“extra towely snugness” – Well that’s one way of putting it

Towelie from South Park

A long time ago, when I first started out selling bathroom brass ware and heating products, I remember browsing the web looking for inspiration. One website had grabbed my attention and as I was investigating further I came across this description against a heated towel rail – “warm your towel rail all year round and make sure you always have your extra towely snugness”. This made me chuckle because it is quite simply silly and put me in mind of Towelie from South Park. It did however stick in my mind, and indeed if you study one of my earlier websites closely enough you will find a little homage to the extravagant description that includes a made up word.

Despite its humourous delivery it does make a good point, you simply can’t beat stepping out of the shower and having a warm, snug towel to dry down with. The majority of heated towel rails are fitted onto a central heating system. This is good because it takes little effort to warm the towel rail but it does have the drawback that when the heating goes off the towels stay cold. You can install an electric only towel rail, the drawbacks being that you have to use a heating element to warm your towels all year round even when your central heating is on and the heating element will see more hours of daily usage thus diminishing its effectiveness to you in years. The happy in-between, a sensible choice adopted by many, is to make use of a dual fuel configuration. Dual fuel setups incorporate a simple mechanical T-piece that allows for an element and a radiator valve to be inserted into one side of the towel rail, when the central heating is off the element is used to heat the rail, when it is on it can be turned off. Critically many people think dual fuel setups don’t work because their towel rails only get slightly warm, 99.9% of the time they’re forgetting to shut off one of the radiator valves; as long as there is a loop beyond the towel rail the heating element will attempt to warm the entire system, a problem with an easy fix.

In summary, get a system that works all year round for your “extra towely snugness”, I’d hate to think you were going without