Shower room radiator on heating circuit?

[Martin]

Hi I'm just having my shower room fitted on the ground floor and apparently there is some reason why it is hard (but not impossible) to have it come on with the hot water (like the bathroom one does upstairs), so a possible alternative solution suggested is to put it on the central heating circuit and place thermostatic valves on every radiator and turn them all off except the shower room one in the summer. Would this be a sensible solution and actually work? Would the separate thermostat that I have in my hallway effect it- it only goes up to 30 so presumably if it ever gets hotter than that in the house in the summer the heating would turn off therefore the radiator in the shower room would turn off which I don't want to happen as it would be needed to dry towels. Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks

Martin

[Dave Plowman]

That's because it would need new pipes run from the water heating circuit which probably only exists in the bathroom.

[Christian McArdle]

I assume the problem is that only the central heating zone passes nearby.

If you don't want to run new pipes, then consider using a hydronic towel radiator with built in electric element. When the central heating is on, it will be warm conventionally. In summer, you can set the element to go on an hour before your bath. Assuming a 1kW element, that will cost you around 6p every time you want a warm towel, which is probably not that much more expensive than running the entire central heating system (and all its primary circuit losses) for an hour just to heat a tiny single radiator.

Christian.

[Martin]

Thanks for the answer, apparently it is not possible to connect to the existing water heating circuit because it has been done wrongly(?) so a new connection would have to be made to the pipes near the hot water tank.

Martin

[Martin]

Thanks for that advice Christian, it looks like the simplest solution.

Martin

[Dave Plowman]

The water heating circuit will go near enough the shortest way from your boiler to hot water cylinder - so I'd say it's rather unlikely it goes anywhere near the new shower room. It would mean running two new pipes.

[Jeremy]

Just about to do this myself using one of the chrome ladder style towel radiators from Screwfix (around £100) and an electric element from B&Q (£25-35).

[Martin]

Thats a lot cheaper than the ones I've been looking at Thanks Jeremy!

Martin

[Tim (Remove NOSPAM.]

Do you fill the radiator with water / oil / what? Fill it totally or leave some expansion space? how much?

Am interested in doing the same- SWMBO insists on keeping our existing hot water style towel rail but its impractical to run CH pipes to its new location...

Tim..