How to clear out and warm up a bathroom

What is really asked of a bathroom

Not to be warm permanently, but to be warm at the precise moment you are undressed in it, a few minutes in the morning. A high inertia system does the opposite: it heats the room all night to be ready at seven, and carries on heating afterwards.

The trouble with a towel radiator

It takes a whole stretch of wall, often the only one available, and its exchange surface is small. It therefore heats by convection: the air rises to the ceiling, comes back down cooler, and the user stays in a cold zone at body level. The towels, meanwhile, are perfectly dry.

What the ceiling changes

The exchange surface becomes that of the whole room, facing the occupant. The radiation reaches the skin directly, without going through the air. The sensation arrives in a few minutes, and the walls stop being cold, which removes the feeling of damp.

The point about moisture

Surfaces kept above the dew point do not condense. The mirror fogs less, the grout stays dry, and mould loses the condition it needs to appear. It is an indirect effect of radiation, and it counts as much as the thermal comfort.

What it frees up

The wall the towel radiator occupied becomes available again for a cabinet, storage or a second basin. In a five square metre bathroom, that is often the difference between a usable room and a cluttered one.

The case of the toilet is dealt with on the page devoted to it, and heated mirrors on the Mirolia heated mirror page.