Is your bathroom rad permanently on?

[matticus]

(Modern semi ~30years old, Croudace-built I think).

This is a feature we've just got used to -it can be quite handy to warm up your towel on - but in the recent heatwave I started to question it again. (it does have a standard "+/-" rotary control valve at one end, to be clear. Nothing fancy!)

Forgive my embarassing UTTER ignorance* of domestic plumbing, and tell me what you know - all info appreciated.


(*Beyond bleeding the rads, I view it as something best left to experts, and don't want to buy another rarely-used set of tools!)

 

[vickster]

No, only when the heating is on

 

[Dogtrousers]

No, only when its thermostat calls for heat and tells the boiler to get itself together. Which it hasn't done for quite a while.

 

[T4tomo]

(Modern semi ~30years old, Croudace-built I think).

This is a feature we've just got used to -it can be quite handy to warm up your towel on - but in the recent heatwave I started to question it again. (it does have a standard "+/-" rotary control valve at one end, to be clear. Nothing fancy!)

Forgive my embarassing UTTER ignorance* of domestic plumbing, and tell me what you know - all info appreciated.


(*Beyond bleeding the rads, I view it as something best left to experts, and don't want to buy another rarely-used set of tools!)

sounds like yours is plumbed through the tap hot water system (as opposed to the heating pipes) , as a number of towel rails are, so that when you have a shower or bath, your towel warms up.

 

[oxoman]

Some older systems use the radiator to take excess heat off the tank. Also some posh towel radiators have a small electric element to heat them up when the heating isn't on.

 

[ianrauk]

sounds like yours is plumbed through the tap hot water system (as opposed to the heating pipes) , as a number of towel rails are, so that when you have a shower or bath, your towel warms up.

This.
My last house had this. It confused the buggery out of me when I moved in so called a plumber and he explained.

 

[annedonnelly]

We had a radiator like that in the house I grew up in - 1930's build, though the heating would be added later. It wasn't the bathroom one though. I think it was my bedroom.

 

[Profpointy]

Some older systems use the radiator to take excess heat off the tank. Also some posh towel radiators have a small electric element to heat them up when the heating isn't on.

We had one like that installed in our old flat. It ran off the central heating if running, but could run on a half hour timer if we turned the lecci heater bit on in the summer. Quite a good idea. Somehow didn't specify the lecci version for the one in our house

 

[Beebo]

This.
My last house had this. It confused the buggery out of me when I moved in so called a plumber and he explained.

yep. My parents 1930s house had a linked radiator and hot water tank.
It was the old fashioned version of a heated towel rail.
They now have a combo boiler so the hot water tank has gone and the radiator replumbed.

 

[Gillstay]

This.
My last house had this. It confused the buggery out of me when I moved in so called a plumber and he explained.

That's brilliant logic, you get a hot towel even if you don't want it, you get a cooler shower, more water wasted, and no control over the system unless you call in an expensive plumber and then have to redo part of the bathroom.
The absurdity is amazing.

 

[Arjimlad]

We used to have a "heat leak" rad when we had a baxi boiler behind the fire, but with a modern condensing combi boiler, warm radiators can be a sign of a sticky diverter valve which heats the radiators when it is meant to be heating tap water.

 

[robjh]

This reminds me of a friend who moved to Poland for work in the 1990s and lived for a while in a flat in a post-war block where the hot water was provided for the whole block (or maybe district), and the radiators had no thermostats or on/off controls, so if the heating made it too hot indoors you just opened the windows. Or vice versa, you just put more clothes on.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

At one point we thought the electric thin radiator was on in our IOW chalet a few weeks ago, but then we felt the thin wall all along that side of the chalet which was also toasty, that June heatwave sun was beaming on it all afternoon!

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

Fully electric heating here so our bathroom radiator is on a switch.

 

[VinSumRox]

It was when the bathroom fitters put it in, I have since changed the valve to a thermostatic one, so it only gets hot when needed!