Relocating basement heating fins?

ererer

Hello all! Thanks in advance for the advice.

We have gas fueled hydronic baseboard heat in our townhouse in Vermont. We moved in a little over a year ago. The house is in an interesting neighborhood, it was formerly a cavalry post from the 1890s to 1940s, and the townhomes were converted from old brick buildings that used to be housing for sergeants about 20 years ago.

I'm considering relocating some heating fins that are fit on a section of pipe in the basement of our home because I'm going to build a small (8' x 7') room in the basement for a sump and maintenance room for my living room saltwater aquarium. There are two runs of copper pipe between the first floor floor joists that have aluminum fins fit on them for providing some heat to the basement. The basement is uninsulated but doesn't seem to get very cold in the winter, I'm not sure how much of this is due to these heatings fins. They do noticeably heat the section of living room and kitchen floor that's directly above them.

The ceiling of the sump room is going to cover about half the joist space where the heating fins currently are, though the joist bay will still be open on both ends. I'm thinking that I should try and relocate the fins to another section, so that they can still provide heat to the rest of the basement? Is this necessary or no? Some pictures below.

EBEBRATT-Ed

you can relocate it if you want. I would keep the baseboard accessible with a drop ceiling and leave it as is.

EdTheHeaterMan

The amount of heat you are getting from those fins is very small when compared to a complete baseboard enclosure and element combination installed in the room above the current location of those fined tube elements. Like on the order of less than 20% of capacity of the complete baseboard assembly. Factor into that the heat from that element without enclosure is providing mostly radiant heat which radiates just as much heat in the down direction (like the sun) as it does in the up direction. I would wager that if those fins were not there at all, you would feel very little difference in the room temperature above that floor. (I'm assuming the original designer was thinking that "Heat Rises").

I would not take the time or spend the money to move them. Remove them, maybe, but putting them somewhere else to provide heat for some other place would be a waste of time and money.

hot_rod

That is mainly a floor warming installation.
We do it now with pex and UltraFin.
I suspect some heat comes down, not much as the air those elements heat stratifies, stays up top.

If it does a good job warming above, let it be, speaking words of wisdom, let it be:)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dolly-parton-let-it-be-cover_n_64e0da35e4b0b74956e48d07

ererer

Great, just the sort of feedback I was looking for. Thank you all.