Shared Knowledge

 

“Heatrim American Hydronic Perimeter Baseboard Model R”

 

27 September 2005

 

 

 

 

In 1991 my wife and I bought an older house and set about doing a complete renovation of it. Although not called for in the specifications I drafted of the renovation, the general contractor removed all the hydronic baseboard units everywhere in the house and when they were finally replaced, the heating and air conditioning contractor installed new Heatrim American Hydronic Perimeter Baseboards Model R.

 

 

 

Now I have not done any sort of survey of perimeter baseboard enclosures but Heatrim American (Heatrim) or at least Model R has to be one of the cheapest units on the market. We had not lived in the house for more than a couple of weeks when I began to notice various things wrong with the Heatrim units. What is wrong with Heatrim?  In my case, the first thing I noticed was that the end covers, which slip over the enclosure top and back panel and also holds one end of the enclosure front panel in place were always askew from vertical. As the enclosure end covers just sits over the back and top panel, there is nothing to keep it from moving and unless your house is never vacuumed or the floors washed, the end covers will always be out of alignment and in some cases, fall off. Other things? My installation uses 8-foot lengths of enclosure top and back panels; pivot-mounted dampers and enclosure front panels except how many walls or radiator runs are exactly 8 feet in length? So every time there was a hydronic radiator run of more than 8 feet, the installers cut a piece of the top and back panel, pivot-mounted damper and enclosure front panel to completely cover the radiator. To Heatrim’s credit, they expected this and provided these small covers, which go over the junctions of 2 pieces of enclosure top and back panel, pivot-mounted damper, and enclosure front panel. Problem is, just like the end covers, there is nothing to keep these junction covers in place. They are supposed to snap on and stay in place and they do for a while but eventually, these junction covers come off.  Finally, the whole baseboard installation consists of a top and back panel which is supposed to be attached to the wall into which a snap-bracket is fitted, onto which the pivot-mounted damper is “clipped” over the tab at the top of the snap-in bracket and the enclosure front panel fitted over a tab at the top and the bottom of the snap-in bracket. Everything is a “snap-in” or “fit over,” which just does not stay in place. After only a week or 2, many of the enclosure front panels had come loose from their snap-in brackets and sagged or gapped in the middle of a run or a pivot-mounted damper was completely disconnected from the snap-in bracket and lay inside the enclosure on the actual hydronic radiator itself.

 

In defense of the Heatrim America product, when I finally decided to try to fix my installation, I found that the installer had done a very sloppy job and that is being kind, so if you are considering Heatrim America as your perimeter baseboard product, make sure it is installed with lots of screws but be aware that even lots of screws will not fix various “snap on” design failings of this product.

 

In the end, I just cannot recommend this product to anyone.