Heater outlets?

February 23, 2012 9:35 AM

Alternative to this ugly heater outlet and online fabric stores

I am making full length curtains for our rooms but the problem is our heater outlets which are ugly, old and a fire hazard (see pic). Every wall that requires a curtain has this at the base. Shortening the curtain is not an option.

Is there a safer and updated heater outlet out there that we can substitute this for? I thought I saw something at Amazon but no longer have the link

Any recommendations for online fabric stores would be great, thank you

posted by pakora1 to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

I'm not up on my online fabric stores, but here's a fabric blog that has links to stores and a regular listing of sales.
posted by craichead at 9:41 AM on February 23, 2012

Ugh. Sorry. Try this: http://www.trueup.net/
posted by craichead at 9:42 AM on February 23, 2012

I don't know anything about heater outlets, but I do do an awful lot of internet fabric shopping! Fabric.com has a big selection of all manner of fabrics, and it is sometimes cheaper than other places. Denver Fabrics also has a lot of home dec/drapery fabrics, as does Fashion Fabrics Club (although I have not always been super impressed by the accuracy of the fabric descriptions there). If you want linen fabric for your curtains, fabrics-store.com is outstanding, and they'll send you little swatches for free so you can see colours and feel textures before committing to a big order.
posted by bewilderbeast at 9:48 AM on February 23, 2012

I've had great luck with fabric.com, including a time when they let me return a piece of fabric simply because it looked different in real life vs. on my monitor.

(And it's not online but I've made all my curtains using fabric from Ikea. It's inexpensive and they have really wonderful, unique patterns.)
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:51 AM on February 23, 2012

You could put in baseboard heaters which would allow slightly longer (but not all the way to the floor) curtains. (the forced air type you have is probably better.) Or you could put in a Cadet heater, they're smaller, but you still can't have a curtain in front of them.

I 2nd the IKEA fabric idea. Cute or plain patterns are available. (although I think it might be cheaper to buy their ready made curtains in some cases.)
posted by vespabelle at 10:53 AM on February 23, 2012

Best answer: I'm fairly sure that's not a heater outlet - it's an in-wall room heater. Replacing it is going to be expensive, because you're replacing the entire heater, not just the vent. As vespabelle says, you could replace it with a baseboard heater, but that's going to be less efficient. Your best bet may be to try to relocate them.
posted by jferg at 10:58 AM on February 23, 2012 [1 favorite]