, the furniture, the screen cage and the pool it wraps around, and from the first cool evening in October the whole thing sits there unused because nobody wants to sit in it. A patio heater is the cheapest square footage you will ever add to a house — and the category is sold on three numbers that do not survive a thermometer: the reach on the box, the “far infrared” on the electric ones, and the idea that propane is the cheap fuel.
We read eight heaters with every recent critical review, priced each one per hour on the propane a homeowner actually buys (which is not the propane the government prices), pulled the reach figures from the only instrumented test we could find, and read the manufacturers’ own manuals for the rule on roofs and pergolas that every blog gets wrong. This is a pound-for-pound roundup routed by class — mushroom, pyramid, tabletop, plug-in electric, hard-wired electric — because the first decision is not which brand, it is which kind.
The short version:
🏆 Best overall: EAST OAK 50,000 BTU — the standing heater the testers keep crowning (The Spruce’s best overall after 56 heaters, Wirecutter’s runner-up), the field’s only three-year warranty, and a 4.6★ across 1,512 ratings base. Its catch is arrival condition, and it still tips in wind.
💰 Best value propane: Amazon Basics 46,000 BTU — the deepest review base in the category by a factor of four, one-touch ignition, and Amazon’s own returns desk. Its critical tail is ignition, so light it inside the return window.
🔌 Best electric plug-in: Dr Infrared DR-238 — the covered-patio and screen-cage answer: no flame, no cylinder, no carbon monoxide, about a quarter an hour to run. It warms a three-foot circle in the cold, and its elements burn out.
🔥 Best pyramid: Pamapic 48,000 BTU — the best-looking object on this page and BHG’s best overall. The measured truth is that a pyramid is the centrepiece, not the heater, and its glass tube is a consumable the moment the wind puts it down.
⛔ The SKIP: SereneLife 900 W — a hair dryer’s worth of heat on a stand, sold as a patio heater. Its own listing claims fifteen square feet, and six of its ten newest critical reviews say you feel nothing unless you are beside it.
Quick comparison
The columns that decide a patio heater are not the ones you will see elsewhere. Two of them are new to this category as far as we can tell: the reach the maker claims next to the reach a thermometer measured, and the run cost on both ways of buying propane. The rest is fuel, output, warranty and the owner rating — with the caveat that every star average on this page pools variants and, on most, foreign cards.
| Model | Best for | Fuel | Rated output | Reach (claimed) | Reach (measured) | Run cost per hour | Warranty | Owner rating | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall | Propane, 20-lb cylinder | 50,000 BTU/hr | 20-ft diameter (listing) | 5–6 ft comfort radius for this class at 25°F (TechGearLab); The Spruce's tester felt it at 12 ft in gusty fall weather | $1.91 on a refilled cylinder · $3.86 on an exchange cylinder | 3 yr body and base / 1 yr burner assembly — register at eastoak.com/warranty | 4.6★ / 1,512 | Check price → | |
| Best value propane | Propane, 20-lb cylinder | 46,000 BTU/hr | 18-ft diameter (listing) | 5–6 ft comfort radius for this class at 25°F (TechGearLab); Wirecutter dismissed it without testing | $1.76 on a refilled cylinder · $3.55 on an exchange cylinder | Not published on the listing | 4.4★ / 11,064 | Check price → | |
| Wirecutter's pick | Propane, 20-lb cylinder | 48,000 BTU/hr | Not stated on the listing | 5–6 ft comfort radius for this class at 25°F (TechGearLab); Wirecutter: 'more than eight times as much heat as an electric patio heater' | $1.84 on a refilled cylinder · $3.71 on an exchange cylinder | 1 yr parts; rust, weather and insect damage excluded (AZ Patio Heaters) | 4.1★ / 349 | Check price → | |
| Best pyramid | Propane, 20-lb cylinder | 48,000 BTU/hr | Not stated on the listing | 4 ft comfort radius for the pyramid class at 25°F (TechGearLab) — the smallest of every model they tested; BHG felt 'substantial, comfortable heat within 10 minutes' | $1.84 on a refilled cylinder · $3.71 on an exchange cylinder | 1 yr — 'only available for purchases on PAMAPIC's official store' | 4.4★ / 1,777 | Check price → | |
| Best tabletop | Propane, 1-lb bottle (20-lb cylinder with an optional adapter hose) | 11,000 BTU/hr | 30 sq ft (listing) — about a 3-ft radius, one of the few honest reach claims in this category | Owners: 'the heat output is decent if you are sitting next to it'; about 2 hours per 1-lb bottle | $2.55 on 1-lb bottles at $5 each · $0.42 on a refilled 20-lb cylinder through an adapter | Not published on the listing | 4.4★ / 197 | Check price → | |
| Best electric plug-in | Electric, 120 V plug-in (12.5 A — a full 15 A circuit) | 1,500 W (about 5,100 BTU/hr) — 900 / 1,200 / 1,500 W settings | Not stated on the listing; Bob Vila lists it at 5,200 BTU | 3 ft at 24°F (TechGearLab: 'a close proximity heat machine'); Infratech rates 1,500 W at 5 × 5 ft average, 3 × 3 ft in the cold | $0.28 at the EIA's 18.34¢/kWh | Not published on the maker's product page | 4.3★ / 6,091 | Check price → | |
| The outdoor-room pick | Electric, 220–240 V hard-wired (about 25 A) | 6,000 W (about 20,500 BTU/hr), dual quartz elements | Bromic rates its electric line to 160 sq ft | Owners: two units 16 ft apart at 8 ft 'overlap perfectly' on one card; 'mounted at 9 feet and heat coverage is minimal' on another | $1.10 at the EIA's 18.34¢/kWh | Not readable — bromicheating.com returned no text to our reader; Wirecutter: 'very few models … guaranteed for more than a year' | 4.5★ / 64 | Check price → | |
| The SKIP | Electric, 120 V plug-in | 900 W (about 3,100 BTU/hr) — the 37-in model; the 47- and 57-in sizes on the same listing are larger | 15 sq ft (listing) — about a 2-ft radius | Owners: 'can only feel the heat if you're right next to it', 'must be within a few feet of it' | $0.17 at the EIA's 18.34¢/kWh | Not published on the listing | 4.1★ / 357 | Check price → |
Prices move constantly — any Amazon price shown is as of the date noted and subject to change; tap through for today's number.
