Painting the screen
-
I have a gas fireplace in the condo. Fake logs, real fire.
Some of the black paint on the screen has worn/burned away, and I want to touch it up. It's almost a solid black (like a weber grill) but not glossy.
So, questions:
Do I need to repaint the entire screen? It's easily removable.
What kind of prep for the area?
What kind of paint?
-
How often do you use it? Just curious, this isn't related to your question since Mik and Jolly (as always reliable!) have provided good advice.
@89th said in Painting the screen:
How often do you use it?
Quite a bit. It does get a bit warm in the living room. It puts out 38K BTU. Mrs. George is tempted to get a thermostat-switch for it, but I'm not so sure I'd like it going on and off with the vagaries of temp/weather.
It's an older (2008) model, but works fine.
-
@89th said in Painting the screen:
How often do you use it?
Quite a bit. It does get a bit warm in the living room. It puts out 38K BTU. Mrs. George is tempted to get a thermostat-switch for it, but I'm not so sure I'd like it going on and off with the vagaries of temp/weather.
It's an older (2008) model, but works fine.
@George-K Cool. (Or I guess, That's hot.) We don't turn on ours much because of the toddlers around it, but will eventually use them more. They do pump out a good deal of heat. I remember when I was getting the furnace inspected last year the guy made a comment (paraphrased) along the lines of if the furnace ever dies in the middle of winter, the gas fireplace will do a remarkably good job at keeping the house warm and it doesn't waste ($$) as much natural gas as you might think.
-
@George-K Cool. (Or I guess, That's hot.) We don't turn on ours much because of the toddlers around it, but will eventually use them more. They do pump out a good deal of heat. I remember when I was getting the furnace inspected last year the guy made a comment (paraphrased) along the lines of if the furnace ever dies in the middle of winter, the gas fireplace will do a remarkably good job at keeping the house warm and it doesn't waste ($$) as much natural gas as you might think.
@89th said in Painting the screen:
@George-K Cool. (Or I guess, That's hot.) We don't turn on ours much because of the toddlers around it, but will eventually use them more. They do pump out a good deal of heat. I remember when I was getting the furnace inspected last year the guy made a comment (paraphrased) along the lines of if the furnace ever dies in the middle of winter, the gas fireplace will do a remarkably good job at keeping the house warm and it doesn't waste ($$) as much natural gas as you might think.
It's not as cold down here, but I know a couple of folks who use these as a primary heat source. The challenge is to disperse the heat to the far corners of the house. A couple of tower fans, pulled out of storage, are inexpensive and help more than you think (as long as you have electricity
).If you don't have the kind that vent to the outside, do change out your CO detectors on a regular basis.
About toddlers...They make firescreens that are one piece and lay flat. It can be a very simple job to place a clip or something that would snug them up and not allow a child to pull them off. Besides, as somebody who heats with wood, I can tell you that kids will shy away from a hot stove (you have to make sure they can't stumble into the front or side). Over the years, I don't think I've had but one of them burn a finger (just a touch burn, not bad) and after that, they avoided the stove like a cat avoids bath water.
-
@89th said in Painting the screen:
@George-K Cool. (Or I guess, That's hot.) We don't turn on ours much because of the toddlers around it, but will eventually use them more. They do pump out a good deal of heat. I remember when I was getting the furnace inspected last year the guy made a comment (paraphrased) along the lines of if the furnace ever dies in the middle of winter, the gas fireplace will do a remarkably good job at keeping the house warm and it doesn't waste ($$) as much natural gas as you might think.
It's not as cold down here, but I know a couple of folks who use these as a primary heat source. The challenge is to disperse the heat to the far corners of the house. A couple of tower fans, pulled out of storage, are inexpensive and help more than you think (as long as you have electricity
).If you don't have the kind that vent to the outside, do change out your CO detectors on a regular basis.
About toddlers...They make firescreens that are one piece and lay flat. It can be a very simple job to place a clip or something that would snug them up and not allow a child to pull them off. Besides, as somebody who heats with wood, I can tell you that kids will shy away from a hot stove (you have to make sure they can't stumble into the front or side). Over the years, I don't think I've had but one of them burn a finger (just a touch burn, not bad) and after that, they avoided the stove like a cat avoids bath water.
@Jolly said in Painting the screen:
About toddlers...They make firescreens that are one piece and lay flat. It can be a very simple job to place a clip or something that would snug them up and not allow a child to pull them off. Besides, as somebody who heats with wood, I can tell you that kids will shy away from a hot stove (you have to make sure they can't stumble into the front or side). Over the years, I don't think I've had but one of them burn a finger (just a touch burn, not bad) and after that, they avoided the stove like a cat avoids bath water.
That's right. In our house we had a wood-burning fireplace (outside air fed) that put out about 70-80K BTU. It heated the entire downstairs, and with ceiling fans, it saved a lot on gas. In that house, I had heating bills >$500/month more times than I care to remember.
The kids never touched it, other than to note that it was hot.
Now, G2 stays respectfully away. Of course, that might also be because there's a cat lying in front of it.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
That's good to know and makes sense. When we moved in our kid was 6 months old so that was when we decided not to use the fireplaces much, but now he is pretty smart not to touch something so hot. Honestly, he'd be scared of it. Of course, now we have another kid coming.......ugh I really should schedule the snip snip.
-
That's good to know and makes sense. When we moved in our kid was 6 months old so that was when we decided not to use the fireplaces much, but now he is pretty smart not to touch something so hot. Honestly, he'd be scared of it. Of course, now we have another kid coming.......ugh I really should schedule the snip snip.
@89th said in Painting the screen:
That's good to know and makes sense. When we moved in our kid was 6 months old so that was when we decided not to use the fireplaces much, but now he is pretty smart not to touch something so hot. Honestly, he'd be scared of it. Of course, now we have another kid coming.......ugh I really should schedule the snip snip.
They're cheaper by the dozen.
-
@Jolly said in Painting the screen:
About toddlers...They make firescreens that are one piece and lay flat. It can be a very simple job to place a clip or something that would snug them up and not allow a child to pull them off. Besides, as somebody who heats with wood, I can tell you that kids will shy away from a hot stove (you have to make sure they can't stumble into the front or side). Over the years, I don't think I've had but one of them burn a finger (just a touch burn, not bad) and after that, they avoided the stove like a cat avoids bath water.
That's right. In our house we had a wood-burning fireplace (outside air fed) that put out about 70-80K BTU. It heated the entire downstairs, and with ceiling fans, it saved a lot on gas. In that house, I had heating bills >$500/month more times than I care to remember.
The kids never touched it, other than to note that it was hot.
Now, G2 stays respectfully away. Of course, that might also be because there's a cat lying in front of it.
@George-K said in Painting the screen:
@Jolly said in Painting the screen:
About toddlers...They make firescreens that are one piece and lay flat. It can be a very simple job to place a clip or something that would snug them up and not allow a child to pull them off. Besides, as somebody who heats with wood, I can tell you that kids will shy away from a hot stove (you have to make sure they can't stumble into the front or side). Over the years, I don't think I've had but one of them burn a finger (just a touch burn, not bad) and after that, they avoided the stove like a cat avoids bath water.
That's right. In our house we had a wood-burning fireplace (outside air fed) that put out about 70-80K BTU. It heated the entire downstairs, and with ceiling fans, it saved a lot on gas. In that house, I had heating bills >$500/month more times than I care to remember.
The kids never touched it, other than to note that it was hot.
Now, G2 stays respectfully away. Of course, that might also be because there's a cat lying in front of it.
A very large cat?
