WHAT is being used to heat the room now?

Those electric floor heat systems you mention ARE NOT intended to heat a room, they are FLOOR HEAT SYSTEMS and would require a supplemental heat source.
Towel warmers are used to warm towels.

Is this a new addition?

Yes, this is a new addition and I think the bungle came in when we changed the master bath from a raised floor to a concrete slab and nobody bothered to think about the heat. This sucks. I guess we could add electric baseboard. The reason I thought of the towel warmers is that's often all you have in France and Britain in the bathrooms. Though come to think of it, they're usually cold too.

Runtal towel warmers ARE designed to replace a radiator. Some of them are hydronic, which means you attach them to your hot water heating system while others are electric. You will get more BTUs out of a hydronic rack of similar size than you will out of electric, but Runtal's larger electric models should still be plenty sufficient for a bathroom, especially if it is well insulated and not tremendous. I'm not sure how to size them for the room but you can find them in the 3000+ BTU range. You might want to put it on it's own circuit (it might even be required) though.

Here is a link that might be useful: runtal towel warmer/radiator combos

If you want a towel warmer to heat a room and the seller says it will, you had better get that in writing from them.

Yes electric baseboard heat is a possibility and so is one of those motel-style through the wall units.

You have the specs in writing. Are you saying the OP should have a personal guarantee from the CEO of the company that she won't be cold? Have anyone qualified to do a heat calculation on the room do so and tell you what BTUH is required to properly heat the room. It doesn't matter if it's an exclusive radiator or a giant poodle with a wire coming out of its butt, if it's properly sized to heat the room, it will heat the room. If you need 6k btuh to heat your room then a 3k btu anything won't do the trick. As I said, it depends on quality of construction and size of the room. There are also online heat loss calculators you can use yourself to ballpark a guess.

From Runtal's website:

As a Bathroom Heater: Just as the sun provides for optimum radiant comfort, Runtal towel radiators radiate heat evenly, gently and quietly. Runtal European-style towel radiators are available in either self-contained electric models or hydronic models which integrate into a closed-loop forced hot water heating system. Model types and sizes allow for variations in heat outputs that enable a towel radiator to be used as a supplemental heater or as the sole source of heat for the entire room.

Whether it will work as the sole source depends on the room.

The towel warmer we got from myson is a hydronic towel warmer and ties into our hot water heating loop. It doesn't even allow 180-190 degree water to circulate through it and requires a mixing valve to peg the top temp at 150 degrees. Even at 150 degrees it's rated at 2450 btuh. This will probably be overkill for our 9'6 x 10'6 now well insulated bathroom but we have a modulating boiler that will send cooler water if required.

I would suspect that the reason you find european bathrooms to be cold are not because runtals are unfit to heat the rooms but because in general they are far more energy conscious than we are, having dealt with very high energy prices for a long time, and probably do not crank their thermostats as high as we are used to here.

Take a look at flat panel ceramic wall heaters. I installed them in my previously unheated third floor attic. They're very safe and do a remarkable job. Can be painted to match the wall. I've attached a link.

Here is a link that might be useful: econo-heat

Like I said "GET IT IN WRITING".

Obviously someone is very close to that brand so I'm convinced that's the expert you have been looking for. They obviously believe in that product, maybe they also sell the product or have someone in the family that does. Maybe they own stock, I don't know.

If you are smart you will get it in writing if you intend for a towel warmer to heat that room.

Yes, I own stock in Runtal yet I got a myson for my bathroom. Right. Sure.

Actually I just did a TON of research regarding such things for myself a few months ago. We put in a whole new heating system and as part of that replaced the old leaking radiator in our bathroom with the myson. It's not installed yet but a friend who posts here did something similar in her bathroom (johnmari) with a hudson reed towel warmer/radiator combo and said her bathroom was PLENTY warm.

Runtal makes radiators. Do the research before you say it won't work. We're not talking about a $20 towel warmer from bed bath and beyond that you plug into the wall but rather a hardwired radiator/towel warmer combo. Or, you can just spout off about something you obviously haven't researched. That's probably the easier of the two.

