On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 04:37:29 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

We're aiming to put an electrically heated (as well as CH
heated)
towel rail in the new shower/wet room. How are these normally
switched on and off?

A relative of mine has an electric towel radiator. It takes hours
to
heat up, so he leaves it on 24/7.

Yes, I'm aiming to get a 400 watt or 600 watt heater which
shoudn't
take a huge time to get hot.

They aren't quick. And they don't do much to dry towels unless you leave
them on 24/7.

That surprises me but made me think: Why?

2 seconds of engaged brain and it obvious that the heat input has to
be *significantly* more than the rated heat output of the towel rail
otherwise it'll be losing heat almost as fast as it's been supplied.

Position/orientation of the heater might be important as well, you
want to set up a decent gravity flow within the towel rail to shift
the heat from the vicinty of the element to the rest of the rail.

Switches, you can get dedicated towel rail "run back" type switches.
Sort of thing where you press a button and it cycles through 1hr,
2hr, 3hr, off.

--
Cheers
Dave.