Adding a heated towel rail above radiator

[Richyfenn]

Hi Everybody,

I have a small bathroom with a perfectly adequate small radiator with a towel rail (one rung for one towel) above it. I'd like to add a heated towel rail above so I can hang more towels.

The image shows the existing rad at the bottom which I do not want to remove/change as the tiling behind it has holes in it for the fixings. Above it is the style of heated rail I'd like to add. Can I plumb it to the top valve connectors from the original rad and it still work ok? I'm not too worried if it doesn't get very hot, as long as the bottom one still works.

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• Richyfenn
• 25 Aug 2011
• 1

If it's going to be bad I'll just plumb it properly but if I can get an ok result (bottom rad-hot, top rad-warm)without doing a lot more pipework that'd be great. I will add valves between the rads.

Thank you!

Rich[/img]

 

[DeltaT2]

An interesting one Richy, it could work a treat, but it all depends on your system circulation pump 'head', and the flow rate to your radiator. If it's a wee system on a sealed system or combi. My money is on it'll work a treat.

 

[Richyfenn]

Thanks DeltaT2 that sounds promising

Its a 2 bed house with 4 large rads plus the little bathroom, sealed system, combi boiler. I think there should be plenty of capacity as it heats the house very well and all the rads heat up quickly.

Thanks again!
Rich

 

[Charnwood]

Why bother plumbing it in?
There'll be plenty of heat rising from the radiator. Just fit the rail as per your diagram without the links to the rad.

 

[seco services]

Why bother plumbing it in?

Why bother fitting it
it looks awlful.

 

[DeltaT2]

Why bother plumbing it in?

Why bother fitting it
it looks awlful.

Why not? If the OPs house is anything like ours, it'll be covered in towels 24/7................3 teenagers taking 2 showers a day!!! Jeez!! We had a bath once a week - if we needed it or not.

 

[mysteryman]

It is an excellent idea, go ahead and do it. Shut off the two radiator valves first, and you can do this job with the rest of the central heating up and running.

Please ignore the sarcastic guys out there!

 

[crashndie]

it will work fine, but id sack the valves off in between the rad and the rail use chrome pipe 2x 1/2" mf chrome elbows and 2x 1/2" mf chrome couplings, they have taperd threads on 1 side that will screw in tho each end of the rad and have compression on the other side, and use chrome so it looks bit neater ?

 

[Phill Peck]

i have actually done this in the past it worked really well and allowed the bathroom to heat better cos the rad wasnt covered in towels

 

[cantaloup63]

If you find a local plumber he'll be able to use his bender to sort you out a couple of parallel offsets to link the elbows from the bottom rad to the straight couplers in the towel rad .

 

[Richyfenn]

Hi Everyone,

I had thought about leaving it not plumbed in but I like a little challange. Also I hadn't thought about using chrome pipe, that'll be much nicer than copper.

Thanks for all the input!

 

[dormermike]

How did you get on with this?

I was thinking of doing the same.. but with a dual fuel rad

 

[JimLoskot]

would it not be better to remove the rad and fit a larger towel rad?

 

[Richyfenn]

Hi, I've not managed to do it yet. The parts are on order but won't arrive for a couple of weeks.

I didn't want to remove the current rad as I'm happy with it and don't want to faff with the fixings much as it looks a bit of a mess behind it, the previous owner tiled around the rad fixings not very nicely.

 

[dormermike]

Towel rads push out next to no heat too