The trend now days is towards infloor heat. Infloor heating systems operate at 120 degrees as opposed to 180 degrees for Radiant baseboard heat. Because infloor systems work at 120 degrees, you can use a condensing boiler which has efficiencies which compare to forced air systems. Some claims are up to 98% efficient, but 94% is typical. Your highest efficiencies come when you can condense the combustion gases which is impossible with a system that operates at 180 degrees. Uponor (Formerly Wirsbo) was the innovator from Sweden. When you are near a cold surface such as a wall, you will feel colder than the room temperature. When you have a warm floor, you will feel warmer than the room temperature. Infloor heat is great to walk on with bare feet and great for kids to play on the floor. Stay warm! Dan Martyn Here is a link that might be useful: UPONOR

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.

Oh wow thanks for the reply and that sounds doable! So when you say front cover, do you mean the small metal pieces on each front end? Our baseboard heater units have separate pieces attached to each end (like big metal caps sorta) as well as a long metal piece tucked inside the outer metal housing, spanning the entire length of each unit that can be "scrolled up" to be open for heat to come out or "scrolled down" to be shut to keep heat from escaping. Maybe all baseboard heating units are like this and I'm using a lot of words to describe what you already know. (Or I could've just added a photo instead lol) And once the screws are loosened, I should have enough "play" with the unit to reach behind while everything's still intact inside? (The piping and coils and all that.) Thanks so much for your help!

Call a furnace company and ask for a quote.