The thesis
Keeping the patio usable past October
The four steps in order — shelter, size, position, heat — and why the heater comes last.
Reading
Guides
The longer pieces. Less about which heater and more about the season, the order to do things in, and what makes the difference on a cold evening.
The one that explains what this whole site is for: keep your patio usable past October.
The rest of this site answers specific questions: how many BTU, what it costs, whether it is safe under a roof. These are the longer pieces that put those answers in order.
They share one argument. Getting a patio back for October, November and beyond is not a single purchase — it is a sequence, and the heater is the third or fourth step, not the first. Shelter comes before heat, position comes before power, and the size of the space decides more than the brand on the box.
Everything in this section
3 pages. Roundups and tools first, then the comparisons, then the guides.
Cold weather
Keeping a patio warm in genuine winter
What changes when it goes from cool to genuinely cold, and the setup that still works.
Seasonal
The first cold snap checklist
The pre-season checks in order, including the two things that usually fail after storage.