We have toekick heaters in our kitchen since there are no walls for the baseboard. They work great, even when it's very cold outside. You need to ask a HVAC pro regarding switching over.

how Is the comfort level in that room now with the baseboard? You will need to engage a heating pro to figure out to replace this. Just removing a portion of the base board will just reduce the BTUs available to that room. That will likely result in a cold kitchen. You will need a heating pro to evaluate he replacement. If your system uses and outdoor reset to modulate the boiler to provide different temp water to the baseboards depending on out side temperature then toe kick heaters aren’t likely to work very well if at all. A boiler with outdoor reset may only provide 100 degree water on a 50 degree day. That won’t be hot enough to trigger the fans on a toe kick heater. The toe kicks only work well with a standard boiler providing baseboard water in the 160 to 180 degree range. The new system will need to provide the same number of BTUs in that room as it does now . I have a toe kick heater in the kitchen which I have zoned seperaely. (The last owner not only removed 75 percent of the baseboard, they added a 8 foot sliding glass door). I installed the toe kick the next summer. It’s noisy and takes for ever to heat the kitchen up. I am looking at contemporary flat panel radiators to be mounted on the wall to increase the BTU output in that room. Whatever you do, don.t bury the baseboard behind some cabinet and grate structure . You will curse the day you did that every time you spend a cold winters day in that kitchen. You could also look at in floor radiant heat. Make sure you pick a real pro, interview several. The internet is full of botched heating installations and modifications. Make sure your pro thoroughly understands hydronic heat and has considerable experience in this field,

Jim,

Thanks for your informative reply. I admit much of it is way out of my scope of knowledge but it will be helpful! Our cabinet maker did say that we could install the cabinets in front of the baseboard with vents under each individual cabinet. Is that what you are recommending we not do? He is building them so I guess he can do anything. Thanks again for your post!

Wendy

You can, but it will make them less efficient and cleaning the dust out of them might be problematic. The only way I would do is have a vent at the bottom of the cabinet the length of the baseboard, and then an opening up the back of the cabinet with a grate across the surface. But I do worry about the accumlation of dust and what ever might fall off the counter through the grate. Convection airflow is important for these baseboards to work. If nothing else is an option I would opt for the toe kick heaters, they are pretty simple for a plumber to install . I would make sure they have adequate BTU on slow fan speed for the room. Radiant heat in the floor would be best but if you haven’t budgeted for it it could through a significant monkey wrench into the project .

Thanks everyone! I inquired with our cabinetmaker again and his plan would be to build the cabinets above the baseboard. The front of each cabinets toe kick would have a grate to allow airflow but no fans or anything. These cabinets will be storing pots, pans and appliances no food products. Anyone have experience with doing this?