Options for switching electrically heated towel rail in wet room?

Aug 22, 2019 Last reply: 6 years ago 30 Replies

We're aiming to put an electrically heated (as well as CH heated) towel rail in the new shower/wet room. How are these normally switched on and off?



Possibilities seem to me to be:-


1 Pull switch, but this feels wrong for a towel rail somehow, also difficult to provide a clear indicator, a little glow by the switch on the ceiling isn't very obvious.


2 Normal switch outside the wet-room. Possible but again seems rather counter-intuitive, though one could at least have a nice obvious 'on' indicator.


3 A switch in the wet room but outside the zones. This is fairly easy in this case as the switch could be positioned on the soil pipe casing on the opposite side of the wet-room from the shower.


4 A Quinetic switch, but this doesn't have an indicator so I'd have to add that as well, a rather expensive solution in total. Can one get 'indicator' lamps as stand-alone accessories?


5 One could get all clever and have a low voltage (SELV) switch and circuit controlling a contactor/relay but this does seem a bit OTT.

The third option seems most "easy to use and find" but is it actually OK? Can one get switches which are particularly suitable for damp[ish] locations?



If I go for the Quinetic switch option it would make sense to get a dual controller as I'm aiming to use a Quinetic switch for the lights. However this raises the issue of what to connect it all to. All the towel radiator electric heaters say they must be run from an FCU but I guess they are assuming being connected to a power circuit with 32A or



20A breaker. Can I connect the heater direct to a lighting circuit as this is what I would be connecting the lighting Quinetic switch to. It will have a 6A breaker so I can't really se an issue with this. The instructions for the Screwfix ones say "The fused spur should be fitted with at least a 5 amp fuse to the appropriate standard." which doesn't make a lot of sense! Would a 13 amp fuse be better?? :-)

Gridswitch plate with a neon module.

You can but they tend to be a bit horticultural :-)

I would probably go for a pull switch with a separate indicating module outside the room door, if leaving the thing on and forgetting it is an issue. Or even a runback timer switch so it runs for eg 2 hours to warm the room / dry the towels, then turns off.

Owain

In the end I simply fitted a 30A DP with neon switched spur outside the room next to the shower switch. This was a few years ago. In reality we never use the electric because when it's cold enough to need extra heating in the wet room because the central heating is on. The thing we did right was to have a big radiator in the wetroom, so it's always really warm in there. This is what you need when you are bathing a disabled person. Wetrooms need to be really warm.

Bill

A relative of mine has an electric towel radiator. It takes hours to heat up, so he leaves it on 24/7. Otherwise he'd have to plan in advance, which isn't going to happen...

Overkill for a 400 watt heater! :-)

The electric heater is really to get towels dry in the summer.

Yes, I'm aiming to get a 400 watt or 600 watt heater which shoudn't take a huge time to get hot.

So fit one with an ON/OFF flag

Normal switches have a on and off position.

Why not?

Overkill

Overkill

Is the switch likely to get wet?

How about a runback timer triggered either from a pipe stat (mixer shower), or a current operated switch [1] (electric shower)?

That way it would turn on when the shower starts, and off a few hours after its finished. No need to remember to turn it on or off.

[1]
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It was 600W. And it was an appearance match to the main shower switch and the one for the extractor. And I couldn't be arsed buying different ones.

I see. I know I'm weird but I take towels to the wash as soon as they're significantly damp. I'm very profligate with the washing machines.

Sort of moving on a bit, it's surprising how much washing is generated by certain types of disability. It comes down to having a lot of garments in circulation and just not worrying about the electric bill. That's what PIP is for I guess.

The amount of clinical waste and soiled incontinence products is also vast. Doncaster Council could offer no help; no big surprise.

I went through this twice, once with my dad and once with my wife.

Anyway, these matters are now behind me. I suppose this is as good a place to mention it as any, but my beloved wife Hilary died on the 7th August. I am utterly heartbroken.

Bill

They aren't quick. And they don't do much to dry towels unless you leave them on 24/7.

Bill

So sorry to hear this Bill. I don?t think your father could have had a more loving son or your wife a more loving husband.

Tim

I'm sorry to hear that Bill, I don't always agree with you but I still feel for your loss.

*** condolences ***

Owain

Bill

I'm very sorry to hear that.

Charles

In message <qjnmvi$cnk$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org>, Bill Wright snipped-for-privacy@f2s.com writes

Bill. I am sorry. Look back on the good times and consider she would not have wanted you to suffer.

Very sorry to hear that Bill, take care of yourself.

Sorry to hear that Bill, Unfortunately one of very few cast iron guarantees that comes with life. I hope you can draw strength from the support shown by your uk.d-i-y friends.

Drill a 5inch hole in the wall.

With automation and string, drag the wet though and up a flag pole to dry in the wind. On timer bring towels back, or swap to backup towel, if outside humidity or wind don't present ideal drying conditions.

heated)

shoudn't

That surprises me but made me think: Why?

2 seconds of engaged brain and it obvious that the heat input has to be *significantly* more than the rated heat output of the towel rail otherwise it'll be losing heat almost as fast as it's been supplied.

Position/orientation of the heater might be important as well, you want to set up a decent gravity flow within the towel rail to shift the heat from the vicinty of the element to the rest of the rail.

Switches, you can get dedicated towel rail "run back" type switches. Sort of thing where you press a button and it cycles through 1hr,

2hr, 3hr, off.

Sincere condolences Bill.

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