I need help disguising the gas space heater in my apartment livingroom
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Please Help! I’m having a hard time believing that no one else hates their ugly vented Empire gas space heater! The huge ugly elephant in the room! There’s gotta be someone out there who had this problem and solved it. Radiator covers are the only thing that comes up on the internet. This is driving me nuts. There has to be someone with a good idea.
Thank you, Robin Hill
While I guess a radiator cover might work, they sell these metallic sheets with openings, like holes, or stars that you might be able to manipulate into a folding type screen to cover it when it is not in use - don't think you'd want to block heat. If you create that 'screen', you might be able to hang things on it to decorate it. Hope this helps
I don't think you can cover it, it needs space to flow the heat. Call a plumbing and heating place, and ask about this heater.
Nothing much you can do. Can't even cover it with a radiator cover. It has a gas burner that requires combustion air, room air intake and exhaust. Blocking any of the openings can become a fire hazard, overheating problem, operational problem. Radiators do not have this. There are also clearance issues for anything flammable place near/around the unit.
Could you maybe paint it the same color as the color of the walls? It wouldn't stick out so much.
Could you put a table over it? You would need to leave clearance so it can "breathe" to do its job and not burn down the place! Also, paint it per Laurie's suggestion, you might need high heat spray paint, I don't know how hot it gets.
How often do you use it?
I would get some paint and some a stencil pattern that you like. You could paint the heater and let it dry then use your stencil to do a design.
Don't cover or block the heater- it needs oxygen flow to burn the gas. Use paint that is made for hot surfaces or ask your landlord what they will allow...
You could get some metal tiles, like this: www.americantinceilings.com/pattern3-bs.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwwuvWBRBZEiwALXqjw5Xc3tZsVAuMePSDeotl4-VQsLdxh0oMnq01_SBZZ8g87W42WKt95RoCfYYQAvD_BwE
And get some earth magnets and attach the metal tiles to the metal radiator. You could even spray paint the tiles.
Get a fire place screen and put it in front of it. The screen would definitely need to be a metal type and not a glass one. See if you can find a couple of them and connect them. Hang one from the celling and attach the other one to it with some type of hooks. Just make sure the screens are not getting hot enough to travel up to the ceiling. if you want unusual décor and a very inexpensive way, take food cans, decorated or not and attach them together with wire or hooks, Then attach the cans to some kind of metal window curtain hanger and hang from the ceiling. Cannot touch the floor due to heat traveling and make sure heat does not travel up.
I have a heater just like this one in my basement that has not been used for years because while lighting it, the heater exploded in my face taking some hair, eyelashes and eyebrows with it. The heater heated my entire basement but I felt it was too dangerous to use so had it disconnected. It is still there but I would use a space heater first before trying to light this menace again. When explosion happened, I had been light it for years so it wasn't that I did not know what I was doing. My son and his friend (9 at the time) thought it was hilarious.
Maybe make a beadboard table around it?
Since this is a space heater, could you take it out and replace it with a new one? If it's a rental talk to your landlord. A newer one should also be more energy efficient.