Help… radiator changed in ensuite, now got a walk in fridge…

Maybe someone can help here… We had our ensuite completely changed around, and although it LOOKS great, it just won’t get snuggly warm any more 🙁

Here is the NEW layout – the radiator is now just as you walk in on the left; it is a nice shiny chrome towel radiator, the output acoording to the spec sheet is definitely enough (more than!) for this small room, but it just won’t get warm!

Previously the radiator was on the wall to the right of where the shower is now; it was an old white towel radiator style one, and it heated the room no problem.

Is it the radiator? I read on the web (must be true…) that chrome ones don’t heat a room as well as non-chrome ones?
Or the location of the radiator? Or cause the walls are now tiled it will always be a colder room??

Any ideas welcome…

First thing is the radiator getting as hot as the old one? Is there a cold region at the top that might indicate trapped air, which can be easily resolved by bleeding the radiator?

It could be that the lockshield valve on the radiator (normally under some kind of cap at the bottom of the radiator) is closed more than the previous one was, restricting flow through the radiator & so there isn’t as much heating effect taking place?
EDIT – to open the lockshield valve, pull the cover/cap off and use some pliers to turn it anti-clockwise. Half a turn to start with & see if that helps.

Do you cover the radiator in a towel? My Wife does this and wonders why the bathroom doesn’t get warm.

Is the door normally kept shut? If not, the heat might be just escaping into the neighbouring room.

Presuming you’ve checked the rad is filling correctly and doesnt need bleeding or anything?

Is the radiator actually getting hot?

No idea why, but my towel radiator has stopped working. We removed, cleaned and replaced all the radiators in the house except the towel rail. Refilled and bled everything. Now everything is much hotter, except the towel rail. Before it would get warm to about halfway up (needed a bleed obviously), no nothing.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Is the radiator actually getting hot?

No idea why, but my towel radiator has stopped working. We removed, cleaned and replaced all the radiators in the house except the towel rail. Refilled and bled everything. Now everything is much hotter, except the towel rail. Before it would get warm to about halfway up (needed a bleed obviously), no nothing.

Much better flow through the rest of the system now means that the towel radiator isn’t getting it’s share of flow?
Is it getting warm at all? Was the system re-balanced with the new radiators?

Faulty valve at the bottom. Just had the same problem here had to drain it down and replace them both.

Is it covered in towels……? 😉

No idea why, but my towel radiator has stopped working. We removed, cleaned and replaced all the radiators in the house except the towel rail. Refilled and bled everything. Now everything is much hotter, except the towel rail. Before it would get warm to about halfway up (needed a bleed obviously), no nothing.

You need to re-balance your system (i.e. each radiator).

Do we know yet if the rad is actually getting warm?

If the BTU output says x then it means x, not y when taking into account it is chrome.

Edit – is the door left open when the room isn’t in use? If so, much of the heat will be leaving the room through the adjacent door…

I read on the web (must be true…) that chrome ones don’t heat a room as well as non-chrome ones?

🙄

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Should have said that the radiator does get hot, and was bled a few times (had other new radiators installed in kitchen and system was drained).

We tried it with and without towels on; it did not heat the room any better without towels. The old radiator was always covered in towels and seemed to be okay…

The system was not rebalanced when the final new radiator was installed, but would that matter if the radiator is getting hot?

I read on the web (must be true…) that chrome ones don’t heat a room as well as non-chrome ones?

Yes, I know 🙂

Oh, and the door to the adjacent room is shut. Although maybe I should keep it open, that room does get nice and warm 😀

Is it just that the new room is colder (ie, more tiles etc)?

And what is the output of the new radiator compared to the old one?

For example, if the room measurement says you need a 600BTU and you got an 800BTU one then it should get warm enough (when balanced correctly) however if your old radiator was rated at 1600BTU then the new one isn’t going to compare.

just put a jumper on. 😀

Should have said that the radiator does get hot

Does it get as hot as the old radiator, or are you just saying it gets warm/hot.

