Best Bathroom Heater 2023

One of the worst things about winter mornings is using the bathroom. Nobody likes getting undressed in a freezing cold bathroom, what a bad way to start your day. But if the alternative is to turn on the central heating, and heating the whole house, you’re soon going to run up a massive heating bill.

Installing a bathroom heater could be the perfect solution, the bathroom will be warm and cosy without wasting all that heat throughout the entire house when you’re going out to work all day. With so many types of heater available on the market nowadays, there’s bound to be one that suits you. And with such a wide range there’s definitely one in your price range, however much you have to spend.

Best Selling Bathroom Heaters UK

What Is The Difference Between A Heater And A Bathroom Heater?

A heater can be used in any room, but a bathroom heater is specifically designed for use in a bathroom. Bathrooms are wet, steamy rooms, and electricity and water don’t mix, it could be extremely dangerous to just put any heater in a cold bathroom. It needs to be a heater that’s been designed and tested to the highest safety standards for use in the bathroom.

Heating A Bathroom Safely

As we just said, electricity and water don’t mix, many heaters will have safety warnings stating that they should not be used in bathrooms. If an electrical appliance gets wet it can short circuit, and if you happen to touch it, the resulting electric shock can be fatal. One way to keep electric heaters away from water in the bathroom is to install a ceiling heater or a wall heater.

For a start they’re less likely to get wet, and if they do there’s less chance of you touching them if they’re out of harm’s way on a wall or ceiling. The trouble is, many of us don’t own our home and many landlords don’t allow you to start drilling holes in their walls or ceilings. So to keep your bathroom warm, you’ll need a portable heater.

Portable heaters do the job of heating the room fairly well, but you run the risk of electrocution if you use one too near the bath. So, it’s always best to keep portable heaters away from baths, but some of us have small bathrooms, in some cases nothing is away from the bath. Well, we have some good news, there are some electrical safety devices that are quite inexpensive, that can reduce electrocution risks enormously.

Residual-Current Device/Residual-Current Circuit Breaker/Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter

A residual current device (RCD), residual-current circuit breaker (RCCB) or ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) is a device used in potentially dangerous conditions like outdoors or in bathrooms to interrupt the power supply as soon as a fault is detected. These safety cut out devices save many people every year from serious injury by electrocution caused by appliances getting wet.

These devices are quite reasonably priced and are now required under law in many countries throughout the world. If you are renting, and your bathroom is cold, ask your landlord about getting one of these safety cut outs installed.

What Are The Benefits Of A Bathroom Heater?

The main benefits of a bathroom heater are:

• Economical
  You just want to warm the bathroom, not the whole house, by just heating one room you will save a fortune on your utility bills.
• Helps eliminate mould and mildew
  Mould and mildew thrive in damp conditions, having a heater in the bathroom will help to keep the bathroom dry. If there’s no damp, then the mould and mildew will remain dormant and won’t spread all around the room.
• Helps to eliminate smells
  There’s a particular smell associated with damp rooms, they smell like old churches, well damp bathrooms can get that same smell. Bathroom heaters can help keep the room dry, thus eliminating the damp, musty smell.
• A much more comfortable experience
  No one likes waking up and going into a freezing cold bathroom, or worse having a nice, hot shower and then having to step on freezing cold floor tiles. A bathroom heater will make the whole experience much more pleasant. Starting your day in a nice, comfortable way.
• Warm and cosy towels
  If you can safely position your bathroom heater so that it warms your towel for you as you bathe, it will feel like a nice warm hug when you wrap yourself up to dry off.

What Are The Disadvantages Of A Bathroom Heater?

Apart from the extra safety precautions we spoke about earlier, the only other disadvantage we could find was bathroom heaters only tend to heat a relatively small area. That would be directly in front of them. This is not the case with all bathroom heaters but some only heat the area directly in front of them.

Bathroom Heater Buyers Guide

Let’s have a look at the things to consider before buying a bathroom heater.

Type Of Bathroom Heater

There are 4 types of bathroom heater to consider and they are:

• Ceiling heaters
  If you can have one of these installed they are a great choice, as they are attached to the ceiling, there is less risk of personal injury. Ceiling heaters usually comprise of a light, a radiant heater and a fan.
• Wall heaters
  These are relatively safe as well, because they are mounted on the wall, there’s not much chance of knocking them over in the wet bathroom. They need to be permanently wired in and should never be obstructed, it can be tempting to place your towel on the wall heater to get it nice and warm, but this can lead to fires and should never be done.
• Portable Heaters
  Probably the best choice for renters, and also for people that don’t need heat in the bathroom for many months of the year. They can be moved to other rooms if needed.
• Heated towel rails
  A heated towel rail could be the perfect solution for your bathroom heating. They attach to the wall, heat the room, and keep your towels warm and cosy.