The pattern worth seeing: the four propane standing heaters are within four thousand BTU of each other and cost within fifteen cents an hour of each other to run. Everything you pay above the cheapest of them buys a warranty, a table, a burner material or a shape — not heat. And the electric column is not a cheaper version of the propane column; it is a different product that makes a tenth of the heat for a fifth of the money.
How far the heat actually reaches
Every listing on this page claims a reach. The EAST OAK says a 20-foot diameter; the Amazon Basics says 18 feet; the 1,500-watt electrics are routinely listed at 10 feet. The only source we found that measured heaters side by side with an instrument — TechGearLab, seven heaters over six weeks of a South Lake Tahoe winter, an infrared thermometer, a mechanical engineer consulted on the results — got these numbers at an ambient temperature of about 25°F:
| Class | Rated | Measured comfort radius (about 25°F) |
|---|---|---|
| Propane mushroom (Member’s Mark / Hampton Bay) | 47,000–48,000 BTU | 5–6 ft |
| Propane pyramid (Avenlur) | 42,000 BTU | 4 ft |
| Electric plug-in (Dr Infrared 1,500 W) | 1,500 W | 3 ft |
Two things reconcile that with the 20-foot claims. First, temperature: The Spruce’s tester felt the EAST OAK at 12 feet in gusty fall weather, and at 45°F you can feel a radiant heater a long way off. At 25°F the same heater is a six-foot circle. Second, definitions: Schwank, a commercial maker, is the only company we found that publishes what “coverage” means — it is measured to a 63°F boundary, and its own diagrams show the effective area at roughly two-thirds the size of the total area for the same unit. A 20-foot claim and a 6-foot experience can both be true; only one of them keeps you warm.
The electric number has a manufacturer behind it. Infratech, the premium hard-wired maker, publishes coverage for its 1,500-watt, 120-volt unit in three columns: 5 by 5 feet average, 3 by 3 feet cold, 7 by 7 feet protected. That is the same wattage as every plug-in on Amazon — physics is brand-agnostic — and it matches the 3 feet TechGearLab measured on the Dr Infrared. A 1,500-watt heater warms the two chairs in front of it. It does not warm a patio, and it cannot be made to: 1,500 watts is 12.5 amps, the practical ceiling of a 15-amp household circuit. Past that you are hard-wiring 240 volts, which is the Bromic section below.
What it costs to run — and the exchange-cage trap
No patio heater listing prints this, so here it is, and it reverses the thing everyone assumes. Propane holds 91,452 Btu per gallon (the EIA’s figure) and weighs 4.24 pounds per gallon, so a 48,000 BTU heater burns about 2.2 pounds an hour — Cuisinart’s own manual publishes 1.77 pounds an hour for its 38,200 BTU unit, which is the same arithmetic within a tenth of a percent.
The trap is how you buy it. A refill station fills your cylinder to its 20 pounds at a per-gallon price, typically $3 to $4.50. An exchange cage sells you a pre-filled cylinder at a flat price — and those cylinders are routinely short-filled to about 15 pounds. U-Haul, which runs refill stations, says exchange programs “only fill 20 lb. tanks to about 15 lbs.” and that refilling gets you “up to 33% more propane.” A $25 exchange for 15 pounds is $7.07 a gallon.
| Heater | Refill ($3.50/gal) | Exchange ($25 for ~15 lb) | Hours per cylinder (refill / exchange) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 BTU mushroom (EAST OAK) | $1.91/hr | $3.86/hr | 8.6 / 6.5 |
| 48,000 BTU (Hiland, Pamapic) | $1.84/hr | $3.71/hr | 9.0 / 6.7 |
| 46,000 BTU (Amazon Basics) | $1.76/hr | $3.55/hr | 9.4 / 7.0 |
| 11,000 BTU tabletop on 1-lb bottles ($5 each) | — | $2.55/hr | about 2 hours a bottle |
| 1,500 W plug-in electric (18.34¢/kWh) | $0.28/hr | — | no cylinder |
| 6,000 W hard-wired electric | $1.10/hr | — | no cylinder |
Now compare the fuels on what they actually deliver. Per 100,000 Btu of heat, refilled propane is $3.83, plug-in electricity is $5.38, and exchange-cage propane is $7.73. If you swap cylinders at the grocery store, your propane heater is the most expensive heat on the patio per Btu — more than the electric heater everyone assumes is the pricey option. Refill and propane wins. And the tabletop on one-pound bottles is off the chart: about two hours a bottle, so at $5 a bottle it costs more per hour than a full-size mushroom on a refill while making a quarter of the heat. Run it off a 20-pound cylinder with the adapter hose or accept that fuel is the real price of it.
Per evening, electric still wins every time — three hours on a plug-in is under a dollar — because it makes about 5,100 Btu an hour, a tenth of a standing heater. The honest sentence is: electric is cheap because it does less. Put your own numbers in:
What does a patio heater cost to run — propane or electric?
Pick a heater or type your own rating, say how you buy propane — a refill station or an exchange cage — and put in your own prices. The math updates live, and the last line is the one to watch: what each fuel costs per 100,000 Btu of heat.
Propane holds 91,452 Btu per gallon (US Energy Information Administration) and weighs 4.24 lb per gallon at the industry reference temperature of 60 °F, so a genuinely full 20-lb cylinder is about 4.7 gallons. A patio heater is an open burner radiating into the air, so the gas it burns per hour is its rated output — there is no transfer loss to subtract, and Cuisinart's own manual confirms the rate (38,200 Btu/h at 1.77 lb/h, within 0.1% of this math). Electric resistance heat is 3.412 Btu per watt-hour, all of it. The exchange-cage default is the honest one: exchange programs routinely fill a "20-lb" cylinder to about 15 lb (U-Haul, which runs refill stations, says refilling gets you "up to 33% more propane"), so the flat price buys three-quarters of a tank. The electricity default is the EIA's June 2026 US residential average of 18.34¢ per kWh; your bill has the real number. This is the cost of making heat, not the cost of feeling warm — a 1,500 W heater makes a tenth of the heat of a 48,000 Btu propane unit, and the post's reach column is where that shows up.
