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Before Winter we had the Wiser TRVs put on all radiators, except for the bathroom where the towel rail was left as the 'bypass' one in the system. Thought that the bathroom would keep toasty - turning on whenever any other radiator in the house calls for heat, but it didn't work out.
2 external walls, combined with the other radiators not needing to be on for long to heat the space up to temp, meant that it was pretty chilly in the bathroom some mornings.
My thoughts of changing the bypass radiator from the bathroom to the hallway (and using the hallway TRV in the bathroom) doesn't seem to be the best solution, as Wiser says to avoid TRVs in a bathroom (humidity/heat from showers can distort readings).
So what's the best solution ahead of next Winter? Change the towel rail for a beefier radiator? (though if it's not coming on for long not sure if this'll help much) I guess add another heat source? Maybe one of those infrared heaters that I expect I could put on a timer? Embrace the cold?
Proper radiator would be my guess. Towel rails are generally low output. I put a huge towel rail in a small well insulated bathroom and its only just enough.. i did do my btu calculation tho.
I would also guess that unless you keep the door shut previously the bathroom was benefiting from heat from other rooms and the hallway
yeah, we have a proper radiator as the bypass in our bathroom, it's always toasty hot as generally if we're in the house then probably one other room (at least) is going to be actively heated (if it's cold enough to warrant it obvs)Proper radiator would be my guess.
However (caveat that I've not actually tried this) I believe I've read that you can assign one of the wireless room thermostats to your bathroom even if you don't have smart TRVs in there, then this can call for heat from the boiler and heat [I]only[/I] the bathroom (assuming all other rooms are already at desired temp) which if it works would solve your problem?
I put an electric heater into my towel rail so it can still dry the towels in summer. So the towel rail is now 'dual fuel' gas CH or electric. Need to check the bathroom zones before doing this DIY though.
The other thing I didn't realise until after I bought a larger towel rail, is the chrome ones have significantly worse performance (in terms of letting the heat out) than white ones. So two identical rails will have different outputs depending on the colour.
Finally, does the towel rail get hot as quick as the other radiators? If not, it's not getting a fair share of the hot water from the boiler, and the system needs rebalancing.
Proper radiator would be my guess. Towel rails are generally low output.
If a proper radiator would chuck out much more heat in the short time it's on then that could work. Though part of me would like to have independent control over the bathroom zone, in addition to it coming on when other household rads are calling for heat.
However (caveat that I’ve not actually tried this) I believe I’ve read that you can assign one of the wireless room thermostats to your bathroom even if you don’t have smart TRVs in there, then this can call for heat from the boiler and heat only the bathroom (assuming all other rooms are already at desired temp) which if it works would solve your problem?
Not sure I follow. Without a TRV in the bathroom, how would the room thermostat control it? I have a room thermostat in the living room that acts as a master to the TRVs on the 2 rads in there, but without the TRVs on the rads there'd be no way to communicate and so you couldn't open/shut valves? Sorry if I'm missing something obvious.
@spooky_b329 That's interesting, thanks. Are you able to put the towel rail on a timer what with the electric heater?
Did not know that about the colour. Ours is chrome, it didn't seem to struggle with getting up to temp (did need to bleed it fairly regularly though), just that it was never fully 'on' for long enough to really bring the room up several degrees.
it doesn’t need to control the radiator directly. But it [i]could[/i] call for heat from the boiler which would then heat all rooms without TRVs - in your case only one room. So same end result! (Again, in theory, not tried it personally!)Without a TRV in the bathroom, how would the room thermostat control it?
<p style="text-align: left;">I just used the wireless thermostat in the bathroom, don't really need it in any other room with smart trvs. You could just put a trv head in to monitor temp and call down heat doesn't even need to be connected to rad if it's also the bypass. Heck it doesn't even need to be in the same room if you just want an on / off schedule which is what we have. It's one of the oddments of Wiser you need a device associated with a room to program a schedule for bypass.</p>
Time to try out this whizzy photo posting. Yes, the heating element has an 'always on' button, and a timed button and a plus and minus to change the duration. Bear in mind, when used with a plumbed in rail, you use a T piece to bring the hot water feed in from the side. My old rail was leaking and I can't move the supply pipes as the floor is tiled so I got a wider rail, and you can get TRV extension pieces so you can get everything lined up easily.
We replaced our bathroom radiator for one 1.5x bigger, and made it duel fuel in the same way as spooky.
Sounding like the 2 options are trying the Wiser hack with a room thermostat 'controlling' the bypass in bathroom. Or changing existing towel rail to proper radiator that's dual fuel (that'll allow me to set a timer to come on for a good stint in those winter mornings). Thanks all.
Just a note, most of the elements are manual on, timed off. I can't set mine to come on at 6am, for example. Instructions also said to turn off the central heating valve when using the electric element, but I don't bother as I figured it's worse to remove the bypass loop on the central heating system. I suspect it's just to maximise water heating efficiency.
I ran some wet underfloor heating in insulated mat before tiling in my bathroom. It's(and a pithy towel rail) hooked up to the bypass circuit on the wiser system (the towel rail has no trv just manual valves and the floor has an analogue trv.
Our bathrooms toasty in winter.
@trail_rat Yes I imagine having underfloor heating in addition to a towel rail would help. Of course you may have your other Wiser kit calling for more heat for longer, than in my situation, which would make your bathroom warmer. As would not having 2 external walls! 🙂
Id reckon on it not being reliant on a towel heater as a space heater as they are quite almost always covered in towels restricting the flow of heat.