Moved into a house that has baseboard heating: forced hot-water from a oil furnace.
In trying to clean up pet smells and left-overs (hair!) I pulled out each baseboard cover and vacuumed all the hair, but the fins themselves are so dirty - black (soot?) - that I think they must not be efficient any more.
Second, I noticed before we got the house painted, in one room there were black streaks on the walls for a short distance starting at the baseboard and ending say 6" or so above it. I would hate for that to happen once we start using the heat this winter!
I cleaned off the black stuff of backs of the baseboard covers, but like I said, fins are still pretty dirty. Is there any way to replace the fins without draining the pipes, cutting them, replacing the fins, and soldering the pipes again? If that's going to be done in the entire house (4 rooms + kitchen) then that might be quite expensive.
Any suggestions to keep the heating efficient and keep the paint new?
Thanks.
-- Himanshu