Best overall: EAST OAK 50,000 BTU
Fifty thousand BTU behind a double-layer 304 stainless burner mesh, a round tank-lid table, wheels, a tip-over cutoff, and the field’s only three-year warranty — three years on the body and posts against rust-through, three on the reflector, regulator and ignition, one on the burner assembly, all of it contingent on a registration form at eastoak.com. The Spruce, which has tested 56 patio heaters over 133 hours, calls it the best overall with “the strongest heating performance”; its tester felt the heat at 12 feet in gusty fall weather against the 20-foot claim. Wirecutter has it as the runner-up to the Hiland below and says the same thing about both: “reliable customer support.” Behind it sits 4.6★ across 1,512 ratings, the highest average of the four propane standing heaters here.
Two honesty notes on that number. The listing pools its 48,000 and 50,000 BTU sizes into one review base — one owner’s critical card says the “50,000” unit shipped as a 46,000 — and there is a Mexico card in the visible reviews. It is not a clean read of this exact size.
Not for you if you need it to arrive perfect. The critical tail is arrival condition: five of the ten newest critical reviews are a defective regulator, missing hardware, packaging that let parts rattle loose, or a unit that arrived used. Assemble it the week it arrives, not the month. And it still tips in wind — one owner’s units went over on “a slightly windy day” with sand bags in the base, and the knobs had melted after a few months. Fill the base, keep it off the deck’s windward edge, and read the wind rule in the manual: under 10 mph.
Best overall · The standing propane heater the testers keep crowning — 50,000 BTU under a double-layer 304 stainless burner, a round tank-lid table, wheels and a tip-over cutoff, at 4.6★ across 1,512 owners on a listing that pools its 48k and 50k sizes; three-year body warranty if you register
Your pick if you want the most heat per dollar and you have open air to put it in — 50,000 BTU, a 4.6★ rating across 1,512 owners, and the only three-year warranty in this field (register it, or it is one).
Check price at Amazon →“We test a lot of outdoor heaters (56 so far), and the East Oak 50,000 Btu Patio Heater stands out with the strongest heating performance, attractive design, and some extra utility from a (small) built-in table surface.”
Your pick if you want the most heat per dollar and you have open air to put it in — 50,000 BTU, a 4.6★ rating across 1,512 owners, and the only three-year warranty in this field (register it, or it is one).
Pro review “We test a lot of outdoor heaters (56 so far), and the East Oak 50,000 Btu Patio Heater stands out with the strongest heating performance, attractive design, and some extra utility from a (small) built-in table surface.”— The Spruce testing team (tester Daniela), The Spruce
- The Spruce's best overall after 56 heaters tested; Wirecutter's runner-up; Business Insider's best overall
- Double-layer 304 stainless burner mesh — the part that rusts first on cheap heaters
- Three-year warranty on the body and posts, three years against rust-through — the longest in this field (one year on the burner)
- Assembly in about an hour; reflector goes together in three pieces
- Tips over in wind — one owner's units went over on a 'slightly windy day' with sand bags in the base; fill the base and keep it off the deck's windward edge
- Arrival condition is the dominant complaint: defective regulators, missing hardware, units that arrive used
- The warranty only runs three years if you register it; warranty parts are buy-then-reimburse per one owner
- The 50k and 48k sizes share one review base, so the star average is not a clean read of this size
Arrival condition and a defective regulator — units that arrive used or with missing hardware, packaging that lets parts rattle loose, and regulators that are dead out of the box. Second theme: it still tips in wind ('even put sand bags on the inside bottom… still tipped and fell over on a slightly windy day'), with knobs that melted after a few months.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Oct 2025 → Jun 2026): 5 of 10 are arrival condition or a defective regulator, 1 wind tip-over, 1 paint peeling and shelf breaking outdoors, 1 'the 50,000 BTU is really 46,000', 1 buy-then-reimburse warranty parts; 9/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
Best value propane: Amazon Basics 46,000 BTU
The reference standing heater. Forty-six thousand BTU, one-touch ignition, a water-box base and a tank chain in the box, wheels — and 4.4★ across 11,064 ratings, the deepest review base of any patio heater on Amazon by a factor of four. That base pools two colours and two finishes and runs back to 2014 with Canadian cards mixed in, so read the star as a long-run average, not a verdict on this year’s unit.
It is also the heater Wirecutter did not test: the Amazon Basics and the Pamapic “suddenly and conveniently appeared on Amazon” and Wirecutter “dismissed them all without calling them in for testing.” That is a fact about Wirecutter, not the heater — The Spruce and BHG tested both — but you should know the most-cited roundup has no opinion on it.
Not for you if a fussy igniter would ruin it. The ten newest critical reviews are almost all lighting: “only worked twice,” “stopped working after 1 use,” “doesn’t light without a lighter,” “thermocouples go bad within two years. Regulators fail.” Light it the day it arrives and run it for an hour inside Amazon’s return window. Also not for you if you are sitting low: one owner’s word is “wayyyyy too tall” — a mushroom radiates down from seven feet, which is fine for standing and a dining table and less so for a sofa. And a missing standoff bolt on one unit let a gust crush the reflector; check the hardware count before the first windy night.
Amazon Basics 46,000 BTU Propane Patio Heater
Best value propaneYour pick if you want the safe, boring, deep-base answer — 11,064 owners over twelve years at 4.4★, and Amazon's own returns desk behind it; its critical tail is ignition, so light it in the return window.
- Eleven thousand owners — by far the deepest review base of any patio heater on Amazon
- One-touch ignition, a water-box base and a tank chain in the box; wheels for moving it
- Cheapest way into a real 40,000-plus BTU standing heater from a seller with a frictionless return
- Popular Mechanics tested it (per our research sweep — not re-read by us); Wirecutter did not
- Ignition is the complaint: 'worked twice', 'stopped working after 1 use', thermocouples and regulators that fail — the newest critical cards are almost all about lighting it
- Wind tips it, and one owner's missing standoff bolt let a gust crush the reflector
- Too tall for seated use, one owner's words — it heats from seven feet up
- The star average pools colours, finishes and reviews back to 2014, with Canadian cards mixed in
Ignition — it lights twice and then it doesn't. 'This heater only worked twice originally' (Aug 2026), 'Stopped working after 1 use' (May 2026), 'Now it doesn't light without a lighter' (Jul 2026), 'Thermocouples go bad within two years. Regulators fail' (Mar 2026). Second theme: wind and hardware — a missing standoff bolt, then a gust that crushed the reflector; bolts that fall off the reflector.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Mar → Aug 2026): 5 of 10 ignition or gas delivery, 2 hardware/packaging, 1 wind tip-over, 1 'too tall for seated use', 1 'not as powerful as a restaurant heater'; 9/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
Wirecutter’s pick: Hiland HLDS01 48,000 BTU
Wirecutter’s top pick since at least the February 2026 update — “the most powerful outdoor patio heater,” “if you’re simply looking for sheer heat output, get the AZ Patio Heaters HLDS01-W-xx, also sold as the Hiland HLDS01-W-xx.” An open tank door so you swap the cylinder without lifting the housing, a height-adjustable table, and a maker, AZ Patio Heaters, that publishes real clearance figures and sells its anti-tilt switch as a serviceable part.
