Options for Heating

[NickJames]

I’m running out of time to decide a heating option for the potential freezing winter nights. We had none this past winter, and my neighborhood continues to grow (aka generate more heat) but as you know in Daytona Beach, we just don’t know. 
 

I can’t find an actual readily available smudge pot so I’ve narrowed it down to these options. The BTU ratings are listed on the boxes. 
 

Which do you think is best? I assume I would need to buy a few. 
 

Option 1 uses small propane tanks (like camping stove sized) which is appealing to me. 
 

Option 2 attaches right to a regular propane tank. 
 

Option 3 is quite obviously the largest (most expensive) and uses diesel (appealing to me as I could simply throw it in my truck and fill it up at the fuel station).

 

another question: does pointing one of these simply at the base of the palm help, or would I need to find a way to elevate it? Since heat rises, I assume the hot air would hit the trunk and rise up. 

[Palm Tree Jim]

You forgot option 4......create the first bio dome at your residence!
 

Kidding aside, I prefer simple setups. 

[Oviedo_z10b_lol]

Search for older posts by @Walt. He outlines how to protect palms using heating cables (used to wrap water pipes up north in the winter) and various blankets. If I tried to paraphrase, I wouldn’t do his efforts justice. 

[sonoranfans]

I would be using netting on anything 10a that I could.  There are two keys to efficient heating, 1) you cant have an open area, need windblock. 2) overhead canopy or netting on anything you can.  I have a firepit made from more than one hundred " by 11" pavers.  Buring a fire and heating up that rock will trap and release heat slowly.  But wind is the nullifier of any space heater.  In absence of those options I would ask Walt what he uses to string lights and then wrap the bud and foliage in a blacket.  Walt has had some great success with cocos and other 10a palms.  The lights you buy cannot give off excessive heat I know that, just a little heat.  ANd wrapping in the blanket insulates things.  If you lights heat too much it could kill the palm.