floor furnaces

[KellyB]

Well, it's getting cold, and ds is 12 months...and totally used to walking over our unlit floor furnaces.
The one I'm most worried about is in the hall...it's impossible to get to the bathroom or the babie's room without stepping on it...
Any suggestions?

[Past_VNE]

We have the same sort of heat, kellyb.

I'm not sure what we will be doing with it. I wish I had a good suggestion for you.

[jadegirl553]

I don't know what to do, either.

We have upright gas stoves to heat our home. Open flames, glowing ceramic, the whole works. For one, I'm going to get a fireplace thingy- that sits in front of an open fire to keep sparks from flying out. The other one is not set up for that to be possible, so I don't know what to do.

I'm curious about what others have done. Surely we're not the only ones in this situation!

[nonnymoose]

You ought to ask around among the people you know. They were pretty common in post-WWII-era houses, so plenty of the 30-70 yr age range had to have grown up with them. I'm sure someone will remember how they survived intact

[KellyB]

Well, from what I've heard, back in the day there were furnace covers you could buy, but aren't made any more.
Here's the only thing I can think of to do...get a pallat(sp) and put blocks on the corners to keep it from touching the hot metal...???
Maybe use a broken, smaller pallat for the hall if I can find one?
Or maybe just do space heaters this year? Or a combo?

[KellyB]

Ok...I'm just gonna bump this because I'm desperate...
Right now I have the oven on and open for heat...when it get super cold I turn the eyes of the stove on as well...
There is a space heater in the bedroom...is this the way we'll spend the winter?
I'm constantly waking up to make sure Noah's not about to kill himself with the space heater somehow...
I never did the pallat over the floor furnace thing because I was afraid of it catching on fire....(our dryer caught on fire a while back)...
Any thoughts?
Philosophically, I'm a little CC...but our floor furnaces are right in the middle of the rooms, so this is outside of the realm of "natural"...
And, ds has evolved from crawling to walking with these same heat sources unlit...
I know one of you Mamas has been through this and have some words of wisdom...???

[tboroson]

I've never seen a floor furnace before, I actually had to google it to figure out what you meant. At first, I thought you meant forced air heating grates, which we had when I was growing up. They never got hot enough to burn, and I *loved* to stand on them and let the hot air inflate my clothing Do these floor furnaces really get hot enough to burn? If so, honestly, I'm surprised they're legal - a child or an adult could be hurt by them, and lying flat on the floor, obviously they're a magnet for drifting bits of paper and pet hair and tinker toys and other flammables.

If they're not that hot, well, I'd take the CC approach - since you know he won't actually be injured, let him figure out that touching them sucks. If they are too hot for that, well... hrm... I guess it depends on how big your home is. You said only one of them is in a really dangerous location. While it's not convenient to block off your bathroom, is your home big enough that it's at least possible? You could put a baby gate in the hallway before furnace, so the only way your kiddo would cross it is when you're carrying him. Or, how much floor space is around it in the hallway? Could you put a fence of SuperYards (see link below) around it and still have room to skirt around it?

Jadegirl, check out SuperYards for blocking off your gas stoves. We have used them for fireplaces for a while, and they're great.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...795858-6411126
They won't stop a determined toddler, but they will slow him down quite a bit, and he'll make a racket trying to move it as opposed to just sneaking up to the stove and touching it

[nonnymoose]

Originally Posted by kellyb

Right now I have the oven on and open for heat...when it get super cold I turn the eyes of the stove on as well...
There is a space heater in the bedroom...is this the way we'll spend the winter?

Ahhhhhhhhgh. PLEASE just turn your furnace on. It can't possibly be any less dangerous for Noah to have an oven turned on and open than a floor furnace grate to deal with. I lived with one for a while, and the only thing I remember about it was that it felt like a great big blow dryer in the floor, and I'd go stand over it after my shower in my bathrobe. If he's walking, he's only going to expose his feet to it anyway. If he falls on it, being lit is not going to make a difference in whether he hurts himself.
As for the space heater, make sure it's plugged directly into the wall outlet. Extension cords are NOT a good idea with space heaters.
You wouldn't believe how many fires are started with the exact scenario you're describing, only most folks have had their gas shut off or are out of oil.

