Are heated towel rails safe?

As heated towel rails become the next big thing in every modern household, so the questions arise about the general safety of heated towel rails and, surprisingly, if they can catch fire.

We want to assure you that all Bathroom Butler heated towel rails are 100 percent safe and will never catch fire, and you’re welcome to take our word for it. But inquiring minds want to know why, so we’re going to lay it out really simple so that you can enjoy complete peace of mind and confidently inform your friends on what to look out for when buying safe heated towel rails for their beautiful bathrooms.

Can electric heated towel rails cause or catch fire?

No! Not only have we never heard of this happening, years of development and testing ensure that it is completely impossible for a Bathroom Butler heated towel rail to catch fire.

For one, there are no flammable parts so there’s nothing that can spontaneously catch alight.

Secondly, some worry that the heated towel rack should be switched off once the towels are dry to avoid the towels catching fire. This is nonsense! Our electric heated towel rails are designed so that the heating element’s size is relative to the size of the unit. This, following all the good laws of thermodynamics, ensures the total heat output is limited by the amount of power input, guaranteeing that the heated towel rail can never get hotter than the maximum temperature it was designed to reach.

For instance, if the electric heated towel rail has a 100-Watt element, then it can only put out the equivalent heat of 100 Watts. It can’t just magically produce 200 Watts of heat! So no, your towels absolutely cannot and will not catch fire.

Will an electric heated towel rail burn you?

An electric heated towel rail is a heating appliance, just like a radiator or an oil fin heater. And although it does not heat up quite as much, it could give you a contact burn if you touch it for too long. Please treat it with the same caution you afford other heating appliances, especially if you have soft or sensitive skin.

To guarantee your safety and comfort, our unique Dry Element Technology (DET) goes a few steps further: all the surfaces that are exposed or uncovered always remain below an absolute temperature of 55°C (assuming the room temperature is at 20°C), which is safe to the touch. For extra safety, we also wire our towel rails so that one of the vertical posts is never heated. Compare this to a fluid-filled heated towel rail where all the surfaces are always over 60°C!

What about the surfaces under the towel, you ask? Here comes the magic part of our DET. Once you’ve hung your towels on the rail, only the surfaces that come in contact with your towels will increase in temperature – just enough to dry the towels and add a touch of warmth. As soon as the towels are removed, the temperature of the posts quickly drops back to 55°C. Unlike fluid-filled heated towel rails that store heat, Bathroom Butler towel rails are filled with air, i.e. no mass to store heat, and so cools down super fast.

Remember you have a built in PTSelect Switch (PTS), to adjust the temperature of your Bathroom Butler electric heated towel rail up or down, depending on the season or your personal preference.

International bodies say our heated towel rails are super safe too.

When buying an electric heated towel rail, ensure they conform to the UL and CUL standards for the US and Canada, and IEC standards for most other parts of the world. We happily guarantee that all our products are tested and conform to these standards, which means specific heating tests were conducted – with fabric over the bars – and the safe temperatures were measured and passed.

Again, this testing is done to ensure the unit never heats above a safe temperature and also won’t damage the delicate fabric of your precious cotton Frette towels.

Finally, our heated towel rails have a guaranteed International Protection rating of IPX5, which means they are protected from water, steam and damp and can be safely installed in most areas of the bathroom, even above the bath if you so wish.