Do baseboard heaters need to be baby proofed?
By Stella from Manchester, WA
If they are the kind of baseboard heaters that I have in my apartment they don't get real warm to the touch. My heat is hot water heat. Touch the heaters and see how warm they get. If they don't get hot enough to burn a baby dont't worry about it. I have never heard of anybody baby proofing any type of heat registers.
I would call a local heating and cooling supply store or installer/repair company if it feels too warm to the touch. I know there are covers available and even when I was a young girl we had one for the floor heater vent in our living room.
If you have electric heat, I think you need to baby proof these somehow. I think they would get hot, and there may be places to put little fingers. Touch them yourself, and see how hot they are and if there are places for a child to reach in and touch the heating elements.
Stella, thought I should add a little more information that might be helpful to you. I only know about vent covers so did a little research about baseboard covers. Go to this link for detailed information and a how to video (be sure to read more instructions below the video):
heating-and-cooling.hardwarestore.../
There are fancier safety covers but they are a lot more expensive :-0 Here's a photo of what the main part of the cover looks like.
Child Safe - The dangers associated with hot finned tube heating elements are well known. Our child safe design doesn't allow for little fingers or small flammable toys to be placed inside the heater cover.
For some reason the photo didn't show so trying again ;-)
Deeli has the right idea for covering the heaters my brother once got his finger caught inside thank God the heat was not on so yes they need to be baby proofed. They get very hot!
