QUESTION FROM Dena

Hi, I have hot water baseboard heat that runs along a wall in my living room. We currently have large windows all along the wall, and the baseboard heater is under the windows. I wanted to turn the center window into french doors, so would it be possible to just run that section of piping under the subfloor and continue it back into basebaord heat on the other side of the door? I just want to make sure I'm not missing something else that would need to be done.

Thanks so much!!

ANSWER FROM HOME-WIZARD

Dear Dena:

It is fine to run the section of piping under the subfloor where your new French doors will be going. This configuration is like how the piping would have been run if it were constructed if the French doors were there from the beginning.

But a couple of things that you will want to consider:

1) when you say "under the subfloor," do you really mean under the floor joists under the subfloor? Rather than cutting into the floor joists themselves.

2) does the thermostat that controls the remaining sections of baseboard radiators control just this room? Or does the thermostat also control other rooms as well? By reducing the amount of linear feet of baseboard radiator in the room, your heating system will now need to run longer, and if your heating zone includes other rooms, then these other rooms may get too hot, as you are trying to heat up the room where you have reduced the baseboard radiator footage. In other words, you may need to re-balance the radiators for the rooms in this heating zone.

Hope this is helpful.
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