Childproofing a Hot Floor Heater

We need to child-proof our floor furnace. We live in a 1924 home in Oakland and still rely on the (original?) floor furnace ... it looks sort of like an air return vent for a central heating system, but the entire furnace is under the vent. The metal grate gets very hot and we need to figure out how to protect our soon-to-be-mobile 9-month-old. Has anyone else dealt with this? Any advice much appreciated! p.

Oak flooring is available at most lumber yards to close up the old hole in the floor so that nobody can tell there used to be a hole there.

Warm, but not burned

1) Safety of your child (or visitor) walking on the hot grate.

2) Safety from fire. A neighbor of mine had a major house fire when a blanket slid over her heater. She was in the kitchen and didn't notice until the living room was in flames. (This really scared us into action)

3) Safety from noxious gases. In-floor furnaces are not well sealed, especially around the mica window that lets you see the flame. And the old heat-exchanger can corrode or rust, allowing combustion gases to get into the living space.

4) Efficiency. The old floor heaters are around 30 to 50 percent efficient. Much of your heat goes up the flue!

5) Comfort. It only heats one or two rooms. Ours didn't have a thermostat (we could only turn it on or off using a funny shaped key)

In 1998, a heating contractor replaced our in-floor heater with a gas-fired, central forced-air heating unit. They installed six heating outlets, one in each room. We placed the kitchen warm-air duct right below our sink, so my feet get warm when I'm washing dishes. The old heater was removed and the hole became the return air duct and holder for the air filter.

The furnace itself is about 60,000 btu, plenty for our 2-bedroom bungalow. It's over 95 percent efficient - so little heat leaves the furnace that the exhaust flue is just a plastic pipe. The cost was about $4000, and took 2 days.

No more burn worries. Each room gets toasty. A real thermostat. It's an expensive solution, but after 10 years, we're happy we did it. Cliff S

We live in a 100 year old house--which came with an old fashioned in-floor heater. There is no ductwork--simply a metal grate directly above the heater. Its our only heating system for the house--so we need to use it this winter--but also need to protect our 13 month old. Unfortunately the grate is right in the middle of our living room/dining room (not next to a wall). Does anyone has any bright ideas about how to block it off--yet allow us to use it still? The system they describe on the Bananas site doesn't seem high enough. And, yes we'd love to put in whole house heating--but it will cost $9000 and we just can't do it this winter. Any advice would be great! Jennifer

Hi. We have a 15 month old and two large heating grates on the floor. We are worried that she will trip and fall on it when we have the heat in the winter.. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to protect/cover the grate so that we still get heat but prevents our daughter from the grate. Thank you mari

My husband and I and our eighteen-month-old daughter live in a rented house with an antiquated heating system: the "central" heating comes from a floor grate in the middle of the hallway that separates the front of the house (kitchen, living room) from the bedrooms. The grate is huge! The hallway is 39 inches wide, and the grate is 24 inches wide and 15 inches long, so it’s almost impossible to avoid. Last winter, the grate got terribly hot when we had the heat on, but my husband and I just stepped over it and kept our daughter away from it entirely. This year, our daughter is walking and I’m worried that she’s going to burn herself (either feet or hands) badly. I’ve searched the archives and saw the Bananas blueprint for a grate cover, but that seems more practical for grates that are smaller and not as centrally located as ours...it sticks up so far that I'm sure someone would end up tripping over it. I’m tempted to just buy some space heaters and forget all about the central heating this winter, but before I do, I was wondering if anyone else had experienced, and solved, a similar problem (and, for that matter, if anyone had tips on using space heaters safely with a toddler in the house). Thanks! Grateful Mama

This Thanksgiving I am going to have my entire family plus some of my sister's in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner. Last night as I huddled over the grate on the floor over the heater and almost burnt myself (melted my boot), I realized how dangerous this was going to be for my little nephew who is 1 year old and recently walking! I imagine some of you with kids and old houses might have a heater like this one and may have some ideas on how to make it safe for the baby. P.S. This is the only heat source in the house and is located smack dab in the middle of the the area between the dining room and the living room ie. where everybody will be during the festivities.

Bananas has a sheet with information on how to build a wooden grate to cover such heaters. We had a heater just like this, and built a wooden framework over which we put metal screening (like on a window). Another alternative is wooden dowels. Not too hard to make and very effective--our toddler never got burned, even though it was next to his main play area.

Re: The hot floor heater grate. We have a grate like this. I was given a plan by Berkeley Pediatrics and built one and it works great. You need to build a square that will fit around the grate but not touch the metal. Use 1" X 9" pine boards for the square. Then drill out for and insert 3/4" dowel rods across the top edge. They should be no less or more that 3" apart to prevent head or limb entrapment. Then you can wire one of the dowels to the grate to keep it from moving around. I stapled cloth covered foam to the outer bottom to prevent toe stubbing as ours is also in a walking area. I built an upright one also for a friend with a wall heater. Its a bit of a strange look but very effective and about all you can do. I've seen people try to block the area with chairs etc. but you have to be really careful about anything that may catch fire. You can call Berkeley Pediatrics and see if they still have the diagrams available.

there are wooden heating grates in some of the older houses in Berkeley, and I don't think they heat up the way metal ones do. Expensive to have made, I had one made a long time ago, and don't remember where I had it done. Might check with McBeath Hardwood or Ashby Lumber for ideas on where to look for one or where to have one made.

you can build a wooden cage around the vent. the sides are wood and the top consists of wooden dowls with space inbetween each. the key is having it fit snuggly around the grate so the only way to get it off is by lifting it directly up. the cage is too big for a small child to lift. ours has kept our now ten and a half month old safe. bananas has a hand out on how to build one. the only modification i might make is lining the top (under the dowls) with somethings like mosquito netting so small objects can't be dropped through the spaces and onto/into the hot grate.

Bananas, the childcare referral service in Oakland, has a flyer with plans for a wooden grate cover, although their version is not as safe as I think it could be (a kid could stick a hand through if she was determined). We built a wooden box to fit around the grate and put wooden slats across the top, with a wire mesh under the slats so the baby couldn't drop things onto the hot grate (you could grill a steak on ours--it's directly over the furnace). When the wooden slats started to get charred (!) we raised the sides of the box to about a foot high (and we still got a nice/worrisome fireplace smell from the hot wood). You have to make sure nobody leaves stuff on top of the box or fires can start. You should probably avoid pressure-treated wood. I've read it has toxic chemicals that get released when it burns or, presumably, to some extent when it gets hot.

Re. heater grates, Bananas has a handout which gives ideas on how to build something yourself. Some friends with the same problem, had a carpenter buddy make a sturdy cedar box which fit over the grate. It had slits to let the heat out, served as a little table, and made the room smell nice= besides!

My husband covered our similar grate. He got the vinyl-covered metal shelving like some people install in closets. Even when the heater is on, it stays cool. Then, he attached them to the floor and to the walls with screws (there are little metal things designed to attach these shelf things to the walls of a closet. and attached them to each other with plastic ties. All of this can be purchased at Home Depot. It was not cheap--about $40 for all parts, but works great. Good luck.

We have two gas wall heaters (ceiling to floor) that heat our house. Now that it is getting cold we want to turn them on but our 10 month old son loves to touch them and play around them. These heaters project from the wall 5 inches. We have not seen anything made commercially to keep babies (or toddlers) away from them. Has anyone found any solution to this problem? Phyllis and Michael