Plumbed in towel rail with electric element making weird noises?

What an amazingly interesting thread this will be.

In the bathroom in our rented house there is a plumbed in towel rail. Works a treat when the heating’s on, lovely dry towels. At the moment, what with it (allegedly) being summer, the heating is not on, but as temperatures haven’t exactly been balmy of late the towels aren’t drying.

So, last night I discovered that it has an electric element in it too, and an isolator switch on the landing. I flicked it on this morning, but it soon starting making quite a loud hissing/fizzing noise (unsuprisingly, not unlike the noise made by a kettle), so I flicked it off again.

Is it supposed to do this or will it calm down after a while?

And do they cost a fortune to run? Do I leave it on all the time? So many boring questions!

you’re normally supposed to close the valves on the rad prior to using them I think. I’d imagine the bubbling is the water in the rad boling (or it needs bleeding).

It’s going to be costly running a 600w heating element 24/7 😉

you’re normally supposed to close the valves on the rad prior to using them I think.

Ah, are you? I’ll do that. And yeah, that’s what the sound probably is, but it’s really loud. I’ll try a bleed.

It’s going to be costly running a 600w heating element 24/7

Well, yeah. So what’s the best way to use them if it’s just got an on/off switch. It’s either going to be left on all day while we’re at work or all night while we’re asleep…

I think you’re supposed just put them on for 20mins or so to warm the towels up rather than use them for drying purposes.

+1 for valves closed, otherwise you’re using your electric element to heat up all the water in the whole system…. bit like opening your windows and trying to heat up the whole town 🙂

noise is probably either localised boiling, or bubbling of water being driven round the system in an odd way by convection because you’re heating it rather than pumping it.

Dave

Cool, I’ll whack the heating on tonight and bleed it. Then shut the valves. Then get her to switch it on when she gets in the shower and I’ll try to remember to switch it off when I get out…

On a related note, I left the grill on one Saturday morning after making a sausage buttie. I discovered it still on a week later when I got back from my skiing holiday 😯

On a related note, I left the grill on one Saturday morning after making a sausage buttie. I discovered it still on a week later when I got back from my skiing holiday

surprised you still had a house left!

last christmas, i flicked the hot water off and the heating on to ‘frost stat’ mode as we left for a two week tour of family and friends.

Except what I actually did was turn the heating off and the hot water on (always on, rather than timer).

We got back to lovely hot water (no meltdown due to tank ‘stat) and a HUUUUUUUUUUGE gas bill… about £200 more than it should have been due to that little error. Oops.

Dave