A Cheap Way to Heat a Small Bathroom with an Electric Towel Warmer?
rockies63
| Posted in General Questions on
I was watching a video on Youtube from a guy in England that had converted his radiator towel rack to electric using a dual fuel conversion kit because he wanted to get off of fossil fuels (an oil fired boiler and water radiators) and switch to solar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkHuqCC8nLw&t=23s
In looking up dual fuel conversion kits I found these ones that use something called PTC elements (which are ceramic stones).
https://www.heatandthings.com/product/towel-rail-dual-fuel-kit-600w-ptc-element-with-chrome-t-piece/
Has anyone used something like this, either with PTC elements or another method?
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Replies
You can buy an electric towel rack. It's cheap in that it doesn't cost much to install, but electricity in most places is the most expensive way to heat, so the operating costs will be high.
Not sure about "ceramic stones", but PTC elements are used in a lot of ways. I have a PTC heater trace for some garage plumbing, and use a two PTC heaters for HRV post-heat. Our EV uses a PTC heater when it's too cold for the heat pump.
Resistance increases as they heat up, so they are considered self regulating.
https://blog.boydcorp.com/what-are-ptc-heaters.html#:~:text=Positive%20Temperature%20Coefficient%20(PTC)%20heaters%20are%20self%2Dregulating%20heaters,%2C%20flexible%20polymer%2Dbased%20substrates.
"Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) heaters are self-regulating heaters that run open-loop without any external diagnostic controls. While traditional fixed-resistance heaters employ wires and coils to generate heat, PTC heaters use conductive inks printed on thin, flexible polymer-based substrates."