Heated Towel rails - all the same

cabbage

Hi

There is a thread on here about heated towel rails vs radiators but unfortunately its closed and I cannot post on there.

We've recently moved into a house with heated towel rails and the bathroom/toilet is very cold. Are there different types of heated towel rails some that give off heat and others that do not? The ones I have are not plug in but part of the central heating system.

Ideally we are looking at replacing them with radiators. Does anyone know of any stylish possibly flat panelled radiators we could put in their place. They are all wall mounted so something stylish would look better than a bog standard radiator.

What are your thoughts and advice.

Thanks in advance

tanith

We have a towel radiator in our bathroom the ones that look like a close runged ladder and our bathroom is the warmest room in the house.. it warms the bathroom very well but we only keep the towels on there to warm them when showering or bathing otherwise they hang on the back of the door.

We have one similar to this...

http://static.victoriaplumb.com/images/view_prod_sets/Tubular-Heated-Towel-Rail-1650-x-450_210.jpg

flashg67

I've seen what appears to be a 'combined' radiator and towel rail - (expensive) example here - may need to google for more options!

Jonesya

Compared to a radiator of a similar size, towel rails give out much less heat and that's before you cover them with towels which help keep the heat in!

If you look on the DIY websites (Screwfix, Tool station etc) you can see the typical heat outputs for towel rails and you need very large ones to even come close to a small radiator.

That's probably why your bathroom is cold, its just too low rated for the heating requirement.

You've got a few options, replace it with a radiator, (do a search for column radiators, they look stylish, like old cast iron radiators). You see towel rails with small built in column radiators built in, like half and half.

Personally I've got a normal panel radiator and a separate electrically heated towel rail, its nice to be able to have the towel rail on in the summer when the heating is off, and not have the radiator covered with towels in the winter when you want the bathroom warm.

DTDfanBoy

If you want you can simply stack the towel radiator on top of a normal radiator, this gives you the best of both worlds.

Towel radiators and generally very poor radiators, mine stay warm longer than any other radiator in the house.

Here's what I've just done, sadly I couldn't source a radiator which would allow a straight run into the towel radiator hence the messy pipework, but at least both my towels and bathroom are nice and toasty :beer:

Procrastinator333

It is all about the BTU's. Some towel heaters have a low BTU and are really for warming towels. Some put out more heat. But generally, if you want to warm the room it will need to be a decent size and surface area. But you don't need to guess, just look at the BTU output.

We have just had one installed. We made sure it is giving out the right BTU for the size room it is in - it is therefore quite a large towel rail. It heats the room fine and the towels are really nice when warmed up.

Plus we got it as a dual fuel. So it is connected to the CH and comes on when that is on. But we can also flick a switch and it is then heated by an electric element.

A radiator would be cheaper. A dual fuel towel rail is really a luxury, but worth it if you have the cash imo.

DTDfanBoy

High output towel radiators are very expensive, I think the cheapest I saw when I was looking was nearly £500, in true MSE style I cobbled together mine for less than £100

JohnB47

Two separate fitters, when giving us quotes, each said that painted towel rails gave off more heat than chromed. We went for a large painted ladder type and it's fine. I've no idea if they are correct, just interesting that they both said it.

ryder72

They are right. Chromed or stainless steel rads cut output by about a third. Painted is always better. Aluminium better still but quite expensive.

cabbage

Thank you for all your replies. Ours are chrome and come on with the central heating. I think one heated towel rail might be useful as a plug in rather than linked to central heating as we now have a combi boiler and no airing cupboard and that's where I used to dry my towel after a shower. Its not a problem in winter when the radiators are on but in summer it will be an issue.

I'm not sure of the BTU of the towel rails as I don't know the make and model and they were installed by the previous owners. They are all red hot to touch but the rooms are cold.

I will have a look at the various radiators available.

Thanks for all your replies. From the old thread it was evident that with the right heated towel rail it can heat a bathroom but I think our rooms are too large for the size of towel rails to be affective heaters.

cyclonebri1

Atrange post really as chromed towel rads as sghown in pics above are considered to be more stylish than plain panel rads by most.

I have a simple rule of thumb, most I've changed hgave been from rad to rail. That is to double the size of rail from the panel size.

We have his and hers towel rads and they look good, you could consider that.

There are many bulky retro chromed rads available nowadays, depends on your tast really, but panel rads are just considered the cheapest and ussually most efficient way of supplying heat, style isn't really in their remit.;);)