Consensus on toe kick heaters

Leon82

We are going to remodel our kitchen. Time is hard to come by so we are getting estimates. The kitchen currently has an 8 ft section against the back wall.

The contractor is suggesting a 4 foot section against the left wall near the basement and back door. I would have put it there myself regardless. It won't interfere with the doors.

And a toe kick heater under the cabinets we would add to the back wall. I am running fin tube at roughly 115 to 145 degrees. Do these units perform well at that temp?

HomerJSmith

115 to 145 degrees? That is relatively cold for fin tube, but can be done. The baseboard has a thermodisc sensor on the tube that turns on the fan at a temperature at about 120 deg. You might have to change the thermodisc. You don't want to blow cold air as it is uncomfortable. Even 115 deg air might feel cold as it mixes with the ambient input air.

Why are you running it so cold? You need a lot more baseboard to provide the BTU's into the room at lower tube temperatures. There is also the possibly of running out of heat energy when you start out at lower temperatures in which case you can boost the flow rate, but there are limits to that.

Leon82

I've dialed it in over the past two years with a condensing boiler. The heat is adequate.

So the kitchen would have a 50% loss of fin tube but gain the kick heater.

My original plan was to add the cabinets above the baseboard but then it would heat the cabinet

STEVEusaPA

Is floor or ceiling radiant an option?

Solid_Fuel_Man

Not a fan (get it) of noisy toe kicks. How about some HO baseboard or panel rad sized to be of equal output of the BB you take out?

HomerJSmith

I prefer the Turbonics Toester toekick heaters over the elongated cage fan types. I had to replace motors and and bearings in those and they are noisier. The Toester uses a radial fan much like a muffin fan found in computers, but larger of course. I find that they are quieter.


Toekicks put a lot of BTU's packed into a small space.

Leon82

> @Solid_Fuel_Man said:
> Not a fan (get it) of noisy toe kicks. How about some HO baseboard or panel rad sized to be of equal output of the BB you take out?

I was thinking that could be an option like the Smith heating edge

Leon82

> @STEVEusaPA said:
> Is floor or ceiling radiant an option?

Floor could be, probably a plate type

JeremyG

The house I moved into a couple years ago has a Beacon Morris K42 toe kick heater in the kitchen. I'm not impressed. The rest of the house is cast iron radiators sized for the house before it was insulated, so that means cool temps (110º) a lot of the heating season. The fan would almost never run until I put in the low-temp 'stat. Seems like the low fan speed doesn't move enough heat, and the high speed is annoyingly noisy. I intend to put in radiant floor heat to replace it, because it's not really adequate on paper and even less so in practice.

markham56

> @JeremyG said:
> The house I moved into a couple years ago has a Beacon Morris K42 toe kick heater in the kitchen. I'm not impressed. The rest of the house is cast iron radiators sized for the house before it was insulated, so that means cool temps (110º) a lot of the heating season. The fan would almost never run until I put in the low-temp 'stat. Seems like the low fan speed doesn't move enough heat, and the high speed is annoyingly noisy. I intend to put in radiant floor heat to replace it, because it's not really adequate on paper and even less so in practice.

I’m having the same problem with a K120 in my 1928 house even with a low temp aqua stat. It just doesn’t stay on long enough to get the room warm.

I remodeled the kitchen and removed the radiator in the hope of saving space and that the K120 would proved better heat. Any suggestions?

HomerJSmith

The manufacturer will tell you the temperature that the fan kicks on at. On low temp sys, I have replaced the thermodisc to a lower cut-in (Make) thermodisc that worked great. On low temp sys, you might want to run it at a low blower speed.

MikeL_2

Maybe 4' of high capacity baseboard will be sufficient.
How about a recessed convector if wall space allows? There is a vertical cabinet available for recess mounting a toe kick unit.
Is there access below the kitchen? You could add a toe space unit after the fact if you find you need more heat.
We prefer to install toe space units in interior cabinets so the unit discharges towards the exterior wall.......