Oh, and the door to the adjacent room is shut.

Does the room get warm if you close the bathroom door?

alp_girl – Member

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Should have said that the radiator does get hot, and was bled a few times (had other new radiators installed in kitchen and system was drained).

We tried it with and without towels on; it did not heat the room any better without towels. The old radiator was always covered in towels and seemed to be okay…

The system was not rebalanced when the final new radiator was installed, but would that matter if the radiator is getting hot?

Based on all of that, I would find the lockshield valve & open it a 1/2 turn. I’ve been trying to get the baby’s nursery to a suitable temperature with regard to the rest of the house, so tweaking things. Even though the radiator was already getting ‘hot’ the room was very cool, but a half turn on the lockshield valve has sorted it right out a the radiator is definitely hotter.
Worth a try for 2 mins with a pair of pliers.

Are you leaving the bathroom door open more so you can admire it’s newness as you walk past?

😉

The system was not rebalanced when the final new radiator was installed, but would that matter if the radiator is getting hot?

It may well do

I had a cold rad that was fixed by restricting the flow in another rad 2 floors up (town house

Edit … sorry not really answered your question…. are you sure rad is still as hot as the old one …?

If it is …. in the re-fit, any messing about with waste/plumbing that goes out side …. ie has a new draft been created…??

Right, the lockshield valve will be the next thing to try, thank you! Managed to turn it 1/2 a turn, which means it’s fully open now…

The room gets a bit warmer if we leave the heating on all day, so after ca. 12 hours 😳

just put a jumper on. 😀

Not a bad idea, have a shower with a jumper on and save doing the washing 😛

Guess it’s also worth checking whether the old radiator was more “powerful” than the new one…

If it is …. in the re-fit, any messing about with waste/plumbing that goes out side …. ie has a new draft been created…??

Well, the wall that the toilet is on is not ceiling height, but has a big dormer window; previously there were some built in cupboards along it, now it’s just tiled – maybe that makes a difference, too…

previously there were some built in cupboards along it, now it’s just tiled – maybe that makes a difference, too…

Yep that can make a difference as the cupboards may have provided some insulation.

Much better flow through the rest of the system now means that the towel radiator isn’t getting it’s share of flow?
Is it getting warm at all? Was the system re-balanced with the new radiators?

Shouldn’t be, the valve to the towel rail is fully open so if anything should be robbing the rest of the house, and I fitted TRV’s to all the other radiators at the same time, so you’d expect the rest of the house to warm up, then the towel rail if it was the last one in the circuit.

Did that deliberately as you’re not supposed to do all the radiators with TRV’s to prevent the boiler having to pump against a dead head, so the towel rail seemed the obvious one to leave with manual valves.

a fundamental point.. it is not a radiator designed to heat a space.. it is a heated towel rail designed to heat a towel drapped over it.

True totalshell, but the original was also a towel radiator….

Chrome ones will lose a bit of the ability to “radiate” heat as the low emissivity of chrome vs a typical not that glossy white will have an effect BUT the term radiator is a misnomer as most heat from a radiator is via conduction to the air giving convective heating in your room.

A covered towel radiator is never going to heat as well as a simple rad due to the towel blocking the air flow and the radiation. In the flat I specced a nice tall, oversized towel rad for this reason and it also means that 2 people can actually use the towel radiator as tbh as far as drying towels go they are pretty useless at that too.

I suspect something else might be amiss if the radiator is pretty much the same size as the old one. You say it’s getting hot but is it really getting as hot to touch (be careful) as the other rads?

The comment above about TRVs does not apply to most modern systems as the radiator without the TRV should be in the room with the room stat. An old system with a convection loop might have 2 rads without TRVs as one provides active cooling for the boiler (in our case the bathroom) and then another is the return loop for the system (in our case the landing and stupidly we have a TRV in the kitchen with the room stat so I took it off as the place is rented and not mine to mess with any further).

