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I have a question about removing Hydronic Baseboard but keeping the boiler and water heater in place.

Is this relatively straight forward?

  1. Shut off power
  2. Cut off the supply and return for the baseboard, than remove it. The pressure should remain the same for the supply/return for the water heater, correct?
  3. Remove/cap baseboard lines
  4. Restart power?
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If you actually have valves on both supply and return (uncommon) you can proceed as described. Normally there's only valving on one side of the loop, so cutting out the loop piping will drain the boiler, drop the pressure to zero, and you'll have to refill it and get the air out after you have capped the heating loop.

Then you'll be left with a massively oversized oil boiler rather inefficiently heating your water. Which is, admittedly, what most people with an oil boiler with attached water heater do every summer, but it's less than optimal if that's the only use you have for the boiler.

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  • Note that simply turning down the thermostat controlling the heating loops may be sufficient, and lets you set things up so the boiler acts as backup for whatever you now using to heat the place. I've been doing exactly that since installing a heat pump system. Efficiency as a water heater depends on the equipment; even when used only for hot water my high-efficiency boiler feeding a super insulated indirect-heated tanks is more energy efficient than most water heaters... Though not enough so to justify the cost if that was all it was doing.
    – keshlam
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 13:40

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