Heated towel rails with (electric) underfloor heating

[joshm]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been asked before - I did have a (very!) quick look and nothing jumped out.

So I am in the process of renovating a house and have opted to (ask my builder to) install electric underfloor heating in the bathrooms.

This leaves me with a dilemma about what to do with towel rails/radiators. I suppose my options are:

1) connected to CH circuit
2) electric
3) dual fuel (CH & electric)
4) connected to domestic HW circuit
5) dual fuel (HW & electric)

I'm really not sure what to go for, or even how feasible/practical/expensive it would be to connect to the HW circuit. I rather like the idea of it though since they'd still be heated in the summer months (when the CH is not getting used that much). I should add that the house's entire heating & HW system is being replaced (system boiler & megaflow) so I'm starting from scratch.

Does anyone have any advice for me? What is the 'norm' (if there is one) in this situation? Would I need to zone each of the (three, potentially four) rails/rads if they were connected to the HW circuit?

Thanks,

Josh

 

[denso13]

Modern towel rails and radiators are steel. You can't connect them to the HW.

 

[joshm]

Modern towel rails and radiators are steel. You can't connect them to the HW.

Thanks, I hadn't considered that. I guess the CH system has inhibitor in it. Slightly odd though since I'm sure I've heard tales of people doing this (connecting radiator to HW). Maybe they were crazed or used rads made from different stuff..?

 

[denso13]

They were, more often that not, connected to the HW system in old direct systems. They were usually made of copper though which made this possible. Steel radiators on a HW circuit nowadays is a no no.