[cj'smommy]

I didn't know what they were either so I Googled and found this

loor furnace burns to children.

Berger LR, Kalishman S.

Three children with grid-like second-degree burns of their extremities from contact with floor furnace registers prompted an examination of this thermal hazard. Average temperature of the gratings was 294 degrees F (146 degrees C), with a range of 180 degrees to 375 degrees F (82.2 degrees to 191 degrees C). All of the furnaces tested were positioned at the entrance to bedrooms and had so little clearance that it was impossible to walk around them without contact with their surface. Infants and toddlers are at particular risk: 1 or 2 seconds of exposure would be expected to produce a serious burn. Suggestions for preventing burns from floor furnaces include turning them off when young children are at home; installing barrier gates to prevent children from coming in contact with the registers; and developing a surface coating or replacement grate with less hazardous thermal properties.

So I guess they do get hot enough to burn. They must sell some kind of shield that is made of a heat resistant material to cover them up?

Didn't post this to scare you, just to inform that there is a threat of burns.

[cj'smommy]

I can find suggestions on how to cover them but no products. :

[Pigpen]

We have the same thing in our house...my son was 11 mos. old when he stepped on it and burned his foot. My husband got up early one morning and turned in on just for a few minutes, my son woke up and came out and stepped on it (it's in the hallway too). He got second degree burns on one foot. There are no products available so you'll have to build something (or have someone do it for you) but it's easy...here's what we did and it's approved by the fire dept.
http://www.bananasinc.org/uploads/1080332592.pdf
We've had this for 3 years and it works well!

ETA, they have wall heater plans also, just scroll down the page.

[paisley]

We have a floor heater in our house too. Why did they put these things in the dumbest places?? I think Pigpen's link is better (thank you Pigpen!) but here's sore more ideas and info:

http://parents.berkeley.edu/recommen...uy/heater.html

We are going to have to figure out something soon because it's starting to get cold in here!

[KellyB]

Thanks for the link, Pigpen....that's very similar to my wooden pallat idea...
Oh...and my oven is up in the air, like if it were the top oven of two double ovens...
To anyone wondering, a floor furnace is kind of like having a hole with a big, gas BBQ grill in your floor for heat, with the metal grill right there floor level...yes, they are unbelieveably dangerous...they do cause fires and injuries...
Even back in the old days when people would wonder "Why does the stupid baby keep getting his head stuck between the bars of the crib?", floor furnaces were a worry for moms.
Ugh...gas is expensive...I'm thinking of just buying several space heaters to put up high on shelves, etc, and plugging them into outlets behind furniture.
Maybe only turning on the floor furnaces when it's super cold, and the space heaters aren't cutting it.
Our house is tiny...A living room/kitchen in the front, and then 2 bedrooms and a bathroom in the back...and there's a floor furnace blocking the path to the back... :
Oh...and I thought this was funny...

Suggestions for preventing burns from floor furnaces include turning them off when young children are at home;

Thaaaaaaanks.... :LOL
So, I take it the author of the article has never actually known a family with a small child...???
(I appreciate the link, but that was just too funny...)

[Pigpen]

I know this type of heating is such a pain...although we've finally gotten used to it! The first year we lived here we pretty much froze most of the time (ok, we're in So. Cal, but we froze for a couple of months :LOL ) Yeah, the idea of not turning the heat on when children are around is, uh, not feasable! I was also thinking that maybe you could call your local fire dept. They may have resources like the upgraded heater grid I've heard about that somehow does not get as hot. Or they could hook you up with a barrier of some sort. Just a thought. Good luck!

[Pigpen]

I just came across this picture that shows the heater cover my husband made. It's a slightly modified version of the one in the link...works great, although it's a pain to have it in the hallway. I remove it during the day when we don't have the heat on.

http://dunn.forreverie.com/gallery/kids/PA280045_sm

p.s. my son is really a sweet kid! really!!!