Cold bathroom

[Anotherdayattheforum]

Welcome suggestions how to address or reasons why the bathroom is miserably cold. Typically room temperature sits at 15c whilst rest of house 18c.

1. SW facing with two external walls.
2. Gas central heating.
3. No black mold present in bathroom or any part of house.
4. Towel radiator is advised to meet the measurements of the room. Have put aluminium lining behind to reflect heat away from tiles. Maybe this type of radiator is simply ineffective.
5. Floor to ceiling tiled - this I wonder is the issue. Perhaps they are cheap cement base???

TIA

I have a towel radiator in my fully tiled bathroom and the room is really warm, too warm sometimes.
I only have one hand towel that is placed on it so it can warm the room.

If you cover your towel radiator with towels it will warm the inside of the towels but not the room. You are effectively insulating the radiator. Insulation keeps heat in, so it makes the radiator ineffective. Apologies if this sounds patronising but I had to spend years explaining this to my family. We only have a hand towel on our “towel rail” now and the bathroom is warm. Hooks above or beside the radiator for towels in our house.

Love MN at these times. Thank you again for your replies. @Chemenger always very useful to have what is seemingly obvious to one person but until then to another, a mystery.

I have a thermometer in the bathroom to ensure it’s the room and not me being a bit of a wimp. Have taken reading from that.

I don’t cover the radiator. Now though beginning to consider this defies the Trade Description Act. I find the towel rail makes the towels smell in any case. Perhaps it is a case of you gets what you pays for. The ‘item’ in my bathroom is a towel warmer rather than a radiator.

I am relieved it might not be the tiles are the culprit. Replacing the towel rail doable and financially manageable. Replacing the tiles, a whole different headache.

I am using a fan heater to raise the temperature and the room does achieve 20c quickly. So happy with this compromise in the meantime.

As an aside. Does anyone remember toilet seat covers? They came matching toilet paper covers using a doll to make them look like a ball gown covering the toilet rolls I understand their attraction as I sat on toilet seat this morning. 🥶 Though question the hygiene rating 😳

There's a reason they use tiles so much in hot countries.

You can get towel style radiators now that are proper radiators. I got one for my bathroom this year. I got a higher BTU than the calculator suggested, the bathroom fitters thought I was crazy but now my bathroom is 2 to 3c warmer than the rest of the house. If there is one room you want to be warmer than the rest of the house it’s your bathroom.

For sure

I've just renovated my freezing bathroom. I've very pleased to say its no longer like showering in a walk in fridge! It depends how much you want to change what's already there, but things that helped were:

Taking some of the tiles off and putting water resistant MDF tongue and groove panelling in- wood is so much more insulating.

Putting underfloor heating in. If that isn't viable, could you perhaps change the tiled floor for a lino (I think it can go over the top of existing tiles?) They look so much better these days, are cheap and quick to fit, and its so much warmer under foot.

I put a huge heated towel rail in, way larger than it needed to be in terms of the BTU rating. They really seem to vary hugely in terms of the heat output, so read the small print carefully, and get the one with the highest heat output that you can fit in the space. I got one from Screwfix, and its brilliant. I also read that white ones are more efficient than chrome ones, so I've got a white one. I've no idea why, but it does seem to make a difference! I was worried it wouldn't be enough, but I didn't have room for a radiator as well, and luckily its been absolutely fine. I also fitted a shaker style peg rail, and unless I actually want a towel to be warmed up the towels hang from the peg rail rather than sit on the towel rail.

There were loads of drafts coming in around the bath, so the fitter packed out all the gaps with insulation, this has made a huge difference. I also specifically got a bath that is particularly good for keeping the heat in, but that was quite spendy.

Finally, fit a waterproof, thermal roller blind, and pull it down as soon as it gets to dusk- it makes a surprising difference.

We insulated our two external walls in en suite. Absolute game changer. Have also done it in our kitchen and will do so when renovate family bathroom. We don’t have space to do it in our weirdly shaped and freezing bedroom but I highly recommend.

I didnt think towel rails were designed to heat the room, merely warm the towels

All over tiling is a nightmare for bathrooms also.

Our bathroom was freezing so when I renovated we went totally over the top to heat it. Ended up with these radiators which you can buy towel rails for as an extra. They come in different widths. I have two rails on each radiator.

https://cdn.bestheating.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1f8812de34949d65ebdaffa392c2de31/b/b/bbs_87685_image.jpg

Thank you. I’m getting a quote to change. Link really useful.

Don't really understand the fascination with heated towel rails on here.

It's like "ooooo a heated towel rail, the house must be worth 20k more" when in reality they are a bit crap, don't put out a huge amount of heat and only do it when the heating is on unless they are dual heated.

You can get dual heated ones of course, but the solution where you just site the normal rail over the radiator so the towel hangs down over it works well for me.

Yes the rad goes a little rusty eventually, but a can of radiator paint solves that.

We have them because that’s what the developer of our estate installed, probably the case for a lot of posters in new builds. Ours is dual heated so we can switch it on independently of the central heating, but don’t tend to because it’s too easy to forget to switch it off again and that racks up our electricity bill.

In other houses we’ve had proper radiators in the bathroom and they work much better.

To be honest towel warmers are just that , they don’t heat bathrooms. We always advise to have a secondary heat source in a bathroom if it’s a cold room with no underfloor heating as all they do is warm your towel . Look to getting it replaced with a standard double radiator .
You can check your btu requirements with an online calculator .

My bathroom is massive with a terrible draughty window but we have a towel radiator and a normal radiator and it’s fine when the heating is on.

I think you either need another radiator or heat source (like underfloor heating).

Also sorry if someone has said this already but it might marginally improve things if you take the towels off the rail too and dry them somewhere else or in a tumble drier.

Thanks for recent posts. I’m getting quote to replace with a radiator.

I learned a lot from the thread.

Towel rails warm the towels but do not radiate heat into the room. Duel rails do.

I use it to warm towels. The harsh heat makes them smell.

stand on a stool and put your hand up to the extractor fan and see if it feels cold when it’s not in use.

mine did so i dont use it any more and have covered it with wadding sellotaped on. problem solved.

you might not be able to do that in a bathroom if it doesn’t have its own on switch and comes on with the light. in which case you’d have to have it disconnected but you’d have to be careful about damp if you do that.

i have cheap usb powered magnetic motion activated lights in my bathroom now so i don’t need to put the light on and can see what i’m doing so the fan doesn't come on in my bathroom unless i choose to switch on the lights. it’s a bit warmer. but the cold still comes in.

My towel radiator gets proper hot. The bathroom has one and a half un-tiled walls, plus the door.