Smoking is banned in public places in Northern Ireland at midnight on Sunday night. We’re trying to find some Northern Irish publicans who are saying no to patio heaters. So if you run a pub in Northern Ireland please email us. We can’t promise much in return for you pledging not to use patio heaters - except a picture of you and your pub on the site, and in the long term - maybe - a slightly cooler planet.

There are 5,150 pubs in Northern Ireland. If half of them invest in just one low-powered patio heater Northern Ireland will be adding an extra 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere a year – all of it making a direct contribution to climate change. Anybody who’s been to  the Republic of Ireland will know that many pubs there have responded to the smoking ban by installing a forest of patio heaters. Lets not see that happen in the North.

Northern Ireland isn’t always that cold, but there’s plenty of wind and rain. A shelter facing the right way to protect people from the elements will do much more to keep smokers warm than a patio heater. 

Calor gas seem finally to have realised that they might be facing a threat to their corporate image.  They’ve launched a whole load of stuff on their site dedicated to proving that patio heaters aren’t that bad.

The Calor gas arguments go: 1) the total carbon emissions from patio heaters are quite low, 2) the smoking ban really isnt anything to worry about, and 3) if you’re getting flack from your friends and neighbours, Calor can offset the carbon emissions from your patio heater. I’m going to spend the next three posts unpicking Calor Gas’s greenwash.

Patio heaters are fine for the environment - just so long as you dont turn them on

Calor gas say “Market Transformation the statistics source used by the government has calculated that the total of around 6,500 tonnes of LPG consumed by the patio heater market would produce just over 22,200 tonnes of CO₂, which is around a twentieth of the figure [that has been] quoted”.

The problem for Calor is that there’s no getting round the fact that a patio heater uses a shed load of energy and quite a bit of carbon along with it.  Its a plain fact that a patio heater uses as much energy in an hour as do 22 large plasma screen TVs*.

So why are Calor able to say that patio heaters dont emit that much carbon? Because most British householders who’ve bought a patio heater have consigned it to the garage and forgotten about it. 

Calor proudly quote a government report as saying that only 22,000 tonnes of carbon are emitted by patio heaters in the UK. What they don’t quote is the bit where the same government report says “The presumption for the domestic sector would suggest that most appliances are used very infrequently or not at all.”

Calor’s figures seem to me to support one of the key messages of this site: “patio heaters are crap”.  And while homeowners quickly give up on their patio heaters, the pubs and restaurants - who are buying them up prior to the smoking ban - won’t.

*These figures are also from “Market Transformation the statistics source used by the government”

While Calor are telling their domestic customers that the smoking ban really wont have that much impact on the number of patio heaters in the country, their commercial sales team seems to have rather a different message.  An intriguing “LPG Catering Case Study“  on the Calor website tells the heart-warming story of the Fox Inn - a traditional village pub in the Cotswolds. 

 At the Fox the landlord, Paul Potter, apparently needed 6 large patio heaters to effectively serve his customers - so many patio heaters in fact that he had a special bulk tank of gas built to hold all the LPG* (maybe not what you’d expect from a traditional village pub but hey -times change).

A few quick sums reveals that that would be about 20 extra tonnes of CO2 a year that Paul is now adding to the atmosphere.  But, saysthat the patio heaters have added an extra  25%  to his earnings on Saturdays, allowing him to recoup his investment in one of the patio heaters in just one busy weekend. So that’s alright then.

 See our section on the smoking ban, and why pubs shouldn’t invest in patio heaters.

 *somebody needs to point this thing about bulk tanks out to the governments Market Transformation programme, who are calculating patio heater energy use on the basis of small gas canisters sold. 

Calor gas says “you can take steps to reduce your ‘carbon footprint’ by using your patio heater responsibly and offset what remains using the Calor Carbon Offset Programme.”

Carbon offset for patio heaters is nonsense. The first step in any sort of strategy to tackle global carbon emissions has to be to remove the least necessary emissions of carbon. We have to make sure that we only use carbon intensive energy-sources for things that are essential, or at least things that are moderately useful. You dont get more unnecessary than patio heaters and paying for carbon offset doesn’t change that.  

We want to try and find some English pubs who are saying no to patio heaters.

In a few months time smoking will be banned in English pubs. If we don’t do something now, the front of every pub  will be obscured behind a forest of patio heaters. There’s a growing perception - encouraged by companies like Calor Gas (see below) - that heaters are vital if people are going to use outside space in pubs. They’re not, and anyway pubs can provide shelters and windbreaks for smokers under the new legislation. A windbreak positioned in the right direction will be a lot more effective at keeping smokers warm than a dozen patio heaters. See our section on the smoking ban for details.

There are about 54,000 pubs in England. That’s potentially a lot of patio heaters and alot of carbon dioxide.

 So to kick things off, we’re ringing and emailing a few London pubs to see if they would be willing to denounce patio heaters, in public. More to follow.

There is finally some movement from some of the environmental organisations on this issue. Friends of the Earth contacted four garden centres and managed to talk Wyevale Garden Centre into a commitment not to sell them anymore. Well done Wyevale. Well done Friends of the Earth.