heating for bathroom

frankie

I am redoing my bathroom and one of the things I want to do is improve the heating.

There is alraedy a heated towel rail run on central heating system and has an electric element too. However this does not provide sufficient heat. I have calculated that I need to acheive 2300 Btus.

Should I add a dedicated radiator panel to run off the central heating in addition to the towel heater, or instal and electric panel heater so that it will provide heat when the central heating is not switched on and also suppliment the towel heater when central heating is on?

I know electric is not the cheapest heating fuel but I'm thinking it will only need to be on during bathroom use.

Any ideas or thoughts please.

phil24_7

Why not get a towel rail that meets or exceeds your BTU requirement?

frankie

I did think of upgraging the towel rail but that would still need the central heating to heat the bathroom.

How effective are the towel rail electric elements?

gingernut352000

Personally I would go for a separate rad than a towel rail to the right btu as in my opinion towel heat just goes into the towels and not the room
The set rad can have a try so you can adjust as necessary

PasturesNew

I'd save the money and leave the bathroom door open so it's heated by other radiators in the house for the hour before I had a bath.

As a rule I don't heat bathrooms, you're not in there much/long.

JohnB47

I've read that chrome bathroom rails aren't as good at giving off heat as painted ones. Not sure that's true. We have quite a large white rail - about 600mm wide by 1500mm high - lots of room for towels and bath mats. It's electric (used drying the summer to dry the towels, mainly) and plumbed in (use the rest of the year).Works very well.

We also have electric under floor heating but rarely use it - far too mild down here in Devon.

frankie

John - does yours have a heating element in the towel rail then? What sort of heat output does that give you? Is it the same as the rated Btu?

Have just put mine on a while back and it does not warm the room though the pipes on the rad (chrome) are fairly warm after 30 minutes

JohnB47

I'll just check. Back in a tick.

phil24_7

gingernut352000 wrote: »

Personally I would go for a separate rad than a towel rail to the right btu as in my opinion towel heat just goes into the towels and not the room
The set rad can have a try so you can adjust as necessary

And the heat from the towels will have to go somewhere!

JohnB47

Well, that's odd, or typical - the brochure stuff isn't where I expected it to be.

But I've found some notes I made around the time it was fitted and the rail is 850 watt.

Yes mine has an internal heating element and after 20 mins or so it's really quite hot, not just warm. Hot too when central heating on too , of course.

Kim_kim

I only have a heated towel rail (plumbed into the central heating).
It's tall, at least 5 foot.
It provides plenty of heat.