Hi, Michael,

When thinking about conditioning a living area, heating, cooling, humidity control, and fresh air ventilation all need to be considered. Your hydronic heating system takes care of only one of those. A ducted mini-split heat pump is a good candidate for your application because the heating and cooling loads for a basement tend to be small and duct work can be located at or above ceiling level. You should also consider integrating a dehumidifier with fresh air ventilation. A separate, but related issue would be testing your basement for radon and installing a system to maintain safe conditions if you have it.

IMO first address the water issue and keep it from getting into the basement. You need to explain here how water gets there at all.

If you are considering replacing the baseboard heating, then you could install them 4-6 inches off the ground in the event there is a flood in the future.

Does your basement have a sump pump, and does it have a battery back up? We have experienced a lot of rain in New Jersey these past few weeks. A properly sized and functioning sump pump can keep your basement dry. You should address this first before doing anything else.

Thank you!

Once the water issue is dealt with, you can look into a company called Runtal . They have some really interesting heating concepts. They have wall panel heating as well as vertical.

Good luck!