I have a contractor that wants to raise a floor and wants to cover up a base board heater with the flooring; a wood sub- floor and than porcelain tile. He says he'll just place vent over the base board heater. That sounds like a safety issue/ fire safety issue and if it needed to be worked on, how do I get to it? FYI-The work being done is changing a laundry room to a full bathroom, and the small half bath to the location of the
washer /dryer. My husband is being moved to the first floor for Health & safety reasons. And we needed a full bath on the main floor. Please help ASAP, I can't find anything online, (as probably no one ever thought off doing this- covering up a base board heater.) Wouldn't it be better to raise the base board heater, with a longer line to it, and place the base board heater unit above the flooring?

 

Is the baseboard heater electric, hot water, or steam , or hot air? What is the shape of this heater and it's size? Can you post a picture?

 

Its water base board heating

 

It's base board water heater boiler system . It's 6' long and about 3" in width, there are 2 that length and one 4 foot. I took a photo with my phone and sent it to myself to try and list... not working... sorry

 

Welcome to the forums.

A little help with pictures..... How-to-insert-pictures

It sounds like you're having plumbing work done to facilitate the room changes.
He should be able to raise the baseboard emitters. Have you checked with him ?

 

Pic would be good if you can post them but with the info you've provided it sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

First off baseboard heat does not work covered up. It works on the principle of circulation. Hot water heats the aluminum fins and it needs air circulation from the bottom to send heat out of the top. If you take away the air circulation no matter how much hot water is going through it, it will not give off any heat.

Second, as you mentioned once that is covered, with no access, any future service to that baseboard is impossible without breaking up the floor.

If you have access to the pipes in the basement it is a simple task to cut and extend the pipes and reinstall the baseboard above the floor where it will be accessible and will heat properly.

Unless they over radiated that room you have 16 ft. of baseboard which is about 9300 btu's of heat. That's not a small room and you will surely miss that amount of heat.

I would not let him cover it under any circumstances though.

Just my thoughts, hope this helps a little.