Towel Rail: Can I leave this on?

dllive

Hi. My bathroom is exceedingly cold and there is no heating. It has a towel rail. Are these designed to be left on all the time? Ive left it on for the past 2 days, and its helped by taking the chill out of the air.

Im concerned about it costing me a lot. If I know its going to cost me, say, 10p per day, then so be it. Ill only need it in the winter months. If, however, its going to cost a lot more then Ill need to look into alternative solutions.

I guess my questions are: how to work out how much it would cost me to leave it on? Are there any safety hazards to leaving it on? Are there any alternative solutions (theres literally no additional space in the bathroom!)

Thankyou

jennifernil

They are fine to leave on all the time, but you do need to consider the cost. Check the plate/label on it for its wattage and then you can work out what it will cost to run.

If it is say 100 watts then it will use 2.4 KW hours (units of electricity) (100 x 24) per day.

Now multiply by your unit price.

My units are 8p each, so it would cost me 19.2 pence per day. Don't forget the VAT (5%)

dllive

Thanks jennifernil - that makes sense, although isnt VAT 20%? (as of today!)

CLAPTON

dllive wrote: »

Thanks jennifernil - that makes sense, although isnt VAT 20%? (as of today!)

no, VAT on electricity and gas is 5%.. see your bill

WestonDave

Although by the sounds of it having it on 24/7 is only just achieving warmth, you could if you wanted to get a timer fitted to it - we've got ours wired via a programmable timer so it switches on for two periods during the day (when we shower in the morning and when the kids bath in the evening). We actually got our timer for the summer as our rail is on the central heating as well so during the winter it get heated by the boiler - we wanted to have a way of getting it to dry towels in the summer without it getting left on all day and leaving the bathroom sweltering.