Bestselling Towel Rails

Controllers, whether integrated into the product or purchased separately, are a great way of minimising energy usage when using your towel rail. Standard manual models are wired in to have a simple on/off control, which may be fine for occasional use, however it’s very easy to forget to switch them back off again when they’re no longer needed! Unless you’re vigilant, this can lead to a lot of wasted energy. Thermostatic controls allow you to adjust the surface temperature of your towel rail, minimising running costs during warmer weather, and also include timer functions so you can set your heater to warm for a limited amount of time. Digital programmers go a step further and allow you to create a heating schedule for your towel rail daily and weekly. You can set it to run for very specific time intervals and to set temperatures for greater control over your energy consumption. We highly recommend purchasing a towel rail with a thermostat, but if your budget allows, one with a digital programmer may be more beneficial if you use yours for room heating.

Towel rails with thermostats offer a basic but highly accessible level of control over your bathroom heating. With a thermostat, you can incrementally increase the surface temperature of your towel rail, and even access a timer function which will set your towel rail to run for a limited amount of time before switching off automatically. For many of us, this amount of control is enough, especially if we tend to use our towel rails infrequently or seasonally.

A digital programmer can be much more convenient if you use your towel rail for room heating as well as towel drying. Programmers allow you to create a full weekly heating schedule for your towel rail so it will switch on to set times and temperatures dictated by you, ensuring your bathroom is always kept comfortably warm.

All bathroom heaters must be installed by a professional electrician to conform to British safety standards. It should never be undertaken DIY as your heater will need to be wired into the mains of your property.

Towel rails with fluid elements are what most of us are familiar with, whether it’s in the form of thermal oil in electrical models, or water in a central heating system. Thermal fluid towel rails provide an even spread of warmth across the surface of the heater as the warm liquid circulates around on the inside. Once heated, thermal fluid retains heat for longer, allowing the towel rail to operate more efficiently. Most noticeably with thermal fluid towel rails, both the rungs and the vertical struts are warmed, which is usually not the case for dry element rails.

Dry element rails use a heated metal wire to create warmth. In the case of our Ecostrad Small-C towel rail, the wire runs through the rungs that make contact with your towels to help them dry out quickly. In the case of towel rails such as our Ecostrad Magnum series, the wire element is evenly laid out beneath a layer of toughened safety glass to provide a large heated area for your towels to dry beside. The key difference with dry element towel rails is that they’re quicker to get to temperature and are more responsive. This can be desirable for programmable towel rails as they will be able to adapt quickly to any changes in your schedule and quickly cool when heat is no longer required.

Browse our excellent range of thermal fluid and dry element electric towel rails today, which includes programmable and thermostatically controlled models.