Stop Letting Your Patio Go To Waste in the Winter
It’s a bummer watching your outdoor tables sit empty just because the temperature dropped. Most people try to fight the cold by heating the air, but that’s a losing battle—the wind just carries the warmth away. We do things differently. We use shortwave infrared heaters. Instead of fighting the breeze, these units heat people and objects directly. It’s the same feeling as stepping into the sun on a crisp morning. Even when it’s freezing outside, your guests stay warm. Getting the heat right If you want people to actually sit outside, the heat needs to be instant. No one wants to sit there for twenty minutes waiting to “warm up.” That’s why we use high-wattage emitters. They hit the customer immediately. And because it’s a concentrated beam of heat, it doesn’t blow away the second a gust of wind hits the patio. You can ditch the bulky blankets and those ugly plastic tents that make a nice restaurant look like a construction site. The nitty-gritty on setup We use quartz-glass tubes with special coatings to push the heat straight down where it belongs. These things are built for the grind of a commercial kitchen environment. One quick heads-up on the electrical side: these units pull a lot of power. If you just plug everything into your existing grid, you might trip a breaker right in the middle of a Saturday night rush. Not a great look. We usually suggest dedicated circuits for larger patios just to keep things running smoothly. Is it worth the money? The math is pretty straightforward. More heat means more seats. If you can keep your patio open for another three or four months a year, the extra covers pay for the equipment pretty quickly. There is one thing to watch out for, though: “hot spots.” If you hang the heaters too low, the person sitting right under it feels like they’re being grilled, while the person across from them is still shivering. It takes a bit of tweaking with the height and the angles to make sure the warmth is spread evenly across the whole space. But once you nail that, your guests will be happy to stay for that extra round of drinks.