I have baseboard heat in my house. We have one baseboard that is frequently blocked by coats hanging on a coat rack. When this happens my wife is upset because she thinks that it will prevent the house from warming up effectively.
But this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. With an unblocked baseboard the heat radiates off the baseboard fins into the air which is now warmed and the house is comfortable.
In the case of a baseboard blocked by coats wouldn’t I just have a situation where the baseboard warms a coat and then the heat dissipates from the coat into the air? There’s heat rubs no less frequently or intensely as the thermostat is in a different part of the room. So the same net amount of heat is being generated. It just has a detour before it gets into the air. No?
Thanks for explaining.
In: Physics
Most baseboard heat units rely on convection currents they create to effectively heat a space. Heated air comes out of the top slot since heated air is less dense, and new cooler air moves into the bottom slot to replace it, moves over the heating unit, and then rises. If you block up the upper vent with anything, the air will not convect. Yes, the coats will get warm, but the heat they’ll eventually transfer by conduction won’t approach the amount of heat moved into the room by convection currents from the unblocked heater.
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