Which type of heater is best for a bathroom?

[Brian Gaff]

You are fighting the laws of nature here though. All heat is going to rise after all. I guess the only one that can warm other parts of the body will be heated seats and floors. Eventually, though lower down will still be cooler than higher up unless its a complex air recirculation system, probably a bit overkill for a bathroom, but it begs the question, why is your house so cold? Are there draftee bits?

I have a 1 bar fire very high up in my bathroom and yet I don't seem to feel the cold as there is just one air vent I can close to stop the wind a blowin. Brian

[Roger Hayter]

Part of the problem may be the British habit of turning off the central heating at night, even in the coldest weather. Though I note the OP's CH doesn't even extend to the bathroom, and he appears to want this situation to remain permanent.

[NY]

Yes I'm firmly of the opinion that it is folly to turn off central heating at certain times of year. Leave it on all year round and let the thermostat do the job it's designed for. You can get cold evenings in the summer as well as in the winter. And keep the heating on until everyone's gone to bed, if you are one of those people who likes their bedroom to be colder than normal room temp (my wife prefers to sleep in a cool room with lots of bedding, whereas I prefer a warmer room with less bedding, so you don't end up with a warm body but icy-cold head and face.

CH radiators (*) seem to do a good job of keeping bathroom warm, so maybe in the absence of CH you need a heater that mimics a radiator - a large panel that gets up to about 80 deg C, as opposed to a very small heating element that gets red hot and sends out radiant heat (often in just one direction) but does little to warm the air in the room.

(*) Which actually do most of their heating by convection.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

When my central heating was down, I found a 3 Kw fan heater warmed up my pretty large bathroom very quickly.

[The Other Mike]

Central heating not on during the night?

How about leaving it switched on all year round and using programmable thermostats and zoning?

Can't afford it? Then improve the insulation levels.

If the other residents don't mind then leave the door open and heat the landing or hallway.

Best heater for a bathroom? One that keeps the room warm for when its going to be used. With lots of decent insulation, maybe some solar gain, a closed door and a small source of heat like a towel rail you could possibly keep the room at reasonable comfort levels round the clock.

[Bob Eager]

I quite agree. Our CH goes off at night for a few hours, and during the day if we're not in. The house has enough thermal inertia to cope - normally.

But in very cold weather, it gets too cold and takes hours to warm up again. At that point, it stays on overnight. Usually just a few nights per year.

[The Other Mike]

2W? shurely shome misstake?

Neglecting the specific heat capacity of the bathroom furniture and heat losses through the structure and concentrating on just heating the air

Assume 2.4 m cube bathroom = 13.8m^3 Density of air around 1.225kg/m^3 So about 17kg of air

Specific heat capacity of air is circa 1.00 kJ/kg.K For a 5 deg C temperature gain that's 85kJ

2kW heater = 2000J/s 85000/2000 = 42 seconds

Forty two? Coincidence or what?

[alan_m]

Isn't that a heated towel rail in the picture of the bathroom? Or maybe it's not connected?

[Roger Hayter]

This is the only rational way to do it. Unless you are able to predict an hour before you will need the bathroom and have a remote switch. This must be unusual.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I think you have the best possible setup, and it's exactly what I install in bathrooms even though they have central heating.

Downflow heaters in bathrooms do need dust cleaning out though. I wonder if your dead one had become blocked with dust, reducing the effect of the fan getting the heat down to the floor, and raising the output temperature due to reduced air flow causing the output heat to convect quickly back to the ceiling? I switch mine to operate only at 1kW anyway.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The reason I use them in a bathroom is they don't need to heat the bathroom, just the air in the bathroom, and that takes around 30-60 seconds. For visits shorter than that, I don't need heating.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not always practical in older houses.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

+1.

Due to the recent unseasonably (for London) cold weather, my dual fuel monthly payment has been increased by quite a bit. And I did unusually run the heating overnight on a few days.

[Huge]

[27 lines snipped]

+1

[John Rumm]

I never turn our heating "off" as such, but it runs on a programmable stat, and spends some periods of the day at its "set back" temperature (15 IIRC). Its exceedingly rare that the place cools enough for it to kick in during a setback period - perhaps on a very cold windy night.

[Bill Wright]

Also, always take your phone with you in case you take a turn for the worse.

Afterwards wash your hands and anything you've touched very thoroughly. I use alcohol-based hand gel as well as washing.

Then make sure you drink plenty, otherwise when you wake in the morning you'll have a headache due to dehydration. I have tea making facilities upstairs.

Bill