Timer switch foir towel rail

I'm about to fit a heated towel rail into a shower room. The rail will be heater via the CH system but I'm adding an electric element to heat it during summer months when the CH is off.

I'd like to add a timer so I can set it to operate for a couple of hours per day. There are plenty of 'plug-in' times on the market but clearly I can't use these in a bathroom. Despite looking I can't find a 'hard wired' timer which would be suitable for bathroom use for this.

Can anyone point me towards one? Or failing that has anyone any ideas of a different solution?

Thanks

Reply to
Geoff
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Don't have heated towels in the summer.

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Reply to
john

================================== Do a 'google' for 'Grasslin'. They do a full range including a wired-in version. Very reliable.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Any water-heater timer solution. Look at Horstmann. The simplest solution would be the Electrisaver which gives manual control of up to 3 hours. Alternatively, assuming the towel rail element is around 150W, a central heating controller with typically 3A contacts could be considered but don't forget a means of isolation.

However wiring in a bathroom/shower room is not a trival exercise so I have to suggest fitting the controls outside the room.

Jim A

Reply to
Jim Alexander

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:17:33 GMT someone who may be "Geoff" wrote this:-

Fit one outside the bathroom.

Reply to
David Hansen

You could plumb the rail so it gets hot when ever the boiler fires, before the zone or Y valves. Or you could stick a timer outside the bathroom, but do cost up how much the timer costs V the cost of the electricity,

Reply to
James Salisbury

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:17:33 GMT someone who may be "Geoff" wrote this:-

How is water heated in the summer? If it is done via a storage system then there is often a lot to be said for connecting a towel rail to the cylinder, or the pipes which heat the cylinder.

Reply to
David Hansen

No its a combi

Reply to
Geoff

On Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:14:53 GMT someone who may be "Geoff" wrote this:-

Ah, one of the many problems with such contraptions is that they cannot easily provide a bit of hot water for towel rails, though there are some circulation schemes which might work with one.

Reply to
David Hansen

The instructions with the towel rail element I installed a few weeks ago were very insistent that it should not be used at the same time as the rail was being heated by the boiler. Presumably its thermostat was intended as an emergency over-temperature device rather than operating routinely. My solution was to fit a pipe/cylinder thermostat (Salus, from Toolstation) just above the water inlet / element fitting Tee, and to wire it in the feed to the element. A suitable setting ensures it turns the element off more or less as soon as the boiler fires up. It's also wired through a timeswitch. The towel rail is plumbed such that it gets hot water when any of the zones call for heat.

It's in Zone 2, and the leads to the thermostat and the element both go to a junction box in a difficult-to access part of the airing cupboard. The timeswitch and fcu are in an adjoining room. As others have said, there are several timeswitches suitable for "other room" use.

Reply to
Autolycus

Mary, unless you live in a different Yorkshire to me then summer is not what it used to be:-) A heated towel radiator is the way forward.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadworth

I'm in Leeds.

We never felt the need for warm towels in the summer.

The OP wanted dry towels, though, not warm ones. We don't have a problem with wet towels either ...

Perhaps our house is dryer than his ...

Mary

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Reply to
Mary Fisher

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