We carded it and could not crown it, and the reason is the Amazon listing, not Wirecutter. The listing we could wire reads 4.1★ across 349 ratings with 11% one-star, its visible reviews run from 2012 to 2021 with nothing newer, its critical tail (bent doors, missing latches, a connector that never worked) is entirely from 2021 and 2022, and it showed seven in stock at our read. A four-year-old base on a heater you buy new is not evidence about the heater you will receive. Wirecutter’s pick is the HLDS01 family; this is one variant of it on a stale page.
Not for you if you live where things rust or spiders live — which is everywhere. AZ’s warranty is one year, and it expressly excludes “damage or repairs related to insects, birds, or animals of any kind,” “damage due to weather conditions,” and “rust or weather damage.” The two ways a propane heater actually dies — a spider in the pilot orifice and a rusted base — are both written out. It also disclaims the warranty on anything bought from a non-authorized seller, so confirm the seller before you buy it here.
Hiland (AZ Patio Heaters) HLDS01 48,000 BTU Patio Heater
Wirecutter's pickYour pick if you trust Wirecutter's heat-output ranking over an Amazon base that went quiet in 2021 — and you buy it from an authorized retailer, because AZ voids the warranty otherwise.
Pro review “If you're simply looking for sheer heat output, get the AZ Patio Heaters HLDS01-W-xx, also sold as the Hiland HLDS01-W-xx.”— Thom Dunn, Wirecutter (The New York Times)
- Wirecutter's top pick for sheer heat output (February 2026); CNN Underscored and others recur on the HLDS01 family
- Open tank door — swap the cylinder without lifting the housing
- AZ Patio Heaters publishes real clearance figures and sells its anti-tilt switch as a serviceable part
- Wirecutter: 'Like AZ/Hiland, East Oak provides reliable customer support'
- The Amazon base is stale and thin — the visible reviews run 2012 to 2021, nothing since, and 11% are one-star
- One-year warranty that excludes 'damage or repairs related to insects, birds, or animals' and 'rust or weather damage' — the two ways these actually die
- Stock was single-digit at the read ('Only 7 left'); AZ disclaims the warranty on non-authorized sellers
- A flimsy base that bends, and start-up trouble, in the critical tail
It arrives bent — 'Everything was bent, and damaged. Rivets where broken on the latch' (Jan 2022), 'both are dented and damaged. One of them is missing the latch' (Nov 2021), 'Damaged on delivery, second delivered was damaged as well' (Nov 2021). Second theme: ignition and the tank connector — 'trouble starting this every time… this weekend, September 2022, I took it to the dump', 'the connector to a propane tank doesn't work'. Third: three-plus-hour assembly.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 — and the newest is November 2022 (Nov 2021 → Nov 2022): 6 of 10 arrival damage or missing latch/hardware, 2 ignition or connector failure, 2 assembly; 10/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine. A tail this old is itself the finding: nobody has reviewed this listing critically in nearly four years. · critical reviews read September 2026
Best pyramid: Pamapic 48,000 BTU
The flame tower every roundup tests and BHG crowned best overall after three months: “It emits heat 360 degrees around the unit, and we were able to feel substantial, comfortable heat within 10 minutes.” Forty-eight thousand BTU behind a quartz glass tube, a cover and wheels in the box, pulse ignition, and 4.4★ across 1,777 ratings pooled over five colours at five prices, with Canadian and Mexican cards in the mix.
Here is the honest reading of a pyramid, and it is the thing to decide before you buy one. In the only instrumented comparison we found, the pyramid class “provided much more ambiance than actual heat, warming the smallest radii of all models” — about 4 feet against 5 to 6 for the mushrooms, at a peak surface temperature 160°F lower for a rating only a tenth lower. Its one real advantage is geometry: a vertical column radiates on the plane you sit and stand on, where a mushroom radiates down from seven feet, so a pyramid feels more even at a table. Its owners say both halves of that: “provide plenty of heat for our purposes,” and, in the critical tail, “most of it goes out the top.”
Not for you if it will ever be windy. Two of the ten newest critical reviews are the same story: “the first mildly windy day it blew over. Even with the cover on, the glass shattered,” and “blown by the wind even with the full gas tank in it and all the glass shattered… tucked in the corner of my house protected by two sides.” The tube is a standard replacement part across a dozen brands for a reason. Also not for you if you want a warranty through Amazon: Pamapic’s own page says the one-year warranty “is only available for purchases on PAMAPIC’s official store.” Buy it for the flame column. Know what it is.
Pamapic 89" 48,000 BTU Pyramid Patio Heater
Best pyramidYour pick if you want the flame column in your yard and you know what you are buying — a four-foot circle of warmth on a seated plane and the best-looking object on this page, whose glass tube is a consumable the moment it tips.
