Heated towel rail

unrecordings

+1 for the towel rail. Or rather what you might call a ladder radiator, running as a radiator on our central heating system (the logic for that being that if the heating isn't on then you don't need heated towels)

Go for a white one rather than chrome. I'll see if I can dig out the one we got and report back shortly

One of these actually and mounted a little higher than you might mount a normal radiator

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Liquid-Round-Vertical-Designer-Towel-Radiator---White-800-x-500-mm/p/120964

lindens

Absolutely have a heated towel rail as part of the central heating. But also put an electrical element in there so in the summer when the heating is off you can still turn it on and off. Towels still get wet even ion the summer and are harder to dry i find,
I would go for chorme as the white one we had started peeling off and it was chrome underneath, it looked ugly.

bob_a_builder

Endorse, What NoviceInvestor said
Made same mistake myself

pumpkin89

They're lovely! But I didn't realise people would expect them to heat the bathroom as well. We have underfloor heating in the bathroom which I would thoroughly recommend if it's possible in your property.

LandyAndy

We have two towel rails in our bathroom. Excellent things wouldn't be without them, certainly not for a radiator.

As for them not being on when the CH is off, that sounds like they aren't connected up correctly. Our towel rails are linked to the hot water control, not the CH, so they operate throughout the year. I thought that was how all towel rails worked?

armchaireconomist

Towel rails are brilliant, but you need a fairly large one. Most people complaining about lack of heat output buy the smallest, cheapest one they can. I've got a 3 tier towel rail and it's superior in every way to the radiator that was in there.

cajef

mrschaucer wrote: »

The reason people complain about cold bathrooms with towel warmers is that their towel warmer simply isn't big enough. Just like with a radiator, you need calculate what output you need for the room size - toasty warm ones do exist but tend to be quite tall.

Agreed, when we refitted our bathroom we removed a radiator and replaced it with a chrome towel rail, we told the pumber that we wanted one that would also heat the room efficiently as well as drying towels he calculated the size we needed and it heats the bathroom well even in very cold weather.

pumpkin89

As for them not being on when the CH is off, that sounds like they aren't connected up correctly. Our towel rails are linked to the hot water control, not the CH, so they operate throughout the year. I thought that was how all towel rails worked?

You can have them connected in several different ways. Ours has an on/off switch in the airing cupboard (like a light switch).

kerri_gt

We have one (installed by previous owners) connected to the CH and it's great - heats up just as much as a radiator.

The only gripe I have is we live in a hard water area and it shows up limescale spots significantly (just general drips from drying hands on towels etc) - some markings from before we bought the house I think. I do try and address them with limescale remover but gradually doing it so as not to damage the finish. And it does show the dust up being chrome.

coffeehound

LandyAndy wrote: »

Our towel rails are linked to the hot water control, not the CH, so they operate throughout the year. I thought that was how all towel rails worked?

Interesting. Are they in a primary circuit that heats a hot water cylinder?