Radiant heat panel on bathroom ceiling
bsawers
| Posted in Interior Design on
We keep the house at 68, which we find comfortable for sleeping and a reasonable compromise between comfort and cost/eco-guilt. But we find the bathroom a little cold, especially when stepping out of the shower.
Since there’s a recessed light directly above the bath mat, I was thinking of replacing that fixture with a radiant heating panel mounted on the ceiling.
A couple questions:
1. Are there any panels that draw little enough current that I could use the existing wiring?
2. Any other problems / considerations I should be thinking about?
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Replies
bsawers,
The chances are quite high that your recessed light is part of a circuit shared with either other lights or the local outlets. Any radiant heater worth installing would probably put the circuit past capacity. You would need to identify all outlets or lighting on the circuit and determine the potential demand. I would not bother spending the time looking for a ceiling radiant panel for the following reasons.
Radiant light or heat energy density falls as the square of the distance from the source. (lasers don't count) The top of your head will get quite toasty if not burned long before your bottom ever gets to notice a warm glow. Mounting a radiant source on a wall helps to even up the desired warming effect, but at the cost of tying up space for towel bars and at the additional risk of igniting a towel that gets too close. Previous clients have asked me to provide similar boosters to cold bathrooms and I had to dissuade them for either electrical or safety reasons. There are truly dangerous wall heaters still being sold. I reject all of the in-wall types I've seen.
The radiant choices I had available all required dedicated circuits of minimum 15 amps and most 20 amps and some 240v. The quartz tube type emitters had the best directional properties and "threw" the heat furthest, though with the above mentioned danger of getting too close to towels or toosh. In a bath with 10 foot ceilings I might have conceded to installing one. At least the towel risk would be minimal.
Radiant panels meant to warm a room exist in different forms. One company I found on line sold panels disguised with art prints. These were available with 500 to 750 watt output and safe surface temperatures. They did not project heat very far and were meant to run for long periods to heat a room slowly. Some look like Runtal heat panels, though I suspect they are essentially a flattened out oil heaters. Again not meant for warming over distance. Some are pitched as towel heaters. Old fashioned infrared bulbs, clear or red coated, like those used for chicken houses and such, present a mediocre alternative wrapped in a fragile glass envelope. These are roughly 250 watts and will only mildly reduce the chill unless you stay close. And they are rough on the eyes.
I face a very similar comfort issue in my own bathroom. I heat entirely with radiant heaters which are very very slow when asked to raise a room temperature. Most rooms are set to 68 though I keep the bath at 70. This has not proven very comfortable when stepping out of the shower, so the best and cheapest resolution has proven to be an inexpensive fan heater that we turn on about 15 minutes before a shower. With the bathroom door closed, the air temperature can easily be pushed up several degrees with a 750 watt heater. It is the "unsafe" hot wire type which blows air far better than the child-safe versions. Your choice on home safety issues and risks. The child safe ones might take a bit longer despite the same rating as the air velocity is lower.
For us, the jump from warm steamy shower to a now summer warm bathroom is much less terrifying. Depending on how your bathroom is configured, the fan can be on the floor or counter. Ours is aimed to bounce off the window to reduce the condensation from the high humidity created from showering. Even at 750 watts you will want to think about the outlet capacity. Adding in a hairdryer while the fan is on might push a circuit breaker into action. Hopefully, you don't have a home like my second fixer upper that proved to be a daisy chain electrical disaster waiting to catch fire. Quite a lot of rewiring to fix all the overtaxed circuits the previous owner created.
onslow,
Thank you. I really appreciate the detailed response.
I was afraid that wiring would be a constraint. That circuit is shared with at least one other light, but probably other outlets and fixtures.
But it sounds like a radiant panel on the ceiling is not worth the hassle and expense, unless it is permanently left on.
The bathroom is long and narrow, so I will have to think about whether there's space for a portable heater.
Again, thanks, the quality of the responses is why I keep coming back here.