Pro review “For those looking for a budget option, we were incredibly impressed with the performance of the Pamapic Pyramid Patio Heater during three months of testing.”— BHG testing team, Better Homes & Gardens
- BHG's best overall after three months of testing; Bob Vila's best ambiance is the 41k sibling
- Radiates on the seated-and-standing plane instead of down from seven feet — the pyramid's one real advantage
- Cover, wheels and pulse ignition in the box; 'assemble in about 1 hour' is what the fresh cards say too
- Four colours, and owners two and a half years in still report it working
- The glass tube shatters when it goes over, and it goes over in wind: two of the ten newest critical cards are 'blew over the first windy day, glass shattered' — one 'tucked in the corner of my house protected by two sides'
- Less usable heat than a mushroom at the same BTU — 'most of it goes out the top', 'doesn't put out as much heat as other style patio heaters'
- Assembly misalignment, bent doors and damaged panels on arrival
- The one-year warranty reads as official-store only, and the star average pools four colours and Canadian cards
It blows over and the glass shatters — 'the first mildly windy day it blew over. Even with the cover on, the glass shattered' (Mar 2026); 'blown by the wind even with the full gas tank in it and all the glass shattered… tucked in the corner of my house protected by two sides' (May 2026). Second theme: less heat than it looks — 'most of it goes out the top', 'doesn't put out as much heat as other style patio heaters'. Third: arrival and assembly — bent door, damaged panels, misaligned screw holes.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Feb → Aug 2026): 2 wind tip-over with a shattered tube, 2 poor heat output, 3 arrival damage or assembly, 1 dead on arrival, 1 melted control knob, 1 return service; 9/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
Best tabletop: Cuisinart 11,000 BTU
Bob Vila’s best tabletop, and the tabletop pick that recurs across every roundup we read: 11,000 BTU on a one-pound bottle with an anti-tilt shutoff, a burner guard and a dial, at 4.4★ across 197 ratings on a young base that starts in 2025 and pools two colours. Its listing claims 30 square feet — about a three-foot radius — which makes it one of the few honest reach claims in this category, and about the same circle Infratech rates a 1,500-watt electric at in the cold.
What it can do: warm the hands and faces of four people at one table, under a ceiling too low for an 87-inch standing heater. What it cannot do: warm anyone standing, or anyone at the next table, and the critical tail says exactly that — “did not keep any of us warm around a 6 feet round table.”
Not for you on one-pound bottles. About two hours a bottle, and the owners are blunt: “will drink up a can of gas in 15 min,” “burns through one pound bottles of propane fast.” At $5 a bottle that is about $2.55 an hour for a quarter of a mushroom’s heat, the worst fuel economy on this page by a wide margin. Cuisinart sells the answer — an adapter hose to a 20-pound cylinder, which drops it to about 42 cents an hour on a refill. Buy the hose with the heater. Some owners also found it hard to light or keep lit, and a few received it bent or without hardware.
Cuisinart 11,000 BTU Tabletop Patio Heater
Best tabletopYour pick if you want warm hands and faces for four people at one table under a ceiling too low for a standing heater — and you will run it off a 20-lb cylinder with the adapter, because 1-lb bottles make it the most expensive heat on this page.
Pro review “While its output doesn't match full-size towers, the Cuisinart Portable Tabletop Patio Heater delivers a reliable, easy-to-use heat source for compact spaces and quick outdoor gatherings.”— Glenda Taylor, Debbie Wolfe and Mark Wolfe, Bob Vila
- Bob Vila's best tabletop; the tabletop pick that recurs across every roundup we read
- Its 30 sq ft reach claim is honest — the same 3-ft circle Infratech rates a 1,500 W electric at in the cold
- Anti-tilt shutoff and a burner guard; light enough to carry to the table you are actually sitting at
- Runs off a 20-lb cylinder with the optional regulator hose, which fixes the fuel cost
- On 1-lb bottles it is the most expensive heat here — about two hours a bottle, and owners say so: 'will drink up a can of gas in 15 min', 'burns through one pound bottles of propane fast'
- 'Doesn't put off much heat at all' — it warms the people at the table, not the patio; owners on covered patios were disappointed
- Hard to light for some owners ('very difficult to light so we returned it'); missing hardware and bent-on-arrival cards
- Young base: reviews start in 2025, pooled across two colours
Not much heat, and it eats bottles — 'Doesn't put off much heat at all' (Jul 2026), 'Did not keep any of us warm around a 6 feet round table' (Dec 2025), 'will drink up a can of gas in 15 min a small tank' (May 2026), 'Burns through one pound bottles of propane fast!' (Dec 2025). Second theme: lighting — 'very difficult to light so we returned it', 'can't keep it lit'. Third: missing hardware and bent on arrival.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Feb 2025 → Jul 2026): 3 of 10 low heat, 3 bottle consumption, 2 hard to light or keep lit, 3 missing parts or arrival damage (some cards carry two themes); 10/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
Best electric plug-in: Dr Infrared DR-238
The most-recurring electric pick in our sweep — BHG’s best for garages (“impressed with the amount of heat it emitted within seconds”), Bob Vila’s and The Spruce’s best wall-mounted — and the right answer for the situations a propane heater is wrong for: a covered patio, a screened lanai, a garage, two chairs and an outlet. Fifteen hundred watts of carbon-tube infrared on a standard 120-volt plug, wall and ceiling brackets and a remote in the box, three power levels, and 4.3★ across 6,091 ratings.
Read that rating for what it is. The listing’s size selector spans five lengths at five prices — the DR-228, DR-238 and DR-338 share one review base — and the visible cards skew hard to garages, pole buildings, greenhouses and sun rooms, which is indoor use on a heater we are ranking as a patio heater. Canadian and Mexican cards are in there too.
Not for you if you want to heat an area. You feel it only in the beam: TechGearLab’s tester was “within 3 feet of the heater” to be comfortable in sub-freezing weather, and an owner’s three-star says “won’t heat the area only if you are in direct line.” Mount it to the side of the seating rather than over the table — Infratech’s advice, because a heater over a table mostly heats the table — and treat it as a two-chair heater. And the elements burn out. Five of the ten newest critical reviews are a unit dead inside a season: “broke after 15 minutes,” “burnt out the bulb after 2 light months of use,” “lasted 3 min, glowed like the sun, and died.” One owner’s warranty repair charged return shipping. Two more things from the listing itself: the bullets say IP55 and the same page’s A+ module says IPX4, so treat it as splash-protected, not weatherproof; and at our read the buy box was Amazon Resale, not new stock — check the seller line before you pay.
Dr Infrared DR-238 1,500 W Carbon Infrared Patio Heater
Best electric plug-inYour pick if you have a covered patio, a screened lanai or a garage, an outlet within reach, and one or two chairs to warm — no flame, no cylinder, no carbon monoxide, and about a quarter an hour to run.
