Towel warmers with Summer Element - advice?

Phirefly

I've only just started looking at towel warmers and come across 'summer element' attachments, which is all new to me. In theory, it would be perfect for us, the heating's rarely on in our toasty little well-insulated house, and I have been wondering what the point of having a towel warmer would even be. It would be great if we could operate it independently of the central heating, if indeed thats what it does...

So what are these all about? How do they work? Anyone got any experiences/advice to share? Summer elements built-in appear to be about £50 more than standard towel warmers, is that right?

I've seen a 1200x600 straight chrome towel warmer with summer element which seems good quality on ebay for £150 delivered, is that reasonable?

thanks

debbie42

I've no idea what a summer element is, I'm afraid. However I have an electric towel warmer: it's not powerful enough to heat a room, but is great at, erm, warming towels all year round.

27col

I would imagine that summer element is exactly what it says. An electric element incorporated in a normal hot water heated towel rail. You would heat the rail in the winter using your central heating, and in the summer, when the heating is not on then the rail is heated using the summer element. Of course you would also have to to have a fused spur outlet fitted in the bathroom to power it. The cost of installing this would be in addition to the extra cost of buying it.

MrsE_2

Phirefly wrote: »

I've seen a 1200x600 straight chrome towel warmer with summer element which seems good quality on ebay for £150 delivered, is that reasonable?thanks

I've often wondered if such a thing existed, I love my heated towel rail in the winter, I miss it in the summer:(

One piece of advice, get the tallest one you can afford. They look snazzy, you can get two towels on at once & the chuck out similar heat to a normal small bathroom rad.

I'm 5 ft 4 & mine is almost as tall as me. So I guess about 1.8 or something?

The curved ones look good & are easier to hang towels on too.

Jonesya

They work well but you might want to consider where the electrical supply will be fed from and if the switch is not easily accessible (and hence likely to be left on!) then have a timer switch installed so the heating element is only on when you need it.

If you were running the heater 24/7 during the summer it could be quite wasteful of electricity, 200W 24/7 is almost £3/week in electricity.

lovethymini

We bought one for our bathroom htr - it's just an electric element (like you'd find in your hot water tank) which allows you to use it independently to the central heating rads.

I think we paid about £40 for it from plumbworld.com (an excellent company!) but didn't use it in the end because it would have made the valves at the bottom unsymmetrical (I know - fussy or what) so I'll sell it on or fit it to the htr in the downstairs wc.

You can buy any heated towel rail and fit an electric element into it, provided there's enough length for the element to slot into!

If you go for one, chat to the plumber about what valves you should get to enable the electric element to be fitted.

We've also just bought a 6' tall htr for our kitchen, but went for a white one this time as it looked less "bathroomy"!!

hth