Baseboard Heat Cabinets

[John F.]

In one room of our house I have an old style hotwater baseboard heater that is encased in a heavy gauge metal cabinet that measures 6 feet wide, 30 inches high, and 6 inches deep. There are slotted cuts in the face of the cabinet near the top to let the heated air out. There is about a 4" gap under the cabinet to let cold air in at floor level in the front of the cabinet. The cabinet covers a finned baseboard element about 6 inches deep

2 inches thick and 4 inches above the floor. I want to build a new cabinet that is the 6 foot width but only about 1 foot high. Would I be losing a tremendous amount of heating capacity. Thanks for any input.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

You won't lose any capacity as long as you have the same amount of openings both top and bottom, as you have now.

[John F.]

Like this answer a lot. Thanks for the info. Any idea what the rationale for such large cabinets was at the time these were designed? John

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Many years ago (in the 1960's) I worked for a company that made baseboard, sil-line, cabinet heaters, etc. In many cases, the customer specified a larger enclosure to match the other cabinets in a room. Most was commercial, hospital, school classroom applications. I have to wonder if the original installation at your house was what someone had that was cheap at the time.

[John F.]

Actually this large metal cabinet and baseboard element was put into a addition on the house and mixed with standard Slant Fin base board on the other side of the room. Guess they may have thought the very large cabinet would hold/radiate more heat than a similar length of standard baseboard. And also could be as you noted the plumber had it. Thanks for the input.

[nicksanspam]

We can increase the heat output of baseboard fin tube by increasing the air velocity passing the fins. One way to do this is to mount the fin tube near a slot at the bottom of a boxful of hot air, and let the bouyancy of the hot air column increase the air velocity.

Nick