How to Move Baseboard Heating | Ask This Old House

[Music] so if you want to follow me over this way um i can bring you to where this actually used to be our old kitchen in the house um we used to have a couple cabinets over here we had our refrigerator the cabinets in the sink right here looking out um and now we turned it into our play room um the kitchen was here and then they did new heating new heating down here but it's not the most comfortable space it's so chilly in here we wanted to see what else we can do it's very it's i think it's the coldest room in the house i can understand what what the installer was thinking if the cabinets were here they would they would have been the only place but baseboard by it's really by its design is designed to be on the outside wall and do a perimeter around the building so that cool air would be drawn into the bottom and then wash the outside wall okay so what we should do is look at whether or not we can relocate or put new baseboard on this outside wall okay that's the basement is here yes yes it's down here all right we have kid proof okay everything is good everything is kid proof it'll bring you right down this way all right you got a little laundry down here i see that's great this is our laundry room and this is the heating all right so right here is where your kitchen counters used to be so that means your baseboard oh yeah here it is right here so they use pex tubing to supply the heat of water up to the baseboard right here the baseboard is right above us okay and you can see it drops back down here and going right back to the mechanical room all right so it's pretty straightforward you know we can actually take new baseboard more of it from here to here and down here all i have to do is reconfigure this plastic tubing so you'll have way more heating output and you'll be comfortable that sounds good to you sounds great all right that sounds great so these lines work back to the mechanical room right here oh look at this great you got a gas-fired condensing boiler i love that and this is the one that makes hot water too yes you love it oh it's the best thing right so it takes air from outside it burns the fuel and then exhausts to outside here and this is the mechanical one now this is always a scary to people but you know sort of looks like this like a jigsaw or a submarine so but it's it's pretty straightforward i know that you have two thermostats right yes we do i know because there's two circulator pumps these are the pumps that'll send heated water to each zone they're like the heart that sends blood around in this case it's gonna send heated water here's the one for the second floor here's the one for the first floor and your line comes back to right here so this is the line right here that we're going to have to interrupt that's one and the other one is right here there's a drain valve right here to take the water out i want to make sure that the boiler doesn't try to fire so i'm going to turn off the service valve right there now it's going to drain the water out and get started thank you and now we can cut the pex lines to the baseboard not too bad oh there you go good bye bye all right so i cut back the existing wooden baseboard and that'll allow the new hydronic baseboard to fit in perfectly hold it back right there danny let me just get a screw in there [Music] all right danny so this is what makes baseboard actually heat the room this is called a copper fin element copper pipe right here aluminum fins air is drawn up across the elements the heated water gives up its heat to the air and comes up this way so now what we're going to do is put this into the base and now it sets on these carriers right here so just guide that in right there it's really important to have these expansion reliefs right here on the carriers because this element gets hot and it expands like crazy it needs a place to transfer that so don't you hear a pinging and tinging all right so now let's look at the end do you see just once you line that up see how that pipe yep right is it a perfect hole yep okay so now we're gonna come up here the water is gonna come along here so then we're gonna solder this connection right here but now we get to this end look at what happens so this hole had to be drilled just short of a floor joist right here and this is the fitting that we need we're going to have to cut this back remove these additional elements clean it flex it and solder it get the flame away all right so the solder connections have had a chance to cool and now we're going to make the first of our pex connections i really like this connection you know i want to show it to you so here's the standard size of the pex tubing but look the fitting doesn't actually fit inside so this manufacturer makes a sleeve that fits just over the outside of it and now with a special tool you can expand both the tubing and the sleeve and that sleeve has a memory they go back to her first ones makes a really tight connection so just like that you didn't know you were a plumber's assistant you're the best look at that look at that now we can reconnect the pex lines in the basement and refill the heating system all right turn the water on and now that goes out all right so the system is filled again and purged and now it's time to just do the nice touches to finish it up snaps on okay so now you have got this baseboard and it's actually high output base but it's taller and it's got a bigger element so this is more output per foot and there's more of it used to have seven feet over here now it's 10 feet over here so you're going to have plenty of heat i promise you in this room for you and your kids thank you all right what i also did though was i took the wooden trim and cut it so it fits right here so that'll look like this your kids can't drop any more toys in it perfect awesome thank you so much i wish you a really warm weekend thank you so much thank you you're a great helper buddy oh great helper thanks for watching 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Channel: This Old House

Views: 134,826

Keywords: This Old House, DIY, Construction, Home Improvement, Ask This Old House, Building, Richard Trethewey, heating, plumbing

Id: u-_9TEF1k7M

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021