With the ongoing pandemic, restaurants, business owners, and homeowners are continuing to find new ways to utilize outdoor spaces; and this trend will only accelerate as fall turns into winter and the temperatures continue to drop. The result is that the outdoor heating industry is getting attention like never before!

Recently, the founder of Alfresco Heating, Eric Kahn was featured in an article on Slate.com, “Heat lamps are a must-have for restaurants this winter. There’s already a shortage.”

As he always does, Eric shared his expertise and practical experience to illuminate the current surge in demand for outdoor heating. In the Slate article, he said, “September is here, and soon bars and restaurants across the country will be relying on heat lamps to accommodate comfortable outdoor dining and drinking. Outdoor drinking and dining is currently the safest way for establishments to host guests during the pandemic. Accordingly, demand for heat lamps has risen sharply, even in the warm summer months. While July is typically the slowest month for the heat-lamp industry—yes, there’s an industry—this year it rivaled even the traditionally busiest months of the year.”

The Slate report emphasized that many restaurants are purchasing outdoor heaters for the first time, suggesting that the new landscape of dining on sidewalks, streets, parking lots, and wherever else you can fit a table and a few feet of distance will be with us for a good while. 

Alfresco Heating has received so many installation orders that it’s adding staff to keep up. Eric reported that demand is so high right now that “If someone called up and said they wanted an installation, they’d be looking at two months for us to get there.” As another reflection of this trend, the article says that according to the Boston Globe, searches for heaters on Wayfair have increased more than 70 percent in August compared with last year.

Underscoring the magnitude of this demand, Alfresco Heating founder Eric Kahn was also quoted in an article on Quartz.com. Eric reported, “The reality is that we’ve never had any month with as much sales as we’ve had in any of the last five months.”

In another recent interview, this one by BBC weekend, Kahn explained the sources of this unprecedented demand. You can click the SoundCloud file below to listen for yourself. 

Alfresco Heating · BBC Weekend Interview

“Homeowners are at home a lot and investing in their homes. They are wanting more square footage and expanding to the outdoors with the help of outdoor heating. And, restaurants are opening outdoors primarily, so there is a lot of demand for permanent installations.” He continued, “The extreme demand is for portable propane units. Right now we have five lines of imported propane patio heaters that come from Taiwan or China and four of those are completely out of stock in the United States. I think that the importers have not predicted the surge in demand combined with production and shipping slowdowns in China. From my point of view, it looks like it is a combination of factories shutting down for periods of time due to the pandemic, shipping slowdowns due to the pandemic, and very likely icey trade relations as well.” 

Not only did Slate touch on the influx of demand in the industry but also about how restaurants can best utilize outdoor heating units while still maintaining safety protocols around Covid-19. 

The article continues, “Configuring heaters for a certain space can be tricky given social distance and fire safety guidelines. Though it’s certainly safer than indoor gatherings, crowding multiple tables around a single unit increases the risk of coronavirus transmission. Some restaurants are finding that they have to mix and match different kinds of heaters to maximize warmth while ensuring distance. Stand-alone patio heaters—the ones that look like street lamps—tend to be cheaper, foreign-made models that use propane tanks. Higher-tier heaters, which can emit heat over a larger radius, often require installation into a wall or ceiling and have natural gas piped in. A great option is having installed heaters to be the main source of warmth and using the stand-alone heaters as a supplement on the outer edges of his dining area.”

If you need help finding the best outdoor heating installation for your location or residence, please contact Alfresco Heating at 707-345-4000 for a custom quote and the best price available.

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