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marmish_gw

Help! How can we heat our bathroom?

marmish
17 years ago

Hi, first post here, so feel free to redirect me if needed.

The short version: So, can anyone help me with a solution that doesn't cost $$$ and will provide heat for an 8x5' bathroom. Will an under-tile radiant mat system provide enough heat? In Chicago? I'm guessing not, although it would be easy (I think) to install.

The whole story:

We are remodeling a bathroom the previous owner put in. We have hot water heat, and he installed baseboard radiators in the adjacent closet and the bathroom in series with the bedroom radiator, so there are 5 (2 in the bedroom, 1 in closet, 2 in bath) connected. They then installed a fiberglass shower and rigged a cabinet adjacent to the shower that was hung above the level of the baseboard radiator so it was not obstructed. We had two heating guys come to give us suggestions on how to change/remove/alter the radiators so that we can have a shower that goes wall to wall, where one of the bathroom radiators now sits. One guy said, yeah, we'll make it work, whatever you want. Not very helpful. The second guy was very helpful, explained how everything was set up now. Suggested changes that made sense, but cost BIG $$$. What he recommended was to remove the bathroom radiators, making the closet radiator the last one in the series. Then fishing pipe from the bathroom to the boiler to install one new appropriately sized radiator in the bathroom. The fishing should be easy (or easy-ish) because the wall is open, we can see the top of the basement wall (even though we are starting on the second floor) and we can follow the waste stack all the way down. But, while all this sounds like a great solution, it costs almost as much as the rest of the materials and work for the bathroom together!

Whew. That was longer than I thought. Thanks in advance for any advice.

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