To be worried about skirting board radiators and toddler?

[RumpetaRumpeta]

We have just moved in to a house which has skirting board radiators. Totally new concept to me - I had never come across it before. Anyway, when the heating came on this evening (first time we've used it) I noticed that the boards get REALLY hot. My 15-month-old toddler's cot was, of course, against a wall, and I was worried about how easily he could reach his hand between the bars and touch a radiator, so I moved his cot well away from the wall for tonight. Obviously this is not an ideal solution long-term - it's a small room and I can't just leave the cot in the middle of it!

Or can I?!

Have any of you guys come across this problem before, and do you have any sensible solutions for me?

[RunningOutOfCharge]

Turn radiators down?

[outabout]

Either fashion some sort of cover (like an old fireguard sort of idea) so toddler can't touch the radiator where the cot is.
Turning the temperature of the hot water flow down to less that 55 Centigrade (the max safe touching temperature) will make the house noticeably cooler overall so not ideal.

[RumpetaRumpeta]

Haha Running yes that is the obvious solution! However, the thermostat for his room is only set to 17 degrees which is pretty low.I think they were burning hot to the touch because they were cranking out the heat to get the room up to temp.

Maybe I need to warm his room up well ahead of bedtime so that the radiators have a chance to cool down again...

[RumpetaRumpeta]

out yes I was thinking something fireguardish - would need to not conduct heat itself of course! That's interesting about the max safe touch temperature - thank you, I didn't know that. Unfortunately I can't do that anyway because we have an elderly person in the house who needs their room to be roasty toasty!

[DeathMetalMum]

You should have a setting on your boiler which you can turn the overall temperature down, so the radiators don't get quite so hot. We don't have ours on max and while it takes a little longer to warm up the rooms they feel more comfortable as the heat coming from the radiators isn't so intense.

[SeamstressfromTreacleMineRoad]

Years ago, I worked with someone whose 9 month-old DS got a nasty burn on his leg when he rolled over into one of these radiators - and couldn't roll away again . She heard him crying, ran in and took him straight to A&E - it put me off them for life.
She eventually had the heating system taken out and 'ordinary' radiators put in... Sorry, but thought that it was worth warning you

[HateHomework]

Turn it off and dress him up really well!

[Gormless]

We have those sort of heaters and I’ve never known them get that hot to the touch. Maybe have a heating engineer look first before you do anything drastic?

[RumpetaRumpeta]

Thanks for all your responses guys.

Death and Gormless - I will definitely have a look at the setting as they do seem to be outrageously hot!

Seamstress Oh, how horrible! Poor little boy! The thing is though, I can see that happening with an ordinary radiator as well - there are a couple of ordinary ones in this house and they are certainly low enough for a baby to roll into them and burn their tummy or arms. I'm a bit of a paranoid mum (can you tell?!) and I never leave my little one in a room without me there when he's awake, so fortunately I don't think that would happen for us in the day time. But certainly worth bearing in mind for the future - if we have another little baby!

Hate yep, we did that in his room overnight. The temperature dropped to 14 degrees in his room and it didn't seem to bother him (in warm clothes and a thick sleeping bag) so maybe that is the solution. When it gets colder I've got an oil-filled electric radiator I could plug in overnight instead and leave in the middle of his room.