When choosing a towel rail for the bathroom, you must first find out which system it will be connected to:
1.To an open hot water circulation system where the coil heats up from the domestic hot water supply in winter and summer. As the drinking hot water used in Lithuania is extracted from underground sources, it has a lot of dissolved calcium and magnesium salts (hard water is very aggressive to corrosion of metals), in addition, it is saturated with oxygen and has a temperature of 60 ºC. For this reason, only loop (wave-shaped) coils made of brass and stainless steel that do not have welds or ladder-type towel dryers made of copper or brass can be installed in such a system. Plain steel towel rails cannot be installed in this system. Stainless steel towel rails are also not suitable for such a system as they have welds that are affected by corrosion.
2. A closed central heating system, where the coil only heats during the heating season, can be fitted with a towel dryer of any metal and type, as the heating system uses desalinated water, is often treated with a corrosion inhibitor and is not saturated with oxygen. In this system, a combined heating option is available for the towel warmer in summer: the dryer heats up from the heating system in winter and from the built-in electric heater in summer. The most widely used are economical heaters with a thermostat that allows you to set and maintain the desired temperature of the towel warmer. Basic rule: only ladder-type towel warmers can be installed for combined heating and no loop coils are suitable.
There are two options for combined heating installation:
2.1. When the water supply and return takes place via a special single-pipe unit mounted on the left or right side of the ladder (distance between connection pipes 40 or 50 mm), the heater is installed directly on the other side of the ladder.
2.2. When the water supply and return outlets are installed exactly along the centers of the vertical pipes of the ladder. The heater is then mounted on one side of the ladder via a three-way valve and on the other side a balancing valve (usually angled, as its rotating handle does not protrude forward but is parallel to the horizontal ladder tubes).
For both installations, one balancing valve (either on the connection unit) or one mounted directly on the ladder in the connection variant (2.2) must be closed at the end of the heating season and before connecting the electric heating.
When installing combined heating, the heater can be screwed into the ladder on both the left and right side. If the side option is available, the socket and heater must be installed on the far side from the edge of the sink, bath or shower, as the combination coil is an electrical appliance and is subject to electrical safety regulations requiring any electrical appliance to be installed no closer than 60 cm from the edge of the sink, bath or shower. According to electrical safety regulations, all electrical sockets in the bathroom must be connected via a 15 mA residual current device.
3. Electric heating only. Then all our cable heating towel dryers EE .. type are suitable, or any ladder can be filled with a special liquid for heating systems and a built-in heater with a thermostat.
Note that the corrosion resistance of brass and stainless steel towel rails installed in a hot water circulation system is greatly reduced if there is a potential difference of even a few mV in size. During electrochemical corrosion, zinc is "leached" out of the brass, resulting in porous bricks, and stainless steel corrodes in a point-like manner due to the heterogeneity of the alloy's composition and structure. To prevent this, we recommend grounding the hot water supply piping. If this does not eliminate the potential difference on the coil, then the coil itself must be grounded.
