Heated towel rail on all the time?

[Whealspeed]

There is a heated towel rail in my bathroom. I don't have central heating, only electric panels. The switch for the heated towel rail is not easily accessible. Should the rail be left on all the time? I've never had one before. I cant see a label so I don't know how much electricity it would use. Someone told me they are meant to be left on.

Is it the only heating in the room ?

Mine are on all the time but it's oil fired heating, if you have no other heating in the room I wouldn't have thought you'd have a choice ?

Yes it's the only heating in the room. I don't put my panels on most of the time so the bathroom doesn't seem colder than the other rooms. I know people who have heated rails but they all have central heating.

I have a heated towel rail that is both electric and gas central heating by the way. When gas heating is on its heats all the time, in summer gas off only switched on as needed. I would just switch your system on during a shower and a short time after.

I’d put it on for an hour or so when you need it to dry your towel

How big is it? I once went through a couple of months of having insane electric bills (3-4x what they should have been.) turned out it was the towel rack! It was big though!

You can get these attachments which turn the rail on for 2 hours then automatically switch off...

Will try to find the link

Something like this https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/venice-300w-digital-thermostatic-element-chrome?campaign=googlebase&gadsource=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAo7KqBhDhARIsAKhZ4ui23TkLz96GOPo5A7BdNrR7xq1Pxf6WllowmdgF2mdHJ3f6Yxh9lj4aAixyEALww_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

They are unfortunately very expensive to run. We have one that is also really awkward to reach the switch. We changed the switch to one with a timer. Not ideal, but it means it is set for just an hour or so, twice a day.

This is where a Smart meter would be useful as you could see what it is using by turning the towel rail off and then back on again.
We've had electric towel rails in the past and never left them on all the time. We've now changed them for dual fuel so when the heating in on they run off oil. We hardly ever switch them on using the electricity once the heating goes off. Anything that heats up by electric always causes the red light to come on on my Smart meter.

I've got one in my en suite - stupidly decided when I renovated it that I would chuck out the radiator and have the towel rail instead without realising some cost around 11p an hour to run! Mine goes on for an hour to dry the towels or sometimes I put it on before I go to the gym so the towel is warm when I get out of the shower x Curse myself if I forget to turn it off!

Maybe you can try this one https://elegant-radiators.co.uk/products/er-wifi-chrome-thermostatic-element