How to Heat a Bathroom Fast: 5 Top Tips For Instant Warmth

Cold bathroom? Freezing tiles? A bathroom that may as well be a walk-fridge?

We’ve all been there, and we know that a steamy shower doesn’t help in these situations, as much as we wish it would. When time’s short and the chill hits you hard, you only want one thing: heat. And you want it fast.

Here are our top 5 expert tips to warm your bathroom quickly, without burning through your energy bills.

1. Choose a Fast-Heating Bathroom Radiator or Heater

Not all heaters are designed or built equally when it comes to heat up times, and differences between models can be drastic. If you’re using a slow oil-filled radiator, or are fully reliant on a towel rail to heat your bathroom, it’s no wonder you’re still shivering. These are our top 3 features for quick heat:

• Convection heaters: Convection pushes warm air around the entire room, and does it quickly.

• Fan-assisted models: Can heat tiny bathrooms in minutes.

• Stone core electric radiators: Stone cores store heat and gradually release the heat once your electricity has been stopped. This doesn’t necessarily mean that heat is produced quickly, but it means that the heat lasts longer as it continues to distribute it after the electricity has stopped running.

2. Set the Bathroom Heater For a Head Start

Heating a bathroom from freezing cold every time you step into it? That’s doing it the hard way.

Instead, why not:

• Set a timer for your bathroom to turn on 15-30 minutes before you need it.

• Use a weekday schedule so you don’t have to remember to set this timer every evening.

• If your heating has a ‘boost’ function, make the most of it for short bursts of extra warmth

Some thermostats even work with smartphone apps so you can switch on your heating half an hour before you know you’re going to need it. Maybe you’re in the toasty car and are half an hour away from home. You can use the app to ensure your home it just as toasty, as soon as you step in the front door!

3. Keep the Heat in the Bathroom by Closing Doors and Reducing Drafts

It’s a simple tip, but it makes a massive difference. Even the most powerful heating system will struggle if your bathroom is constantly leaking warmth. The principles of heat containment are straightforward but are remarkably effective at accelerating how quickly your bathroom warms up, as well as maintaining that comfort once achieved.

• Close the bathroom door: This is the first and most crucial heat barrier. When left open, a typical bathroom door can let out 50% of the generated heat into adjacent spaces, and drastically increase warm-up time and energy consumption.

• Identify and eliminate drafts: Windows that don’t seal are a major contributor to drafts, especially in older properties. Gaps around pipework can also be a strong contributor to drafts in bathrooms.

• Towels and bath mats: Rolled-up towels blocking door and window gaps are a great (and cheap) way to prevent heat escaping. Cold floors are another sneaky heat thief. Thick bath mats are a great way to prevent your tiles giving you frost bite.

  

4. Use a Heated Towel Rail to Boost Warmth Quickly

Towel rails are great for comfort, but they’re not built to heat a full room quickly. Most heated towel rails only produce around 150–400 watts, which is plenty to warm towels, but not enough to heat your bathroom on a cold morning.

Instead of relying on one, try layering it with your main radiator. Set your towel rail to come on first — around 10 minutes before you plan to use the room, then follow with your main heater. That way, you’re pre-warming surfaces and the air, speeding up the time it takes to feel properly warm.

It’s a simple, effective way to boost heat output without constantly touching your thermostat.

5. Improve Bathroom Insulation Without Major Renovations

Full bathroom renovations to improve insulation can be expensive and disruptive, but several tactical insulation improvements can significantly accelerate heating times without requiring major construction work.

• Reflective radiator panels: Thin foil sheets that easily install behind radiators and work by reflecting heat back into the room instead of being absorbed by the back wall. (Some models, like our NEOS, have a similar feature integrated).

• Flooring: Bathroom flooring plays a surprisingly important role in perceive warmth. Especially ceramic and stone tiles, which are beautiful and practical, but are responsible for significant heat loss through thermal mass and conduction.

• Bath mats: Yes, bath mats are getting a second mention. They not only add aesthetics and and insulation but they also avoid the cold shock on the soles of your feet!

• Window glazing: Single-glazed windows can lose up to 10 times more heat than the same area of insulated wall. Insulating window films can be applied directly to the glass and can reduce this heat loss by up to 40%.

Need Something That Heats Up Fast, and Keeps the Warmth?

Our NEOS electric radiator is built to do exactly that. With double-fluted convection for rapid warm-up, a soapstone core to store heat, and smart controls for timers and boost modes, it’s designed to bring instant warmth to your bathroom, and keep it there!

With a range of sizes and wall-mounted options, it’s ideal for bathrooms big or small. Fast and efficient, the NEOS makes cold bathrooms a thing of the past.

Got any questions or want help choosing the right size? Just give us a ring or email [email protected]. We’re always here and happy to help!

Tags: Bathroom Heating, Tips.