I am redoing a bathroom with a new tile floor and walls and also new fixtures and the old baseboard cover looks like absolute crap. I just want to replace the cover which is nailed to the wall and there is no way to get it off and a new one on without opening the system and installing a new copper pipe with fins.

I don't want to drain the system and then introduce new water to the system as I understand that is not always a good thing IE rust.

Baseboard Heater Covers .com - The Easiest Way to Renovate Ugly Old Baseboard Heater Covers has a cover that goes on which is fine but NOT at $160 delivered to my house. Anyone know of a similar item at a better price?

Thanks in advance,

Joe

 

Joe, if you are talking about something like the Slant-Fin baseboards, those covers can be removed fairly easily... maybe you have something different though...

They are usually nailed in place... you might just be able to pull the nails and the cabinet should slide up and out ... you'll have to finagle a bit with the brackets, but it's 'do-able' usually.

A long metal blade on a Sawzall can be slipped between the wall and the cabinet to cut the nails if you can't pull them ...

Maybe if we could see it we might have more suggestions ... can you post pics on photobucket ?

 

Home Depot and Lowes both sell BB heater covers, but it gets expensive if you have a lot to replace.

 

Well there is no way to get the old one off without snapping the brackets that hold on the front plate. That wouldn't be a problem but there is no way to get the new one on since the new one has the same brackets and it wont slide down between the wall and the fins.

So now I'm thinking just strip the paint off the old one and repaint. Has anyone done this? What kind of paint stripper should I use and what kind of paint do I use to repaint it?


The_House_photos/Bathroom/baseboard - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

I was looking at the little video homewrecker2008 listed on the replacement baseboard covers.
The first thing I thought of was since copper tube baseboard works off convection and we know the problems encountered with carpet, how much air flow is reduced with those covers?
Any thoughts from any others.

 

I don't think there is much loss. The big loss is the $165 they want to charge me for $5 worth of metal. I refuse to be ripped off.

I will use paint remover on the old one and do some sanding and then paint them.

Does it matter what kind of paint?

 

I believe there is a lot of loss as heating with this type of radiation is all convection. Prime them with a latex primer and paint with an oil base paint.

 

I have done something similar to this, here is what I did through my entire house which came out 'acceptable' (those pics do look pretty narly and would not be acceptable to me either). I also have seen many custom architectural covers available but at very high prices (some of the cast covers can go for crazy big $$), so just worked on mine a bit to clean them up.

First: these are METAL - not the same as working with wood or drywall - different paint products/prep - think automotive type products.

Rust spots: first scrape and then sand with a power sander. (sandblasting ideal), then treat with a bare metal treatment. If not sandblasting (not always practical), then some of the jellies used to treat automotive rust is a decent way to inhibit additional rust.

Sand the old paint until smooth all over. I use a random orbit for this, with ~220grit.

Prime with a spray primer designed for METAL. I painted some of these with latex wall paint without priming, and now when I scuff it the paint peels right off. The ones I primed with a gray oxide primer adhered well. Mine were smooth enough after this I didnt do blocking/sanding, but you can sand with a 320 and put another layer of primer on if you want to really smooth it out.

Clean up the joints and interface to the wall with some painters caulk. This makes a smooth transition between the baseboard cover and the wall surface. Its only for cosmetic purpose but I like the way it comes out. Be sure they are nailed/screwed to the wall snugly so they dont deflect and thus pull out from the wall easily (some rooms I added a row of drywall screws all the way around to pull them against the mounting boards.

Then just paint with the same latex wall paint used on the wall. Ideally you would spray to negate brush marks, but I used a couple small paint rollers (you can get these down to about 1"dia) - the rolled look is nicer imo. I used foam disposable brushes in the really tight areas (typically cant see these areas anyway).

A pain, but this blends the covers right into the wall to some degree, so they dont jump out at you when you walk into the room.