Are Bathroom Heaters a Necessity?
Oftentimes people forget, or don’t see the need for bathroom heaters. After all, you can go take a shower and while you’re still nice and warm from the shower there’s no real need for a heater? I disagree. Having lived in cool to cold climates for many years, and well, getting on in years, I believe that bathroom heaters are an absolute necessity. I have also found that it is much, much easier to get children to go shower up and wash their hair if the bathroom is heated than if it is not. I do have a couple of stories to tell of finding grubby little children curled up asleep in bed, because it was too cold to shower!
Typically, bathroom heaters are white in color, made to blend in with most bathroom décor, and they also often offer instant heat, so you can turn them on when you step into the bathroom (or a bit before, while you’re preparing to shower) and expect that the room will heat up pretty much right away.
First of all, now that you are convinced of the need for a bathroom heater, you need to decide on what sized heater is best for your bathroom. You should base this on the actual size of your bathroom, smaller rooms heat up more quickly thus you don’t need such a big heater in your bathroom. A good rule of thumb is to allow between 12 to 15 watts per square Foot. So, if your bathroom is 10′ by 12′, or a total of 120 square feet, then you would need around a 1440 watt (minimum) to 1800 watt heater.
Wall Bathroom Heaters
Wall heaters are a very popular choice for a bathroom heater. Most come in either 240v or 120v, and they are commonly around 1500 watts, though you can find bigger wall heaters of course. Bathroom heaters typically have a white finish and most are built to actually fit into the wall, thus the area sticking out into the bathroom is really pretty unobtrusive–perfect for areas with small space. There are also options that sit on top of the wall, and these are usually fairly slim models.
Ceiling Bathroom Heaters
Least intrusive of all, the ceiling bathroom heater is also built to fit up into your ceiling. Again, most models seem to be painted white, which is the color of choice for many bathroom fittings. Optimum mounting height for the ceiling bathroom heater is recommended to be eight feet from the floor, and further than six inches away from any wall. It is possible to install it only six feet from the floor but that is the absolute minimum, and eight feet is far better.
Usually its fine for ceiling insulation to come in contact with these ceiling heaters as they are made specifically with this in mind.
Bulb Bathroom Heaters
These little beauties often come with either a white or silver finish. They do look a lot like lightbulbs, and just a quick note–often the price of the bulb heater may not include the price for the bulbs, so keep that in mind when comparing prices.
Some bulb bathroom heaters include an exhaust fan, others do not. Naturally the heaters without the exhaust fan are a good deal cheaper than the ones with. Price is also determined by the amount of bulbs on the heating unit, with the four bulb units costing around $230, and the two bulb units costing anywhere from $70 to $150 depending on the brand.
Baseboard Bathroom Heaters
I am not so fond of baseboard bathroom heaters, mainly because of the problems if any water should get into the electrical part of the unit, and because my kids have filled up the bath-tub to overflowing on more than one occasion, flooding the entire bathroom. Apparently baseboard bathroom heaters are made in such a way to be safe, even from accidental flooding, as the electrical heating coil is completely covered by the heat transfer fluid inside the heater, and that is also completely sealed by copper tubing.
If children and bathtubs are not a problem for you, and you aren’t nervous about electrical appliances in the bathroom, then you might find a baseboard bathroom heater could be just right for you. The radiant heat may not be as fast to heat up a room, but it does quite an effective job and keeps the room warm even after the heater has been turned off, due to the radiant properties of this type of heater.
Towel Bathroom Heater
A handy little invention, the towel heater doubles as a heating unit for the bathroom and a towel or bathrobe warmer. There’s not a lot of additional cost in buying one of these, they fit snugly onto the wall and I have to admit it is great to have a nice warm towel to wrap yourself in when you step out of the shower, even if the room is already heated.
