Customer Reviews

Garden Sun GS4400SS Floor Standing 41,000 BTU Propane Powered Patio Heater With Push Button Ignition, Stainless Steel

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I bought this heater for around $200 on Amazon. Build quality is good but not excellent. It has all the features of units that cost twice as much. The packaging and instructions were very good. It works well in zero to light wind on our deck, but when the wind picks up forget about and go back inside. I have yet to burn an entire 20 lb. bottle of LPG, having used the heater several times, so it appears to be pretty easy on the wallet to operate. Make sure you anchor the unit to the deck or ground. Ours blew over and bent the "top-hat" in a "L" shape. It bent back pretty good but now has a crease in it. Not much else to say. Good luck.

Found this heater on [...], bought it with free 2-day Amazon Prime shipping, and put it together yesterday. Easy as pie! Another reviewer said that despite the sand in the base that his GardenSun blew over and dented the reflector, so I bought 4 long bolts to replace the ones that shipped with it, and put the bolts all the way through the wooden deck and secured it underneath. Now it's solid like a rock, who wants to move theirs around anyway? Starting the pilot light the first time can be a bit tricky, read the included instructions & you'll be fine.


EDIT----

I've had the heater for <6 months, now very, incredibly, amazingly rust covered. It looks pretty seriously unattractive. Discussed with neighbors and is apparently due to low quality stainless steel and exposure to salt coastal air. Push button igniter dead, but pilot lights easily with long-stem lighter from BBQ. Does not use a lot of gas

I'd recommend going into the assembly process in a good mood, so you can get a laugh out of the somewhat chaotic and sketchy assembly instructions. If you go in short tempered you'll probably be miserable. I'm pretty sure the parts in the box didn't match up with the list of parts I was supposed to have, which in turn didn't match up with the parts referenced in the instruction steps. But the parts I had did all go together properly with nothing left over (expect the third foot mentioned below). It seemed like perhaps the engineering of the heater was an evolving process and the instructions hadn't kept pace.

A couple of examples... The heater came with three little feet (presumably to make it more tip resistant) and a set of roller wheels. Neither was mentioned in the instructions. The holes where the roller wheels bolt on overlap where one of the three feet bolt on, so I guess you have to choose between three feet or two feet and wheels. I went with the wheels, which do make moving the heater fairly easy as long as you have the room to tilt it over. Also, the main instruction sheet just showed a single piece top reflector. But the reflector actually came in four pieces with its own separate assembly card.

Anyway, it wasn't all that hard to figure out where the parts went and get the thing together.

I wheeled it outside, hooked up a propane bottle and it fired right up. Mine lights in just a few seconds (one of the other reviewers mentioned theirs takes 45 seconds or so). It doesn't bake you with heat (which I suppose is good for the propane bill), but does provide a nice gentle warming to take the edge off on a cool night.

I purchased two of these heaters from Amazon for use in our mild, Southern California area. After 5 months both rusted over entire body including canopy, pole and tank cover. After 9 months one of the heaters completely stopped working because of faulty thermocouple and the other stopped working after 11 months. Big, big mistake!

Amazon got off the wrong foot with this order, since I use Amazon Prime (two-day delivery) and it actually took eleven days to arrive. When it showed up, an inventory revealed some missing machine screws and cap nuts. The packaging is leaky and it is easy to see how some of the screws and nuts fell out of the shipping box. Amazon's proposed way to fix this problem was that I would ship the unit back and Amazon would ship a replacement. But the packaging for the new unit would be the same and maybe some screws and nuts would fall out of that box too. Plus I would have to wait another eleven days for the next one to arrive. I gave up and went to a hardware store and purchased replacement parts.

Close inspection reveals that the actual unit is labeled that it delivers 41000 BTUs of heat. The product description on Amazon, however, states in three different places that the unit supposedly delivers 44000 BTUs of heat. Thus the actual unit falls short of advertised performance by about seven percent.

There are no lock washers or star washers anywhere in the assembly package. I recommend using some thread-lock for the fifteen normal-temperature threaded connections, and I recommend buying and using lock washers for the fifteen threaded connections that are exposed to high temperature.

If you get past these challenges, you will have a nice warm patio heater, for a much cheaper price than most other places. It fires up nicely, the spark ignition works well, and it makes plenty of heat.

When this item works, I'm sure it's fine... given all of the reviews on here. However, if you buy this thing, please please PLEASE test the gas line first by hooking up your propane tank before you assemble it. Mine had a leak and I wasted about two hours in assembly/disassembly time because I had to send it back. Totally demoralizing. Testing the gas line would have taken less than five minutes.

Company is sending me a new one now, but all in all this will end up being a four hour plus project instead of about half that.

Bought two of these heaters for the patio. One came with a damaged deflector and other one was missing a regulator. After spending 3 hours putting them together, I'm not going to take them apart to return. Once assembled, they're decent heaters. There are four bolts holding the top half to the main pole, which are a joke. They came stripped and the top is not on completely secure. I'll have to figure out another way to improve their current state. The cover that comes with the heaters is also a joke--it looks like a white trash bag over the top half of the heater. I will have to purchase additional covers that look better and do a better job of keeping the elements out. Overall, an ok heater with a decent price. Unit comes with the typical chinese tool kit and cheap nuts and bolts that come with nearly everything these days.

This gas patio heater is fantastic. It was easy to assemble and works like a charm!
I live in western PA and this is great on cool nights. We use it to warm us up when getting out of the hot tub. It will be ideal for winter time use in this area.

The price was more than reasonable and it is much bigger than I expected. It is very sturdy ( you put sand in the base) and stands up to the wind. In the green color it fits in with the outside patio.

Be very careful with this heater. We received this heater in late July and the weather in the Bay Area was warm enough that we didn't need to assemble it right away. A couple weeks after receiving it, we had a dinner party outside and I lit the heater to keep our guests warm. A strong smell of Liquid Propane emerged and we discovered that the heater's piping leaked. After logging onto Amazon to explore replacing the faulty part, we discovered the return/replacement policy expired just 3 days after receipt.

So, if you buy this heater, make sure to promptly check the piping for leaks.

The first one I received I could not get the pilot to light. The replacement works fine. Maybe I did something wrong on the first. Relatively easy to assemble. The one thing I am curious about is that no where in the manual (or anywhere else) can I find out who manufactured it or anything about a warranty. When I was having problems with the first one Amazon.com gave me what was purported to be the manufacturer for me to contact. I sent them a fax and they called me back immediately to tell me they did not manufacture it. Apparently Amazon.com doesn't even know who made it. Weird, yes????