Can I make baseboard heat covers from wood?

[Lee Schierer]

Great - but I have two questions: what wood did you use and how did you deal with expansion and contraction due to the
extreme dryness produced by winter heating coupled with high relative humdity during the rainy season?

I have one more question. Did you use solid wood or plywood. If it was solid wood, did they stay flat in the winter when the heat was on?

[Jim Becker]

My friend's home has pine trim. Normal construction relative to wood movement was used...and these things only have a front and a top, outside of an end-cap, so expansion/contraction hasn't been an issue since the top is relatively narrow and the little bit of expansion it has seasonally doesn't materially move the front very much at all. Only the top is fastened to the house; the fronts float and the end caps are oriented the same way as the tops. They have been in place for three years now without incident. Mesh is inset from the "non-show" side in a routed and rabbited slot to allow for air movement.

[Matt Meiser]

Wow, really old thread. Yes, these worked well and have since been duplicated in a few other rooms during remodels.