Safety Features

Any heater that’s sold as a bathroom heater has to have certain safety features, we’ve already spoken about the RCD but many bathroom heaters have splash protection. This allows them to be placed closer than the recommended 1.2 metres from the sink and 3 metres from the bath.

Energy-Efficiency

The less power the heater consumes, the cheaper the electricity bill will be. But it needs to produce enough heat for the size of the room. High-voltage equals less wattage, and as electricity is supplied by the watt, it will work out more economical to get a high-voltage, low-wattage heater.

Speed Of Heating Up

It’s no good having a heater that takes longer to heat up than the total amount of time you’re in the room. You want a heater that’s fast heating. The heaters with the fastest heat up time are infrared heaters or heat lamps. The only problem with this type of heating is they emit an orange glow, that’s not to everyone’s taste.

Cost Of Heating

The higher the watts, the more the heater will cost to run. See below for how to calculate the running cost of any wattage heater.

Cost Of The Bathroom Heater

The cost of the bathroom heater you choose will depend on the type, make, model and brand. But always do your research online, as you can save a substantial amount with just one quick search.

Noise Levels

If you choose a fan heater, remember to check how noisy it is, you’re going to have to live with it for some time, if it’s too noisy it’ll drive you mad over time.

Design

We’ve mentioned safety, but what about aesthetics? There are 2 main criteria for buying anything, does it perform its primary function? And does it look pleasing to the eye? This is of course a personal thing, but again you’re going to have to live with it.

Size Of The Heater

The size of the heater should be large enough and powerful enough to heat the bathroom, but not so big that it’s in the way. Follow our size calculation guide below to work out which size heater you need for your bathroom.

Brand

It’s always best to buy from a reputable retailer and a well-known brand. Old established companies have more experience in the electronic appliance industry and are well suited to put you right with any questions you might have. Plus in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong they will have a decent customer service department.

Warranty

Most bathroom heaters come with a warranty ranging from 12 to 36 months. Any warranty is only as good as the company that issues it. That’s another reason to buy from an old established company.

How To Calculate The Size Of Bathroom Heater You Need

The general rule is 10 Watts of power for every square foot of room you have or 12 watts for badly insulated bathrooms.  So on average, a bathroom that’s 100 square feet will need a 1000-watt heater.  It’s simple to work out the square footage of your bathroom just multiply the length of the room by the width of the room, the answer is the square footage. For instance a bathroom 10 foot long by 8 foot wide would have a square footage of 80 square feet and the calculation would look like this:

10 x 8 = 80

 Length x Width = Square feet

Just to confuse the issue, some manufacturers label their heaters BTU (British Thermal Units)to calculate this in watts just divide the BTUs by 3.41.  5000 BTUs = 1466.27 watts

5000 ÷3.41 = 1466.27

BTUs ÷ 3.41 = watts

 which we’ll round up to the next available wattage, in this case 1500 watts.

How To Calculate The Running Costs Of A Bathroom Heater

Once we know the wattage of the heater we can work out just how much it will cost to run using another simple calculation. We’ll need to know how much you are being charged for a unit of electricity. This is sold to you in units called Kilowatts, check your electricity bill for the exact price per kilowatt you are being charged they usually use this character to show the cost KW/H 

It represents kilowatt per hour.

So we need to convert our wattage to kilowatts and this is easy, just divide the watts by 1000 and that’s the kw total. For instance 1500 Watts ÷ 1000 = 1.5 KW

Now we have all we need to calculate the cost per hour to run your bathroom heater. So let’s assume that electricity is 16 pence per kw/hour the calculation will look like this:

1.5 x 16 = 24 pence per hour

 KW  x electric = 24 pence per hour

So to look at the whole calculation in full, would look like this.

5000BTUs ÷3.41 = 1466.27 rounded up to 1500 watts ÷ 1000 = 1.5 kw x 16 pence per kw/h = 24 pence per hour or 

5000  ÷3.41 = 1466.27 (1500)  ÷ 1000 = 1.5 x 16 = 24 pence

How Much Is A Bathroom Heater To Buy?

This does very much depend on the type, make and model you choose but as a rough guide.

A small portable 400 watt “space heater” ceramic heater with a fan starts at around £10

A free-standing quartz heater 800 watts with 2 speeds costs around £14

A free-standing thermo fan heater with a 2 heat setting, 2000Watts is about £15

A free-standing or can be wall mounted convection heater  200 watts will cost from around £22

It is possible to pay around £2000 for a top model, but paying huge amounts doesn’t get you any more heat, just more style. A reasonable free-standing bathroom heater will set you back around £100 which includes glass heater, 2 settings 2000 Watts, water resistant, wifi controllable, and safety child lock.

For an extra £20 (£120) the same glass heater can be wall mounted.

An infrared wall mounted towel rail with wifi technology, 850 watts and a timer can be purchased online for around £90

That’s just a few prices and styles to give you a rough idea of the price of bathroom heaters in the UK.

Frequently Asked Questions