SORRY I got involved, obviously my knowledge and intellect doesn't measure up to yours so I'll go away and leave these fine people to your devices. But, if I felt I had to be THAT condescending to someone I wouldn't want to live at your level of intelligence anyway.

Like I said: SORRY and GET IT IN WRITING.

I have the electric 46" Runtal Neptune towel warmers in all of my bathrooms. From personal experience I can safely say, that unless your bathroom is overly large, isn't well insulated, or has large expanses of windows, the large Neptune towel warmer/radiator will provide a comfortable level of heat for a bathroom.

I live in Seattle. Average outdoor temperatures in January are around 35F. My bathrooms average in size around 100 Sq. Ft. House is well insulated. I have other heat sources in the bathrooms, but we keep them turned off because the bathrooms get too hot with them on at the same time as the towel warmer/radiators.

Electric floor warmers will not provide enough heat to warm a room. All they do is keep the chill off the floor.

Thanks for all of your comments and help. I actually have built apartments with runtal hydronic heaters that are large (not towel bar sized) and they work very well, but I've never used a towel warmer size and wondered if they'd really work. They're quite expensive too. I like the econoheat product, looks pretty simple and affordable and unobtrusive.

Thanks again, lots to think about.

Bud,

I never said that your intelligence is lacking. I'm saying your familiarity with the product the op first mentioned and that I'm talking about is lacking. There's a HUGE difference between the two.

The way these things are supposed to work IS in writing. It's written all over their product information, spec sheets etc. As I said, if you're talking about a cheapie plug in towel warmer, I agree with you, but these things are designed to act as radiators. They are sized and rated in the same way radiators are. They are made by radiator manufacturers. There are other radiator options out there besides just baseboard. That there is a place to hang your towel off of them is in many ways incidental to the true function of the piece of equipment.

Actually some of those runtal units are pretty large. The largest electric omnipanel is 5' tall and 2' wide, with hydronics getting even larger. I'm thinking of replacing the 4' section of baseboard in my downstairs bath, which is really not adequate to heat the space, with a runtal onmipanel because I can size it better for the room without taking up more space (and have it replace a towel rack). Maybe it's just because of what a huge splurge my myson was (based on style) but the runtal units seem a good buy for the money (though not as inexpensive as those econoheat things!)

If I can just ask one more question. I went surfing around to look at these things, I like the Runtals and the Hudson Reed and clearly the hydronic versions are more efficient than the electric, but the hydronic refer to a pressurized hot water system or "part of a hot water heating system", which makes it sound like I can't just pipe my hot water line to it, but it requires something else fancier. Is that right or am I overthinking this. Could I just ask the plumber to rough-in an appropriately sized hot water line to this unit, or not?

Thanks again.

Caligirl,

You're right, you can't just pipe your hot water supply line through the hydronic models. They're designed to be tied into a central hydronic heating system. One where you have radiators or floors heated by circulating hot water. These systems usually have a central boiler in the basement or in a boiler/mechanical room with small pumps to move hot water throughout the heating system.

Thanks Jamesk, that certainly narrows the field for me then. Electric is our only option, much as i hate to pay for electricity for heating. Also going to explore if there's any way to get our furnace vent system around to that space.

Myson brand towel warmers do allow you to hook them up to your hot water heater, though most of them do not have a very high btu rating. I only know this because we have the installation instructions for ours - in fact in order to hook it into the water created by the boiler we need to have it on its own zone with a mixing valve to limit the water temp to 150 degrees (our boiler will do up to 190).

Also johnmari, who used to post here but hasn't as much since she finished her bathroom, used a hudson reed towel warmer and both of them leaked. The first was replaced by the manufacturer - great customer service - but when the second leaked it was pretty frustrating. I have specified mysons before and have never had a problem with them. They are more pricey than the runtals though.

I can't find the installation instructions on their website anymore but I am linking to a pdf of their specs so you can browse and see which ones put out more heat. I think it also mentions on the spec sheets that it can be part of your regular hot water system.

Here is a link that might be useful: myson specs