Pro review “We tested the Dr. Infrared wall-mounted heater at home for three months and were impressed with the amount of heat it emitted within seconds.”— BHG testing team, Better Homes & Gardens
- The most-recurring electric pick in our sweep — BHG's best for garages, Bob Vila's best wall-mounted, The Spruce's best wall-mounted
- Plugs into a standard outlet; wall and ceiling brackets and a remote in the box
- No flame, no cylinder, no carbon monoxide — the one class of heater the fire codes put no enclosure rule on
- About a quarter an hour to run, a fifth of a propane heater's exchange-cylinder cost
- Elements burn out — 'Broke after 15 minutes', 'Burnt out the bulb after 2 light months of use', 'Lasted 3 min, glowed like the sun, and died'; warranty repair makes you pay shipping, per one owner
- You feel it only in the beam: 'won't heat the area only if you are in direct line' — a three-foot circle in the cold
- The buy box at our read was Amazon Resale, not new stock, and the star average pools five sizes and Mexican and Canadian cards
- IP55 on the bullets, IPX4 on the same listing's A+ module — treat it as splash-protected, not weatherproof
The element burns out — 'Broke after 15 minutes… the wire inside had become broken' (Jun 2026), 'Burnt out the bulb after 2 light months of use' (Feb 2026), 'Lasted 3 min, glowed like the sun, and died' (Feb 2026), 'stopped working after a few weeks' on a second unit whose first 'stopped working right before the manufacturer warranty ended' (Mar 2026) — and the warranty repair 'is a joke because they make you pay for shipping'. Second theme: it only warms what is in the beam.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Feb → Jun 2026): 5 of 10 element or unit failure inside a season, 1 remote, 1 mounting not as advertised, 1 'does not heat small greenhouse', 1 'only if you are in direct line', 1 a returned unit resold; 10/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
The outdoor-room pick: Bromic Tungsten 6000 W
Everything above the Dr Infrared in electric requires an electrician, and this is the unit the trade actually installs: 6,000 watts of dual-element infrared on a 240-volt circuit, about 25 amps, a stainless body with a corrosion-resistant finish, wall or ceiling mounted. Four times a plug-in’s heat, about $1.10 an hour, nothing to refill and nothing to blow out — and, unlike every propane heater on this page, rated by its maker for indoor and outdoor use, which is what makes it the defensible heater inside a screened enclosure. One owner’s two units 16 feet apart at 8 feet “overlap perfectly” across a 14-by-14 gazebo.
It is also the class consumer roundups do not test. Not one of the five publications we read put a 240-volt heater through its process, so the evidence here is thinner than anywhere else on the page: 4.5★ across 64 ratings pooled across four wattages on one listing, with the visible reviews mostly from 2016 to 2022.
Not for you unless you are building a room. It needs a licensed electrician and a dedicated 240-volt circuit before it does anything, the remote/dimmer and the mounting kit are separate purchases that several owners did not expect, and the most recent critical review is “mounted at 9’ and heat coverage is minimal” — the same distance-versus-marketing gap as every other electric, at a much higher price. Two owners describe wires shorting inside a few months. And at our read Amazon showed one left in stock: Amazon is not Bromic’s channel, a dealer is, so if this listing goes dark the answer is a dealer, not another Amazon page. Near a pool, this is the class the electrical code has an opinion about — see below.
Bromic Tungsten Smart-Heat 6000 W Electric Patio Heater (BH0420033)
The outdoor-room pickYour pick if you are building a permanent covered outdoor room and will pay an electrician to run 240 V — four times the heat of a plug-in at about a dollar an hour, with nothing to refill and nothing to blow out.
- The only premium hard-wired electric in Amazon's top 50 — the class that consumer roundups almost never cover
- Four times a plug-in's output; a commercial-grade stainless body with a corrosion-resistant finish
- Owners installing two units report even overlap across a 14 × 14 ft gazebo
- Indoor-and-outdoor rated by the maker, which is the defensible answer for a screened enclosure
- Needs a 240 V circuit and a licensed electrician; the remote/dimmer and the mounting kit are separate purchases owners did not expect
- 'Mounted at 9 feet and heat coverage is minimal' — the most recent critical card; an earlier owner called it 'the most expensive light bulb'
- Shorting and broken elements in the tail, on a thin base whose reviews mostly predate 2023
- 'Only 1 left in stock' at the read — Amazon is not Bromic's channel; a dealer may be
The things it does not come with — 'doesn't come with mounting hardware?', 'make sure you purchase the assembly kit, which is not identified as being necessary', a dimmer/remote sold separately that one owner says 'doesn't work at all'. Second theme: coverage for the money — 'mounted at 9 feet and heat coverage is minimal' (Jan 2026), 'Unless you are standing directly underneath it you do not feel a thing' (2017). Third: shorting — two owners with wires shorting inside a few months.
9 critical cards on the listing read 2026-09-05 (2017 → Jan 2026, the whole critical tail): 3 accessories not included, 2 minimal coverage, 2 shorting/failure, 1 burning-rubber smell, 1 Amazon shipping error; 5/9 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
The SKIP: SereneLife 900 W
Nine hundred watts is about 3,100 Btu an hour — a fifteenth of a standing propane heater, a hair dryer on a stand — and this is sold as a “patio heater” with a remote, a weighted base and an IP65 badge. To its credit, the listing’s reach claim is honest: 15 square feet, roughly a two-foot circle. To the owners’ credit, they confirm it: six of the ten newest critical reviews say the same thing in different words — “can only feel the heat if you’re right next to it,” “must be within a few feet of it to feel the heat” — and two of those sent it back. A rusted grille guard after one season outdoors, missing hardware and a unit dead after three uses round out the tail.
The rating that sits on it — 4.1★ across 357 ratings with 11% one-star — pools three sizes at three wattages, and on the top sort the five-star cards are mostly the bigger 47- and 57-inch units while the one- and three-star cards are mostly this 37-inch one. BHG’s best-electric pick is the SereneLife at $250 to $275, which is not this $99 heater; it is a larger one that shares its star. The buy box at our read was Amazon Resale. If you want a plug-in, the Dr Infrared above makes two-thirds more heat at a similar price. If you want a warm patio, none of the 120-volt electrics do that, and this one does it least.
Your pick if nobody on a patio. Nine hundred watts is a hair dryer's worth of heat on a stand, and the listing's own reach claim — fifteen square feet — is the one honest number on it.
