Heaters towel rail - flexible brackets?

[Yappuno]

Hello - are there wall brackets for heated towel rails that allow for the heated pipe to be slightly lower than where the hole has been drilled into the wall?

I have seen brackets that swivel left and right to accommodate curved towel rails but nothing that swivels up and down slightly.

Unfortunately in my rental flat the holes have been drilled out of step with the spacing of pipes on the towel rail. I guess they didn’t want to drill into the middle of a tile. To adjust for that they used brackets with a rubbery knob at the end, but this is not suitable for the heat and has started cracking. I would like to replace with proper brackets that can withstand the heat, but they need to clasp rails which are a little lower than the hole in the wall.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[terryplumb]

How much vertical distance between the brackets and the rail ? Most have a few millimetres movement on the brackets,there is a slot that the screw goes through ,and into the wall.

 

[Yappuno]

I reckon the vertical distance is 5mm maybe? See photo. In any case I suspect too much for the built-in ‘give’ on the standard bracket, as that’s what is in place now, but they had to substitute the hard top that came with the bracket for a softer flexible one that turned out to be unsuitable for the heat. The fixing at the bottom of the rail, not visible here, is a standard bracket, so they clearly couldn’t use this here.

 

[terryplumb]

Looks like the brackets are hanging off the wall. If you try to pull upward on the radiator ,is there any vertical movement on the two pipes ? In other words could the radiator have dropped over time ,due to the wall fixings not being good enough ?

 

[Yappuno]

No, the bracket at the bottom of the towel rail (that you can’t see here) is perfectly aligned with the wall and the towel rail. It’s only the top brackets that you see here which have this bad fit. I am pretty sure they were installed like that, because they need to compensate the gap between the height of where the hole was drilled and the height where the heated rails come to. That is also why they had to choose flexible rubber knobs which couldn’t take the heat. Attaching another photo from the front.

Anyone knows of a type of bracket that can handle this discrepancy in height?

 

[Rodders53]

Are you Landlord or Tenant?

Landlord (or Landlord's handyperson) should remove towel rail entirely and re drill holes for suitable brackets in the correct location(s). Fill the unwanted holes for cosmetic purposes, and re-fix the towel rail. No amount of bodging will have a truly satisfactory outcome.

Most such towel rail fixings have slotted screw holes to allow a degree of height/levelling adjustment. But not much; a cm or so at most.