Hia ll. We have enough space to fit a shallow airing cupboard in the bathroom. Perhaps 10 - 12" deep by 3 - 4 wide. What are the heat source options apart from a radiator...I'm thinking.. 'floor level' radiator to go inside of course and it could run off the central heating.
Suggestions, points-to-note and options..please.
Arthur
That would work very well.
You can get radiators of 300mm high and if you had a single panel one about 750mm wide, you would get about 300W out of it which is more than enough. It would make sense to put a thermostatic valve on it and you can set the temperature accordingly.
An alternative would be a small electric tubular heater, but then you have the cost of running it plus the possible issues of electricity in the bathroom.
An inverted horseshoe of 22mm copper pipe with reducers on the ends to take
10mm pipe from the central heating system. In a small area like you have will only need something like 2 foot tall of 22mm pipework. And it won't take up any major space in such a small area.Remember to fit a TEE with a bleed point to one corner of the loop.
An option I use very successfully in an airing cupboard which has no plumbing to heat it is a dehumidifier. It generates 400W of heat, _and_ it mops up all the water released so it doesn't end up being dumped into the rest of the house to condense out somewhere (and it gives me plenty of distilled water for the iron with the excess for watering the plants).
You will need a roomstat in there to cut it off when the temperature exceeds the working temperature of the dehumidifier (set to 35C in my case), and you will either want a one-shot timer (an immersion heater timer will do) or a dehumidifier with a humidity switch, so it switches off when it's dried the cloths. In a bathroom, you would need to watch distance from bath/shower for electrical appliances, and you could make the dehumidifier non-portable some way and wired in without a plug and socket, and perhaps have an interlock which isolates the power from it when the airing cupboard door was opened. Mine is 9" wide, so it would fit in a 10" deep cupboard without the inlet and outlet being constricted -- you'll have to look for one which is suitable in terms of size, shape, where inlet and outlet are, and accessibility for emptying the container (or plumbing the unit to a waste outlet if you don't want to use the condensate). Also, for this to work, you need the airing cuboard door to seal reasonably air-tight (like any normal door, but not for example an open louvred door allowing a free exchange of air with the rest of the house).
It takes about an hour to dry a washing machine load, or two hours if that includes large towels, or sheets which have to be folded to fit in the cupboard, or if you end up hanging multiple cloths over each other because of lack of hanging space. You need rails to hang all the cloths over such that the air from the dehumidifier can circulate all around, and be careful cloths can't fall on the dehumidifier inlet/outlet and block it.
MikeS
Great ideas, thanks,
ar
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