Towel rail or radiator?

invisiblecabbage

Refitting bathroom and putting in under floor heating. The bathroom is about 3m x 2 m. It had a radiator before but I was wondering whether the UHF with heated towel rail will be as effective or will I still need to fit a radiator? Thanks

BlueC

Most towel rails don't give off a lot of heat for heating a room. I would think that since 3m x 2m is pretty small the UHF combined with a towel rail should suffice (depends on the type of UHF). You could always work out the BTU of the UHF and towel rail combined and see if that is enough for the size and construction of room.

dori2o

We have a small bathroom 1.8m x 2.7m and fitted a towel rail and to be hoinest it's the worst thing we ever did. Hopefully we will be having a proper rad installed soon.

However we dont have under floor heating so can't really offer a like for like comparison.

BertieUK

We have a very handy set-up in our bathroom, 10 sqm, a radiator which runs off both the central heating system and the electric.

This is very handy to heat/dry towels etc during the summer, when the c/h is off. It has the on/off switch fitted outside the bathroom with its own red light showing when it on.

Regards

BobUK

Canucklehead

Hi.

Calculating the heat requirement for the room would give you an output figure to aim for.

Any heat emitter will have an output figure if you look at the technical details, even UFH will have a figure per square metre.

GSR

joinaman

My bathroom is about the same size as yours, 3m x 2m and have a tiled floor with electric underfloor heating and a 1200mm high chrome heated towel running off the central heating
Room lovely and warm, floor keeps the toes warm while the heated towel dries all the towels and gives the extra heat to the room

cyclonebri1

Ours is about 5mtr x 3, it's natuarally the warmest room in the house as it has only a 1 mtr ext wall.

We replaced a single single rad of about 600mm x 900mm with 2 single towel rails and couldn't tell the difference.

Thats the tip, fit these in series, his and hers so to speak, it works fine.

greenbee

My bathroom is even smaller... My UFH is a wire as they couldn't get a mat small enough ... Despite having metal window frames, the UFH together with a towel rail that comes on with both the hot water and the heating keeps the bathroom warm enough. Having it on the HW circuit means it works in the summer when the heating is off, and having it on the heating circuit means it is on for longer during the winter.

cattie

As a chilly mortal, I chose a double radiator over a heated towel rail. This is because I know from when I've stayed with people who have the towel rails that they just don't seem to be very effective at warming the room to a comfortable level.

tanith

We have a towel rail in our bathroom and its very warm in there.. no UFH either .. I much prefer the towel rail to a radiator.. its a tall one with a sort of ladder effect so many rails for the heat to come from. Its wonderful for warming the towels of course lol

BuntyB

Our bathroom is 8 x 7 and is heated perfectly with our tall white towel rad via the central heating. The bigger the better. Worth mentioning is that when we bought the radiator at our local merchants we were told that white rads warm the room better than equivelant sized chrome ones, and possibly more dangerous is that chrome ones are hotter to the touch than white ones