Advice on heating kid's room with their door shut at night

[Mike592]

I've been burning our new Hearthstone Heritage for a week now and would appreciate your advice.

We have a one story ranch with no basement. All four bedrooms are down a short hallway off the main room where the wood stove is in the center of the house. What tips/solutions do you have for warming our two year old son's room at night? Due to his age we keep his door shut. It's gotten pretty chilly in there, but now I'm worried when temps drop even more we'll have to stop using the stove at night and kick on the electric furnace.


-- I run a small floor fan in the hallway pushing cold air towards the wood stove room. This has helped a lot in heating the hallway, but not his room since the door is shut.

-- I installed a ceiling fan in the stove room and run it on low drawing air up towards the ceiling.

-- Until he's older, I don't feel comfortable running an electric heater in there where we can't monitor him.

-- I read a lot after searching and it seems very mixed whether running the furnace fan On all the time will warm the rooms.


I would imagine this situation arises often, so what do I need to do?

Thanks.

 

[USMC80]

Your afraid of keeping the door open because of waking him up at night?

buy a cheap electric heater for his room at night, some really nice ones out there that have built in timers and or thermostats and work great. Or keep his door open and try and be quiet

I used to use this one. Works great

http://www.amazon.com/Lasko-755320-Ceramic-Digital-Display/dp/B000TTV2QS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384455259&sr=8-2&keywords=portable electric heater

and you can't burn yourself on it

 

[Seanm]

I've been burning our new Hearthstone Heritage for a week now and would appreciate your advice.

We have a one story ranch with no basement. All four bedrooms are down a short hallway off the main room where the wood stove is in the center of the house. What tips/solutions do you have for warming our two year old son's room at night? Due to his age we keep his door shut. It's gotten pretty chilly in there, but now I'm worried when temps drop even more we'll have to stop using the stove at night and kick on the electric furnace.


-- I run a small floor fan in the hallway pushing cold air towards the wood stove room. This has helped a lot in heating the hallway, but not his room since the door is shut.

-- I installed a ceiling fan in the stove room and run it on low drawing air up towards the ceiling.

-- Until he's older, I don't feel comfortable running an electric heater in there where we can't monitor him.

-- I read a lot after searching and it seems very mixed whether running the furnace fan On all the time will warm the rooms.


I would imagine this situation arises often, so what do I need to do?

Thanks.

Hi Mike,

When our kids were younger we had the same concerns about electric heaters so we purchased a plug in oil heater. The heat is softer and is not supposed to burn the little one if they touch it whereas even on a low setting an electric one can burn not to mention creating a fire hazard. If you want to go with heating his room with heat from the wood but you don't want to cook him out maybe a small grate with loovers on it that you install in his door.

 

[Mike592]

Yeah I really don't like the idea of a separate space heater because he gets up, moves around in the night, puts himself back down, moves his chair around, etc. I'd worry he'd knock over the heater, or drop a blanket on top of it, creating a fire hazard.

 

[mellow]

I would take the door off the hinges and trim the bottom an inch or two so air can move. Use tape on it so it does not splinter when you cut it with a circular saw.

 

[Bluerubi]

I would close the kids doors when first putting them to bed, then when I turned in the doors would be opened leaving a baby gate blocking the opening. Everything worked fine from then on.

 

[1750]

You might hear mixed reviews of this practice here, Mike (some people are concerned about burning up their furnace motor...), but I have had good luck using the furnace fan to circulate and distribute the warm air from the stove. This is most effective if there is a cold air return in the stove room, but should work even if there's not.

fwiw, I do the same thing with the AC in the summer to keep the hot air from accumulating in the second floor.

Good luck!

 

[Highbeam]

Leave the door open. Other than changing clothes when they are older, I can't see any reason to ever have a door on the kids' room.

 

[DTrain]

Yeah I really don't like the idea of a separate space heater because he gets up, moves around in the night, puts himself back down, moves his chair around, etc. I'd worry he'd knock over the heater, or drop a blanket on top of it, creating a fire hazard.

I put a heater in my son's room on second floor before we started heating with wood. There were no baseboards in his room. I found a model with a thermostat, and a tip switch. If the heater is tipped even a little bit is shuts off. Like 20 degrees off vertical. If he were to knock it over you'd be ok. Can't think of the model name but I think it was a Holmes product. If you don't want to keep the door closed and just use the stove heat, just use a sturdy baby gate to keep him in there.

 

[Mike592]

A baby gate on an open door might work but he just turned two and he is definitely adventurous. Free access is no go right now. Despite our parental training attempts, he isn't ready yet to accept it's a bad idea to do something like walk out of his room at 3AM, have all the time in the world to push a kitchen chair over to the tall cabinet, defeat the child locks, and start juggling knives or something.

 

[bsruther]

Child safety gate across the doorway with a latch on the outside that he can't get at. As added assurance, you can get a motion sensor alarm and point it at his doorway.
The sensors run about 30 bucks on amazon and work extremely well.

