La Hacienda Heatmaster Popular 1.8kW Electric Parasol Heater

This parasol heater from La Hacienda offers 2.0kW of output via 4 x 500W ruby lamps delivering short wave infrared heat. It’s not too expensive and quite stylish, how does it compare to other heaters on the market? Read on to find out!

La Hacienda – 2.0kW (U3-R20) Heatmaster Popular Parasol Heater

The parasol heater market is quite small, so you’ve really got to go above and beyond to provide the public with a product that is either cheaper than what’s already available on the market, or release something with gadgets and features.

Unfortunately this heater doesn’t tick either of those boxes, but we wanted to review it anyway as it has as average rating of 4.2 stars out of 5 based on 102 customer reviews.

Heating Area

While there are no official stats on the heating area for this parasol heater, we would expect it to be able to cover approximately 5-6sqm which is plenty if you’re sitting around the table under the parasol!

Bulb Life & Heating Type

Quadruple ruby infrared halogen bulbs at 450Watts each. The expected lifetime of each bulb is 5,000 hours.

Replacement bulbs are available at just £7.00 inc. VAT, so £28.00 in total when replacing all 4 bulbs!

Power Settings & Specifics

This heater has two power settings – 1000W / 2000W.

The mains cable provided is only 2 metres long, so you may need a power extender as well.

Aesthetics

We quite like how this heater looks. Most parasol heaters are available in silver with a black plastic frame. This heater however is made from a black all over plastic and is quite stylish.

One Amazon user did leave a 1-star rating regarding the design, complaining that it made his garden look like a brothel… our question to him is how would he know? 😉

It would look good in the homestead or in a commercial property.

This heater will fit most parasols 22cm up to 55cm in diameter.

Features & Extras

The heater comes with no extras bar a weatherproof rating as detailed below. You can, however, purchase a tripod stand (making this heater freestanding) made of black steel which extends to 1.9m for this heater at the price of £49.99.

Weatherproof Rating

La Hacienda have made this heater with a weatherproof rating of IPx3.

Solid rating X – this heater offers no protection from solids.

Liquid rating 3 – it has limited protection from water – water falling as a spray at any angle up to 60° from the vertical shall have no harmful effect. So you could theoretically leave it out underneath your parasol in the rain. We really would have liked to have seen a liquid rating of at least 4 – as with other heaters provided in this price range.

Suitable For

This heater is suitable for both commercial and home users. It is quite stylish but considering La Hacienda is known as a budget to mid-range brand, we would have thought this heater would have come with a few more selling points.

Running Costs

The cost before electricity based on a purchase price of £88 – (Check Latest Price) is £0.018 per hour. About on-par with other heaters in this price range, just a fraction more in fact.

We can calculate the cost of electricity by doing the following: (based on an average price of 14.7p per kWh).

Heater running costs:

Full Power (2000W) – 2.0kW x 1 hour = 2.0kWh x 14.7p = 29.4p (per hour)
Low Power (100W) – 1.0kW x 1 hour = 1.0kW x 14.7p = 14.7p (per hour)

Assuming we were to use this heater for 2 hours per day.

Full Power (2000W) – Our monthly electric bill will be £17.64
Low Power (1000W) – Our monthly electric bill will be £8.82

Running costs are just as affordable as other parasol heaters on the market.

Heater Specification

• Cost at time of review (29th August 2017): £88.00 – Check Latest Price
  
• Type of heater: Electric, Halogen, Infrared
  
• Suitable for: Commercial & Home
  
• Comes with: Nil
  
• Height: 19cm
  
• Depth: 44.5cm
  
• Width: 44.5cm
• Weight: 3.3kg
• Power settings: 1000W / 2000W
  
• Cost to run (per hour): 14.7p / 29.4p
  
• Additional: IPx3 Rated
  

PatioMate’s Thoughts

Originally we were going to give this heater an average rating but customers seem to love it. For the price we believe it should come with a superior weatherproof rating, maybe a remote control or more power settings.

It’s not 5 star worthy by any means, but it has no major flaws and we’d still consider it a good purchase, even though it costs a fraction more than other parasol heaters on the market. So if you like the design and want a low glare ruby parasol heater. This is the heater for you!