I would not remove them. I had these in my old house and I needed to move one to install a sliding door to the deck. I had to drain the system so the water in the upstairs radiators did not pour out when I disconnected the one unit. That was the easy part, refilling the system and getting all the air out was a real pain. I best way I found to clean them was with a brush (Like the ones used to clean babies bottles) and a vacuum cleaner. Eventually I ended up building covers to hide them.