Okay, finally I have success! I'll detail what I did as it might save someone a lot of headache. First off, hot water pipes are thinner than cold water. I think cold water is type M and hot is type L or vice versa. No matter how many times I look that up, I still forget! Anyway, I got pretty good at cutting the thick one but was having MAJOR difficulty cutting the thin one. To make a long story short, I had to use a hand held key saw. Annoying, slow but that worked. Next, stick bread in the lines on both sides to block the water. You think you get all of the water out of the line, but you don't. With water in the line, soldering will be impossible. You'll have to heat the joints three times as long and the solders won't be good. I had leaks by not following this. A step which I knew but still didn't do. Stupid on my part. Okay, no more leaks. Now, I'm supposed to bleed the lines. Although my house was built in the 1930s, we added a large addition and the house is pretty new, including the heating system. It seems that the plumbers are no longer putting bleeders on the line. Mine don't have any. No problem. I should just open up point 1 in pic 2, and the valve on point 9, pic 1 (which you can't see) then open the garden house valve on line 1, pic 2. When the water flows out smoothly with no sputtering, the air is out, right? Well yes, but things just weren't working that way. I did everything I just said and water came out. Within 10 seconds, however, all the water came out and it just dried up! Uh, is that supposed to happen? Confused, I shut the line and waited about 30 minutes while I did other things. I came back and tried again. Same results!!! I had about enough of this plumbing project. Looks like it won and I lost. After about 10 successful projects, I was going to have to call in a plumber. I tried getting the job taken care of with my normal service contract, convinced that it was just a lack of knowledge on my part. I was told that since it was the weekend and they weren't sure the project fell under my normal service agreement, they might have to bill me...at the more expensive weekend rate...of $165 per hour!!! I quickly told the lady I'd figure it out myself. Searching this site, I found the answer. I did everything right except one thing. You have to continually add water to the line so that it keeps flushing the air out. You do that by flipping the little handle on point 5, pic 2. That automatically ensures that the pressure in the baseboards remains at the setting on the reducer by adding water when need be. However, if you open it manually, it will just let the water flow (also pushing the air out with it). If there's air in the line, the pipes aren't going to get hot, so you've gotta get the air out. With each bucket of water I let flow through, more of the line got hot. Three buckets of water later, the water was flowing smoothly and I had heat! Note that by me doing what I did, I introduced air into another zone, so I had to repeat the process for that zone as well. No biggie. Three more buckets later, that zone was working again! Now I don't know if there's a way to work on one zone while not affecting the others. I'll have to examine what I did a little and see if there's a sensible way of doing it. Anyway, hopefully this helps someone.

Well, you may need a plumber with boiler experience, but maybe not. For example, the heater register or cover of the long and narrow baseboard heaters of today can be replaced, without having to replace the heater inside. This heater is not more than a copper pipe that has aluminum fins attached to it. The heater cover is nailed or screwed to the studs in the wall. I have Slant-Fin baseboard heaters in my house, and I can easily replace their covers after buying them (measured by the foot) locally. More than likely, if the house is not too old, the pipes leading to the heater are made of copper. To install a new baseboard heater requires: a. Draining the boiler's pressure, or b. Being able to isolate the the heater from the system If the heater has shutoff valves at each end (somewhere along the heater pipe), one can shut the hot water supply and the hot water return valves (the water going to the heater, and the not so hot water coming out the heater). Then it requires cutting the old heater out, installing the new heater register, and sweating the new pipes/heater in place, followed by draining the trapped air in the new heater to allow it to fill with water from the boiler. This work is best done by a person who knows how (plumber/boiler technician, etc.).

We got rid of all of our baseboard hot water heating runs as part of our current remodel. We had 18 feet of it and replaced them with 2 toe kick heaters that are connected to the hot water heating system. They are installed under our cabinets and have a fan with a vent in the toe kicks. I imagine the same thing would work for you.

A hot water baseboard system is not that complex. It is a closed system with all the radiators connected in one or more loops. The hot water is circulated with a water pump from the boiler throughout the house and back to the boiler. This flow continues until the thermostat is satisfied. There is not much maintenance to be done. You may sometimes have to bleed the radiators to remove any trapped air in the system. You may have to add some water, but if you do it would mean you have a leak somewhere. The boiler needs to examined to make sure it is burning the gas correctly. When properly maintained this type of heating system can last a long time. It is several advantages over a forced hot air system. There is no need to replace it if is working properly. All the registers should be getting hot uniformly. If they are not then you have probably have trapped air or some else which is preventing the water from circulating properly. I suggest you hire a service company to review everthing carefully and make any adjustments or fixes. Spring is a good time to do this, or you could wait until the fall before the heating season starts.