Few people would argue that if you can afford it, a heated towel rail in the colder weather is nearly a must have. But what about in summer? If you have a heated towel rail in your bathroom should you turn it off when the warm weather hits or still keep it running?
Heated towel rail benefits
Before we take a look at whether heated towel rails are worth it in the summer, let’s first summarise the benefits of these bathroom wonders:
- If you’ve ever grabbed a damp towel after finishing your shower, you could suggest that there’s really only one single reason for needing a heated towel rail in your bathroom. Hard to argue, when you could be wrapping yourself in a toasty towel instead!
- There are in fact health benefits from having a heated towel rail, and we’re not suggesting you’re going to catch pneumonia from using a cold, wet towel! Damp towels are perfect breeding grounds for bacteria, so it’s important to dry them between uses.
- Some, but certainly not all, models (like our Gordon heated towel rail) help to keep your bathroom warmer.
- They simply look good, although, as we’ll explain later, some look a little better than others!
Using your heated towel rail in the summer
While you probably don’t need to warm-up your bathroom in summer (although during a cold spell or cool morning in the southern states it can come in handy) do the other benefits make them worthwhile? In simple terms, the answer is yes and here’s why:
- While heated towel rails do warm your towels and make them lovely and toasty, their prime function is to dry your towels. In humid conditions (i.e. when the atmosphere is damp) drying towels can be difficult and having a heated towel rail to help is a real bonus.
- One of the benefits of heated towel rails that we didn’t include above is that, after the initial investment, they can help save you money. This is because towels that are dried more quickly don’t need to be washed as regularly. If you use your dryer to dry your towels (after being washed or in-between showers, as some people do) the savings are multiplied.
- Particularly if your bathroom isn’t well ventilated, bacteria such as mould, can still be an issue in summer. A heated towel rail is the best way to reduce bacteria growth, in any weather.
Why wouldn’t you use your heated towel rail in summer?
One of the key reasons people don’t use their heated towel rails in summer is that they think they are wasting money on power bills. However, as we discovered in the post Do heated towel rails use a lot of electricity?, you may be surprised to know how little money you would save if you did turn off your unit during the warmer weather.
This is because most heated towel rails are very efficient and only use around 100 to 200 watts of electricity per hour. A 200 watt unit, for example, would cost around $1.68 if it was on all day.
However, with most units being connected to a timer or at least able to be turned on an off, typical running costs would be 28 cents a day. If you ran your heated towel all 90 days of summer, this would be just over $25 in running costs. Most shouts at the pub cost more than that!
Speaking of timers, if you really want to save on energy costs, you could probably cut down the running time of your heated towel rail in summer. If you run your unit for around four hours in winter, cut it down to two hours in summer. It won’t save you a lot of money, but if it makes you feel better by all means go for it.
Introducing Gordon
For good looks and high efficiency, it’s hard to go past the Gordon heated towel rail. While most units will do a reasonable job of drying one or two well-spaced towels, our Gordon takes care of four bath sheet sized towels. Yes, that’s right, four large towels!
It also does this while being more efficient than most models. This is partly because of the design of our rail, which features clever vertical fins instead of horizontal rails, and the aluminium that it is made from.
It’s so efficient that it reaches operating temperature three times quicker than a standard heated towel rail and dries towels much quicker. So quickly that we call it flash drying technology.
To top it off, Gordon is available in four colours – white, black, dark grey and sandstone. It’s sure to make a splash in any bathroom.
