why is my bathroom so cold?

[stuckindamiddle]

It usually feels chilly even when heating is on.
Heating is thermostat controlled throughout house. House has double glazing and cavity wall insulation. Thermostat is usually set to 19 or 20 degrees. Bathroom has a large towel radiator set to max. It's not a big room: 6ft x 8ft approx.
I left a room thermometer in there all. today. It's showing 15 degrees! The most it got up to was 18 degrees this afternoon.
Bathroom is same size as my son's room which is always between 18 and 21 degrees at the moment.
Do I need an extra radiator in the bathroom??

How much window is there? How many external walls does the bathroom have? Is there a room above it or just the roof and is the roof insulated?

There are online calculators which will ask these kinds of questions and will then tell you how much heat output (BTU) you need from your radiators. Look up BTU calculators. Then you can work out how much BTU you get from the size of rad you've got, and if it's enough.

have you got a radiator and a towel rail or just the rail? We only have a towel rail in our bathroom and it is freezing, i am going to get it changed to a radiator

towel rail isnt as good as a proper radiator

I'm in the process of re-doing my bathrooms. My plumber told me to take a note if the measurements, including ceiling height, take them to my builders providers and make sure I get a towel radiator ( not a heated towel rail) with an appropriate heat output. He said that most of them are designed to to heat the towel not to heat the room. I've bought but its not fitted yet. Interestingly the heat output on a chrome model is much less than a white one even though its more expensive. I suspect your bathroom is cold because it essentially has no radiator.

We only had a towel rail in our bathroom with no option to add another & it too was freezing. When we redid it we put in electric underfloor heating (utter bliss!) skimmed the walks before retiling & changed the position of our draughty extractor. It was toasty after that! The underfloor did make a difference but tbh I think a lot of it was helped by skimming & retiling as it was warm even with it off - expensive unless you're planning to redo.

Are there any drafts coming in around the pipes? Any particularly cold areas?

Our bathroom gets too hot. Why was this happening when the rest of the house was perfect? The answer was that the thermostat is on the landing near our bedroom. I tend to keep a bedroom window open for fresh air. This makes the thermostat think it is a bit cold, so it heats up the flooring. In your case, is the thermostat shutting off too early because it thinks the location is warm enough where it is sited? Ie the other rooms are warm.

Chrome radiators for towels need to be extra sized for the same heat output as a "normal" radiator. If you are trying to heat a room from a towel radiator with towels on, this may not work either. Is the radiator very hot? If not has it got air in it? If it does feel warm all over, but not hot, it will never heat the room. Check the radiator is big enough and check the thermostat. Could it be given its own thermostat? You would need to consult a plumber on that one.

My bathroom is cold as well. It has floor to ceiling ceramic tiles on the walls and inside the shower cubicle. The tiles feel cold, so I wonder if that's the problem. I shiver in the shower even though the water is fairly hot!

Normal towel rails will not heat up your bathroom, they are towel warmers. They don't have a high BTU.
Is your towel rail chrome? Does it feel the same temperature all over, especially near the top?

Same in old bathroom. Towel rail / radiator just not sufficient for room. Ours was completely tiled - floor to ceiling on walls and floor itself, had 2 big windows and was quite large - about15sqm - all of which combined to make it really cold. We've just done a downstairs extension and used a BTU calculator and bought accordingly - seems to be spot on.

Interestingly I was also told that white radiators are better than chrome even with the same BTU - something to do with retaining heat longer once heating is turned off.

I have a small bathroom (2.7m long x 1.6m wide x 2.44m high). It also has a north facing wall with a window.

Having read a very good thread about bathroom dos and don'ts I now have a 500mm wide x 1800mm high white towel radiator. So even though all the walls are fully tiled the bathroom is lovely and warm even on setting 3. This even though I don't have cavity walls (1930's house) and there's a loft above that could do with more insulation.

As others have said use a BTU calculator (I used the one on BestHeating's website) and get the biggest, white - not chrome - radiator with the BTU output that you need for your bathroom. Oh and don't lag it with too many towels either .

as above. Towel warmers are not radiators. We looked when we last re did bathroom. To heat our med sized bathroom, a towel warners would have had to have been huge!!! We got a lovely radiator instead