Question about heat output from chrome towel rails

[kugelhopf]

Hoping someone will be able to explain this to me. I've been looking at towel rails for a bathroom refit, and I noticed that chrome radiators give out less heat than the equivalent painted steel rad. To give an example taken at random from a brochure, where the painted rad gives 797 watts, the chrome equivalent gives 520.

What I want to know is whether this means that heat is being wasted. Does the chrome rad take the same amount of power from your boiler but give out less heat, or does it actually use less power?

Thanks!

 

[Centralheatking]

The rating is how much heat the rad emits - no heat is wasted - where could it go except back down the rtn to the boiler. Its just not as efficient for its size in giving out heat.

As usual they look nice and are rel expensive but poor in terms of heat output on a
comparable m2 basis

centralheatking

 

[diamondgas]

:welcome: to the forum kugelhopf

As Centralheatking says ... They just aren't designed to give out heat! A conventional radiator utalises a lot more surface area than a towel rad to distribute more heat

 

[kugelhopf]

Hi, thanks for the replies. I get diamondgas's point about towel rails not really being designed to give out a lot of heat, but what I'm talking about is identical ones (same size, same model) having different outputs when the only difference is in the finish.

 

[barronbathrooms]

As diamond says they are towel warmers normally enough to take the chill off a bathroom though.

 

[quality]

I have this with customers all the time, a towel radiator is for towels and for towels only. Cover it with towels and it makes no difference what colour it is.
Towel rad for towels and radiator or better underfloor for heating

 

[AWheating]

radiators are 100% efficient in essence. As mentioned towel rails are not designed to give the same output as a radiator, they are designed to warm your towels.

 

[GrahamM]

Hoping someone will be able to explain this to me. I've been looking at towel rails for a bathroom refit, and I noticed that chrome radiators give out less heat than the equivalent painted steel rad. To give an example taken at random from a brochure, where the painted rad gives 797 watts, the chrome equivalent gives 520.

What I want to know is whether this means that heat is being wasted. Does the chrome rad take the same amount of power from your boiler but give out less heat, or does it actually use less power?

Thanks!

Depends on what you mean by wasted. If by wasted you mean not 'operating as efficient', then yes.
If you have a large, cold bathroom then a towel rail will take a lot longer to get the bathroom upto a comfortable temperature than it would if a correctly sized radiator was installed.

 

[HawkWhiteFinger]

Get a 1.8m tall towel rail, then there's enough to heat the bathroom and warm your towels. Or zone the rail seperatley so that it gets hot enough.

 

[tamz]

Hoping someone will be able to explain this to me.

Basic high school physics. The brighter and shiner the object, the less it emits or absorbs.

Have a read of this. It goes into a bit more detail than you need but it will give you the basic principles.
Thermal radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[WHPES]

Get one of the towel rails that has a radiator section in it. Else get one with a lot of pipe in it.

 

[gtmspyder]

Gentlemen, as Tamz has said.

The reason the painted towel rail gives out more heat than a chrome version of exactly the same size, is because the chrome plating reflects the heat back into it's core/circulating water, whereas the less reflective painted version allows the heat to radiate.

This is why people fit reflective shields behind there radiators to stop the radiated heat being absorbed into the wall, and instead, is reflected back into the room, or back into the radiator.

Kind regards,

BrianT.