 

[DTrain]

A baby gate on an open door might work but he just turned two and he is definitely adventurous. Free access is no go right now. Despite our parental training attempts, he isn't ready yet to accept it's a bad idea to do something like walk out of his room at 3AM, have all the time in the world to push a kitchen chair over to the tall cabinet, defeat the child locks, and start juggling knives or something.

Is your son's name Stewie Griffin, by chance?

 

[Mike592]

Is your son's name Stewie Griffin, by chance?

Nah, but close. Our boy isn't evil. Just......... energetic.

 

[begreen]

Modern heaters have tip-over switches that turn off the heater if it is not upright. If you want to be extra safe, get him an electric, water filled baseboard radiator and mount it to the wall. Intertherm makes high quality units. A 600W heater would probably be more than sufficient.

This is a permanent mounted 240 v unit:
http://www.amazon.com/Cadet-Softheat-Hydronic-Baseboard-Heater/dp/B000IG2AKY
110V unit:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Fahrenhe...aseboard-Heater-PLF500/203621806#.UoU1HBbt41w

Both of these need a high voltage thermostat.

 

[northwinds]

We used one of those pet gates that isn't all that easy to undo for a small child. If he can defeat the gate, then he can open the door to his room.

 

[murinsky]

We put the kid to bed with the door closed and keep it closed until we are ready to go to bed. The last thing before I go to bed is open the door about a foot and leave it like that for the night. Having it closed 3 or 4 hours doesn't seem to do any harm but when I open it I can definitely feel the cooler air rush past my feet so I think it evens out pretty quickly. Now this works fine temperature wise. We haven't had to worry about escaping yet!

 

[Slow1]

Open door is best option in my opinion, second is one of the suggested electric heaters.

We keep our kids doors open at night - closing them only when they go to bed and then again when we get up in the morning if they are able to sleep in (i.e. not school days). Has worked well enough for us. We put a gate on the top of the stairs (all rooms are upstairs) so that kids wouldn't wander (or fall) down the stairs.

I understand everyone has their own style

 

[bag of hammers]

I've heard of ceiling heaters, no idea if they're any good, how safe, effective, etc. but that would definitely be out of reach.

But I like an open door, a gate, and one of the oil filled space heaters. The gate is more to keep the dog out, than to keep the kid in (so she won't wake him up @ 3:00 a.m.). In our place, one of these oil filled units on low setting (500w) will only cycle on a few times during the night. Been using them for years, they're quiet and I believe one of the safer options for space heating. But the biggest bang is the open door - after a while the air circulates enough to the far rooms for us so that the heater just takes the edge off. You already have a plan in place to help move the air around in your house. On all but the coldest nights, it's set as low as it can go., and on the low setting, you'd have to keep your hand right on it for a while before it would become painful. But of course, you're talking about your kid, so you have to be comfortable with whatever you do. Good luck....

 

[Firedancer]

A baby gate on an open door might work but he just turned two and he is definitely adventurous. Free access is no go right now. Despite our parental training attempts, he isn't ready yet to accept it's a bad idea to do something like walk out of his room at 3AM, have all the time in the world to push a kitchen chair over to the tall cabinet, defeat the child locks, and start juggling knives or something.

First child, eh? Your second child will learn the hard way....and you'll be ok with that lol *wink*

 

[Seasoned Oak]

How about an electric blanket? They are very safe. THey even make an electric mattress cover.We have some of these and they work very well. As far as heaters i have converted to all quartz radiant heaters for the bathroom,bedrooms ect. They are lower wattage usually 400-800 rather than 750-1500. they give a softer heat. They also have safety shut off switches.

 

[Waulie]

I vote for leaving the door open too. Currently, both my 2 and 5 year olds won't let us shut their doors when they go to bed. Back when they did, we'd do like others and just open them when we went to bed. All kids are different so you obviously have to make your own judgment. The worst thing I worry about my kids doing if they wake up in the night is crawling into bed with us. This happens nearly every night. If you have things relatively child proof around the house and aren't crazy deep sleepers, I'm sure you'd be fine with the open door. The other thing is that he is going to start opening doors any day now. When that happens, you not going to barricade him in are you?

The other option is to just use cozy jammies and a nice comforter. I bet his room doesn't really get cold enough to be an issue for just sleeping. How cold does it get?

 

[Firedancer]

I know someone who took the door down entirely and replaced with a wooden screen door...Similar to photo. They also put a hook & eye type lock on the outside so their sleepwalker didn't wander. They could still hear and see inside the room.


I have to say, coming from a police and fire family, everyone should be sleeping with their door closed. We don't...but should.

Good luck keeping your little guy contained

 

[Waulie]

I have to say, coming from a police and fire family, everyone should be sleeping with their door closed. We don't...but should.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with this one. Can you explain how having someone locked in a room who has no means of getting out is a safe practice? Maybe you mean in general and not (little) people who can't open doors? I can't really see how it's safer either way though.

 

[bmblank]

By definition a bedroom has more than one way out. The door acts as a fire stop, showing the fire so you have a better chance of getting out the window if necessary.

 

[toddnic]

We have four kids and a baby gate worked wonders when they were little. Leave the door open or open it when the little one goes to sleep and then put the baby gate up.