I would check that the system is definitely bled, close off all but one rad at a time and force the water through and check that the towel radiator is definitely getting the proper flow and EVERY bar is getting hot as it could also be an internal fault with the towel rail that you’ve not noticed.

I have a heated towel rail in my en suite. Its electric and does a great job of stopping the towels going musty and airs the room of moisture. But it doesn’t actually create enough heat to warm the room. That’s the job of the radiator in there, which has a convection finned and TRV on it. It works well too. Water heated towel rails are great if you leave the heating on, but as soon as the water and heating go off, so does the towel rail. I believe you can fit inline heaters to compensate for the issue, but a towel rail covered in towels is not going to do diddly in warming the room.

I don’t suppose you had some spotlights fitted too? My electrician removed all the insulation and didn’t put it back.

Some more good ideas there – maybe the fact that the cupboards are gone and it’s now just a tiled wall makes a difference. I also remember that the guys took out insulation from there to get the toilet cistern into the wall, maybe they didn’t put enough back in 🙄

As johndoh said, the fact that we had a towel radiator style one in there before, and that it was covered in towels all the time but still managed to heat the room is the thing that I don’t understand…

We did have spotlights fitted, but there’s plenty of insulation up in the attic. (Your comment did remind me of the other insulation though, see above…)

Luckily we live in balmy Scotland, so only a few frosty nights up here every year 😆 😆

Is there a new more efficient extractor fan now? Or has the old one been cleaned in renovations? It’s by the door so maybe more draughty now but same temp?

Who knows? You’ll get used to it.

The whole system might need re-balancing – the lock-shield valves on the radiators which have had TRVs fitted may well have been shut off and opened again without noting the setting, and the new rads that have been fitted should be balanced into the system. (Does the room with the new rads get nice and warm?)

Has removing the built-in cupboards increased the room volume significantly??

Is the bathroom in an attic conversion / storey and a half house?
If yes I’d seriously investigate the insulation in the sloping ceiling and behind the vertical coom walls!
The above suggestion re. any extract fan may also be pertinent as it effectively s 100mm dis. open vent.
Other than that it looks to be a very slim (500mm?) towel rail…how tall is it and what’s the output

True totalshell, but the original was also a towel radiator….

Maybe the original towel rail had a radiator panel in it so it was better for heating?

Where’s the window?

In the flat I specced a nice tall, oversized towel rad for this reason

Yep. The lady at Wimpey specced the towel rails for us and said you need much bigger towel rails than you do rads.

If its all bled and whatnot and still not heating, my best suggestion is:

put trvs on all the other rads
leave the heating on a lot longer

We have a large chrome towel rail in our small bathroom. Even so, still useless at keeping the bathroom warm – if it wasn’t for the fact it is on 24/7 (its the heat leak for the coal boiler).

I would suggest keeping all your perishable foodstuffs in the en-suite. You can then turn off the fridge in your kitchen and save money.

FWIW, our towel rail (about 6ft by 2ft6) keeps our en-suite boiling, and has to be turned down almost all the way off.

Guessing – it’s getting hot but not “using” the heat.
Part of balancing the system is ensuring that the hot water has time to drop in temperature leaving the radiators.
It needs to stay in there a while or your boiler will be on and off constantly as it thinks the system is up to temp where the returning water is the same as the outgoing.
Your TRV (if fitted) will shut the rad at whatever temp you have it set to (3 is about 21 degrees)
However you need to be able to ensure that the water is moving slow enough to transfer its heat to the metal of the rad and the air from there.
I was taught to turn the shield valve off.
Then bring it back open slowly listening to the flow noise.
You’ll hear it start.
Then you’ll hear it decrease the further you open the valve.
If you can’t hear it – its open too far.
Close it back off until you hear a good “shhhhhhhh”.

Is the floor in the room different? If you have gone from (say) vinyl to tile then the room might be the same temperature but will feel much colder as the tiles feel cold underfoot.