- Weighted base and a 360° tip-over switch; quiet
- Costs almost nothing to run — because it makes almost no heat
- BHG's best electric pick — for the larger sizes that share this listing's star average
- 900 W is about 3,100 BTU — a fifteenth of a standing propane heater — and its own listing says 15 square feet
- Six of the ten newest critical cards say the same thing: no heat unless you are right next to it; two returned it
- The buy box at the read was Amazon Resale, and the star average pools three sizes at three wattages plus Canadian cards
- Rusted grille guard after one season outdoors; missing hardware; dead after three uses, in the tail
No heat unless you are beside it — 'can only feel the heat if you're right next to it. definitely doesn't work as described' (Mar 2026), 'Must be within a few feet of it to feel the heat' (Feb 2026), 'The heating area is very small and doesn't project much heat out besides right in front of it' (Jun 2026, returned), 'It doesn't put out much heat even on the highest setting' (Mar 2026). Second: rust on the grille guard after one season, missing hardware, dead after three uses.
10 most recent critical cards read 2026-09-05 (Dec 2025 → Jun 2026): 6 of 10 no usable heat (2 returned it), 1 rusted grille guard, 1 missing hardware, 1 dead after three uses, 1 assembly; 10/10 Verified Purchase, 0 Vine · critical reviews read September 2026
Under a roof, a pergola, or a Florida screen enclosure
This is the question that autocompletes — “patio heater under pergola,” “patio heater covered porch,” “patio heater screened porch” — and the answer on most sites is a flat “never under a roof.” The manufacturers’ own manuals say something more useful, and they all say the same thing.
The shelter clause. The EAST OAK, Pamapic, AZ Patio Heaters/Hiland and Fire Sense manuals each print this paragraph, which is the ANSI Z83.26 definition of “outdoors” for a gas patio heater: an appliance may be installed with shelter no more inclusive than (a) walls on all sides but no overhead cover; (b) a partial enclosure with an overhead cover and no more than two side walls, parallel as in a breezeway or at right angles; or (c) an overhead cover and three side walls, as long as 30 percent or more of the horizontal periphery of the enclosure is permanently open. An open-sided pergola with a solid roof, a two-walled covered porch and a breezeway are all inside the envelope. The same manuals also print “heater is outdoors (outside any enclosure)” on the pre-use checklist, which is the consumer simplification of the clause above, not a contradiction of it.
What still governs is clearance, and the roof material. The published figure is a surface-temperature test on ordinary combustibles: 36 inches above and beside the EAST OAK and the Pamapic; 24 inches above and 36 beside most Hiland models, 36 and 36 on others; the two Amazon Basics manuals disagree with each other (36 top / 24 sides on the US-spec unit, 39 / 20 on the EU-spec one), so keep the larger number. Bromic states the exception the others imply: material “with a low heat tolerance (such as plastic, vinyl siding, canvas…) may be subject to degradation at lower temperature.” A canvas pergola shade, a vinyl soffit and screen mesh are not what the number was tested on.
Electric is the class with no enclosure rule. NFPA’s outdoor-heater fact sheet carries ventilation and enclosure language for propane and none at all for electric — only that an electric heater be listed by a qualified testing laboratory, placed where it cannot be overturned, and not run on a permanent extension cord. Bromic rates its electric heaters for indoor and outdoor use. If the space has a roof and more than two walls, electric is the answer the rules support.
The Florida screen cage is the unresolved case, and we are going to say so. A pool enclosure is a roof plus four screened walls. Read literally, that fails the shelter clause on wall count. Whether insect screen counts as a “side wall” is a question no manufacturer manual, no NFPA document and no fire-marshal bulletin we could find has answered; the clause was written for solid walls. Florida does not use the International Fire Code — the Florida Fire Prevention Code is NFPA 1 with state amendments, enforced by the local fire official — and its relevant rule, NFPA 1 10.10.6.1, bans gas heating devices on balconies and under overhangs for other than one- and two-family dwellings, and limits propane above the first floor of an apartment or condominium to one pound. So a condo lanai is a hard no for propane. A single-family home’s own cage is your decision and your inspector’s, made without a manufacturer’s blessing. Our reading: an electric heater inside the cage, a propane heater on the open deck outside it, and never a cylinder stored in the garage.
Near the pool
Most of our readers’ patios wrap a pool, and the electrical code has a rule for that nobody quotes. NEC 680.27(C), Deck Area Heating, applies to a pool deck, covered or not, where electric comfort heaters are installed within 20 feet of the inside wall of the pool: nothing over the water or within 5 feet horizontally of the pool’s inside wall, and a permanently wired radiant heater — the Bromic class — mounted at least 12 feet above the deck unless the inspector approves otherwise. Most lanai soffits are 8 to 10 feet, which is why a hard-wired heater near a pool is an inspector conversation before it is a purchase. The code names only unit heaters and permanently wired radiant heaters in that 5-to-20-foot band; a cord-and-plug unit like the Dr Infrared is not on the list, which the handbook commentary reads as exclusion. Propane heaters fall outside Article 680 entirely; their manuals’ only water instruction is to keep the heater “away from windows, air intake openings, sprinklers and other water sources.”
What to know before you buy
- Three numbers on the box to distrust. The reach (measured results run roughly 40 to 70 percent of the claim, and listings use radius and diameter interchangeably). “Far infrared” on any heater that glows — a filament hot enough to glow orange peaks around 2 to 3 microns, medium-wave; a true far-infrared emitter would be too cool to see, so the reddish glow is unavoidable on any electric heater strong enough to warm you outdoors, and both premium makers describe it as a feature. And “IP65 weatherproof”: the IEC standard behind an IP rating tests dust and water jets and explicitly excludes UV ageing, corrosion and icing — the things that actually kill a heater left out all winter. Bromic, at ten times the price, rates its own unit IPX4 and says “weather resistant, but not water proof.”
- The pyramid’s glass tube is a consumable. One tube size is sold as fitting Fire Sense, Hiland, AZ Patio Heaters, Costco and a dozen other brands, and a reseller’s honest line is “one tip-over or impact and it shatters.” Some “quartz” tubes are borosilicate or plain glass, which chip and crack under thermal shock. If you buy a pyramid, price the tube.
