Whether you’re contemplating an entire bathroom renovation, or just looking to add a little luxury to your shower and bath times, a heated towel warmer is likely to be in your sights in 2022. So, how do you choose a heated towel warmer that will be perfect for you and banish cold, wet towels forever?
Let’s take a look at our tips on how to choose a heated towel warmer in 2022.
Top heated towel warmer buying tips
- The most important thing to keep in mind is your needs. There’s a vast difference between the towel drying needs of a family of four using the one bathroom, compared to a single person. Also, think about whether you’d like a towel warmer to help take the chill off your bathroom and whether you might use it from time to time to dry your clothes.
- Perhaps the next most important consideration is your space. Adding a large horizontal ladder-style heated towel warmer to a small space, or a small rail to a large space, will look out of proportion. Of course, you need to balance this with the number of towels that you need to dry. Which may lead you to ask, is there a heated towel warmer that will dry several towels and look good in small and large spaces? Yes, there is, but you’ll need to read on to find out more.
- As we highlighted in Do heated towel rails use a lot of electricity, luxury doesn’t need to come with significant running costs. However, if you run your unit all day, everyday, the expenses will add up and you can easily spend over $500 a year in electricity. So, our third tip is to make sure you purchase a heated towel rail with a timer. This will give you the ability to program your unit to come on, say two hours before you generally have a shower, and go off a couple of hours later. Most timers can be manually overridden. If you use your warmer for four hours a day, which is about average, it’s likely it will cost around $100 a year to run.
- Consider whether a standard electric or liquid filled heated towel rail is best for you. The former heats the air inside the rail, while the latter heats the liquid inside the rail. The liquid filled units will cost more to install and set-up and they take longer to warm up than the standard electric towel rail. However, they generally provide more heat to a room than standard electric warmers (generally, but not always, as we’ll discuss below).
- Always check the power rating of the heated towel rail you are considering purchasing. This is important in two ways. Firstly, you don’t want a unit that is underpowered, otherwise it will take forever to heat up and dry your towels. You don’t want a unit that is overpowered, either, otherwise it will cost you dearly to run it. Some heated towel rails can be 500 Watts or more. Compared with a 200 Watt unit, which is around average, the 500 Watt warmer is going to cost you 2 ½ times the electricity.
Forget our tips!
After just spending 454 words (yes, we counted them) bringing you our top tips on selecting a heated towel rail, we’re now going to tell you to forget about them. But we do have a good reason, we promise!
The reason is Gordon, Eskimo’s super-efficient heated towel rail. Take a look at the images on the website and you’ll soon see that it doesn’t look like a standard electric warmer. Which is fine, because it doesn’t perform like them either. Here are some reasons why:
- While most horizontal rail models struggle to dry one or two towels, Gordon can dry four large towels.
- While its primary function is to dry towels, Gordon will add some additional heat to your bathroom, unlike most electric models.
- Gordon can also be used to dry clothes and other fabrics.
- Gordon is stylish enough for any bathroom. While it is space saving and will fit perfectly in small bathrooms, it won’t look out of proportion in large spaces.
- Our 200 Watt heated towel rail can be controlled by an on/off switch, but we recommend a timer that can be programmed to suit your needs.
- Gordon is hardly standard, but it is electric and not liquid filled. It can easily be installed in any bathroom.
- It’s more efficient than most towel warmers and, compared with other units, can warm up more quickly and dry towels in a shorter time.
- Gordon simply looks great and is available in four colours. It’s finished in a textured powder coat to ensure a non-slip finish.
