[Mike Finley]

In the middle of a job and now we need to remove a hot water base board heater, by pass it I guess would be more specific, home owner wants to get rid of it in the bathroom and do somethink like a forced fan electric.

Thought my plumber would be the guy to do this, after a phone call he says he doesn't mess with them, something about bleeding boilers and such, recommends I need a HVAC guy. Well there goes the schedule!

Anyways, just want to know more about this, what is involved with this, is it just cutting out the heater in question and running 3/4 copper around it in the wall? Or is there some sort of sizing issues like with AC.

Also, removing the tub we found another one inside the tub cavity. Just a 3/4 copper line with fins on it. What's that all about?

[mdshunk]

If it's a monoflow system, then you just cap each end below floor level. If it's a loop system, you have to replace the baseboard with a piece of pipe under the floor level. It's hard for the layperson to know the difference, but do a Google on Monoflow heat. Loop system is pretty self explanatory. Steam is a horse of another color, so hopefully you aren't dealing with steam. Pipework is really critical with steam.

If you have underfloor access, there are fantastic hot water kickspace heaters that you could install under the vanity for a totally stealth heating system in that bathroom. You could simply ridirect the pipework that formerly did that baseboard convector. You can also get hot water towel warmers that will both heat the bathroom and give a place to hang the towels.

[Hurley]

You're plumbers right. It's usually HVAC guys that get this call. But you're right in that to eliminate the radiators just cut them out and put in a patch of whatever works, copper, pex, cpvc. It may be easier to trace the lines from the boiler room and if the bathroom is its own loop (the water dosn't feed other rads in other spaces) the loop can be eliminated at its source. If this is the case there will also be a t-stat for the bathroom that must be disabled until a new source of heat is available.
Also keep in mind if you're gonna give it a shot yourself the be sure when the system is to be started up again ALL the air is out.

[Mike Finley]

Md, sounds like there is or (was) a potetial to do some interesting things. Unfortunately, time is not going to wait, the schedule calls, gotta move on down the road. But I'll keep some of that stuff in mind for next time. This bathroom is over a crawl space so it would have been easy to do some of that, had I realized it I'm pretty sure they would have went ga-ga over a heated towel rack.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is a loop system and the bathroom isn't on it's own circuit, the closest thermo is in the master bedroom attached to it and I can see where one of the radiators in the master is in series with the one that was hidden behind the tub.

About the air, that's what our plumber said, something about he doesn't like to mess with them because of the boiler and air and such.

The customers had a guy out there a few months ago on an unrelated issue with their heating system so he is going to try and get him back out there, I just hope he can get him out there in the next day or so or we are going to be screwed. Don't plan on doing anything with them myself, just wanted to know a little about it for next time.

Anybody know why there was a 3/4 copper line with fins on it inside the bathtub cavity up against the wall? Never seen anything like that before, kind of like a tub heater or something, the tub was cast iron.

[mdshunk]

Sometimes they would install cutoff scraps of the baseboard convector material in places where they thought the pipes might freeze. It wouldn't be uncommon to see 6" or 8" of cutoff convector material installed here and there in a crawl space, particularly near where oudoor hose spiggot pipes exit

Hot water baseboard convectors do come in standard lengths, but you cut them down or solder them together to make whatever length you need. The trim pieces are cut similarly, and couplers and end caps added. The actual convector material is nothing more than copper pipe with radiator fins. Nothing too high tech about it.

[Mike Finley]

That makes sense, this is an outside wall where the tub sits against. My only question is will there be an issue with the new tub, the old one was cast iron the new one is acrylic? I would just leave it alone if possible, that would do a lot for our schedule since it would allow us to frame the deck for the tub and not hold us up.

[mdshunk]

If you thought it might affect the acrylic, I suppose you could just wrap that tub convector in fiberglass batt.

I suppose the plumber can always jump it out too when he crawls under the house to eliminate the baseboard convector. He's be working from underneath, so it should be pretty easy to see the stub ups for the baseboard convector and the "tub heater".

[K2]

Anybody know why there was a 3/4 copper line with fins on it inside the bathtub cavity up against the wall? Never seen anything like that before, kind of like a tub heater or something, the tub was cast iron.

Our heat guy would loop/radiate 100% of the outside walls only dropping down at doorways. A straight shot across the back of the tub was the path of least resistance but he would also do a coil or some back and forth configuration behind the tub. Generally it is difficult to get enough radiation in a bath because of a limited amount of baseboard area.

[Mike Finley]

Hvac dude showed up today, cut out the problem baseboard, alls better now, took him about 1 1/2 hours start to finish. We left the one behind the tub, consensus is that it will be fine.