- “Won’t stay lit” is usually not the wind. Owner forums rank the causes: a dirty or misaligned thermocouple first, a pilot orifice blocked by carbon or an insect second (“found a spider had blocked the orifice”), wind third. Both mushrooms and pyramids use the same flame-failure system, so this does not separate them — and remember that AZ’s warranty excludes insect damage by name.
- Register the warranty, and read the exclusions. EAST OAK’s three years exist only if you register; AZ/Hiland’s one year excludes rust, weather and animals; Pamapic’s one year reads as official-store only. Wirecutter’s line stands: very few models are guaranteed for more than a year.
- The cylinder never comes inside. NFPA 1 limits propane inside a home, including an attached garage, to 2.7 pounds a cylinder — a 20-pound cylinder cannot be stored in the house or garage, on a roof, or under the heater. When the heater winters indoors, the cylinder comes off first and stays out.
- Buy it before the cold snap, not during it. Every propane heater on this page has a critical tail led by arrival condition or a dead-on-arrival regulator, and every return window is shorter than the season. Assemble it and run it for an hour the week it arrives.
Bottom line: the box lies about reach on every class, propane is only the cheap fuel if you refill the cylinder, and the rule on roofs is in the manual everyone skips. Buy the EAST OAK for open air, the Dr Infrared for a covered or screened space and two chairs, the Pamapic for the flame and not the warmth, the Cuisinart for one table with the adapter hose — and skip the 900-watt tube.
FAQ
Propane or electric patio heater — which is cheaper to run?
It depends on how you buy the propane, and that is the part nobody prints. A 48,000 BTU propane heater burns about 2.2 pounds of propane an hour. Fill a 20-pound cylinder at a refill station at $3.50 a gallon and that is about $1.84 an hour, or $3.83 per 100,000 Btu of heat. Swap it at an exchange cage instead — a flat price of about $25 for a cylinder filled to roughly 15 pounds, which works out to about $7 a gallon — and the same heater costs about $3.71 an hour, or $7.73 per 100,000 Btu. A 1,500-watt plug-in electric heater costs about $0.28 an hour at the national average electricity rate, which is $5.38 per 100,000 Btu. So per unit of heat, refilled propane is cheapest, electric is in the middle, and exchange-cage propane is the most expensive fuel on the patio. Per evening, electric is always cheapest, because it makes a tenth of the heat.
How far does a patio heater actually reach?
Much less than the box says. The only instrumented side-by-side test we found (TechGearLab, mushroom, pyramid and electric heaters measured with an infrared thermometer at about 25°F) put the comfortable radius at 5 to 6 feet for a 47,000–48,000 BTU mushroom heater, 4 feet for a propane pyramid, and 3 feet for a 1,500-watt electric. Listings claim 18- and 20-foot diameters for the mushrooms and 10 feet for the electrics. The premium electric maker Infratech publishes the honest version for 1,500 watts: 5 by 5 feet in average conditions, 3 by 3 feet when it is cold or windy, 7 by 7 feet in a protected space. In milder weather you will feel a mushroom heater farther out — The Spruce's tester felt the EAST OAK at 12 feet in gusty fall weather — but plan the seating around the measured numbers, not the marketing.
Can I use a propane patio heater under a pergola, a gazebo or a covered porch?
The manufacturers' own manuals say yes, with limits, and almost nobody quotes them. The same clause appears in the EAST OAK, Pamapic, AZ Patio Heaters/Hiland and Fire Sense manuals: an appliance may be installed with shelter no more inclusive than (a) walls on all sides with no overhead cover, (b) an overhead cover with no more than two side walls, or (c) an overhead cover and three side walls as long as 30 percent or more of the horizontal perimeter stays permanently open. That is the ANSI Z83.26 definition of outdoors, and an open-sided pergola, a two-walled covered porch and a breezeway are all inside it. What still governs is overhead clearance — 36 inches to anything combustible above the EAST OAK and Pamapic, 24 to 36 inches above the Hiland depending on the model — and the material of the roof: the clearance figures assume ordinary combustibles, and a canvas shade, vinyl soffit or screen mesh can degrade at lower temperatures. In a condo or apartment, Florida's fire code bans propane heaters on balconies and under overhangs outright, and limits propane above the first floor to one pound.
Can I run a patio heater inside a Florida screen enclosure (a pool cage or lanai)?
Electric, yes — that is the defensible answer. NFPA's outdoor-heater guidance puts no enclosure restriction on electric heaters at all, only that they be listed, placed where they cannot tip, and not run on a permanent extension cord; Bromic rates its electric heaters for indoor and outdoor use. Propane inside a four-walled screen cage is the question nobody has ruled on: the manufacturers' shelter clause was written for solid walls and none of the manuals we read mentions screen mesh, so a cage with a roof and four screened walls fails the clause on wall count unless you decide mesh is not a wall — and no manufacturer has said so. A single-family home's own lanai is not banned by Florida's fire code (that rule is for other than one- and two-family dwellings), so the decision is yours and your inspector's. Our reading: put an electric heater in the cage, and put a propane heater on the open deck outside it.
Is a pyramid patio heater better than a mushroom one?
It is better looking and it radiates on the plane you sit on; it is not better at heating. In the one measured comparison (TechGearLab, about 25°F), the pyramid warmed the smallest radius of every heater tested — about 4 feet against 5 to 6 for the mushrooms — and its peak surface temperature was 160°F lower at a BTU rating only about a tenth lower, because the flame column emits less usable radiant heat at a distance. Pyramids also take more than twice as long to assemble and add a failure mode the mushroom does not have: a glass tube that shatters when the wind puts the heater over, which is exactly what two of the ten newest critical reviews on the Pamapic describe. Buy a pyramid because you want a column of flame in the yard. Buy a mushroom because you want to be warm.
Where do I store the propane cylinder?
Outdoors, upright, away from the heater and never inside. NFPA 1 limits propane cylinders inside a residential building — including a basement or an attached garage — to 2.7 pounds each and 5.4 pounds total, so a 20-pound cylinder can never live in the house or garage. NFPA's own fact sheet adds that cylinders must not be stored on a roof, and the heater manuals add that a spare cylinder must not be stored under or next to the heater, and that if you bring the heater indoors for the winter the cylinder comes off first, dust cap on, and stays outside.



