I wondered what had happened to the bathroom fixtures and fittings corporation, Longmead. I can remember them being a big player in the bathroom furniture industry for a while. Indeed, my grandparents even had a Longmead deluxe heated towel rail in their bathroom at one point. So what became of them?

I found an article in the Guardian from 2008 to say that the company had gone into administration. Cue the smart comments about Longmead 'flushing' away all their profits and going 'down the pan'.

I read an article back in 2000 that seemed to suggest the bathroom furniture company was actually doing quite well. It had just purchased stock and gained a large customer base from Bathrooms direct and was going to be responsible for procuring metal and other material from the South East Asia. The ranges of products it had bought were high quality chrome and gold fixtures and Longmead looked set to go from strength to strength.

However by 2008, Longmead owed £800,000 to HSBC and was valued at under £400,000. Longmead was a huge supplier of bathroom furniture and accessories to a wide-range of well known DIY stores and furniture shops. One factor cited as a major reason for Longmead's financial difficulties was Homebase deciding to import its stock from overseas.

I found an old folder at home by Marshall Cavendish where you have to buy new inserts from the newsagents each week. The first one is normally very cheap then the price shoots right up for the subsequent ones. You know how it works, which means this folder of stuff is incomplete. But part of the free stuff had a good guide on fitting taps. I'm guessing this info is from the late 80s/early 90s and I've reprinted the guide here:

HOW TO DO IT
Push each new tap through it's hole in the basin, bedding it on non-setting plumbing mastic, or on a plastic washer. Mixer taps are supplied with a shaped rubber strip instead of using a washer. If the fixed lugs are smaller than the hole in the basin, fit an anti-rotation washer over the shank.


Fit a plastic washer under the basin - use a top-hat washer on thin basins - then fit the backnut to the shank. Hold the tap steady and use the basin spanner to tighten the backnut. Do not over-tighten - it should just compress the washer or squeeze out the mastic slightly. Scrape off any excess mastic. You can now connect the supply pipes. If you are simply re-using old connectors, replace the coupling washers. Then wrap some PTFE tape around the threads of the shanks and screw the connectors to them. Tighten them firmly with an adjustable spanner or pipe wrench. If the taps are made of plastic, be very careful not to overtighten the nut - the threads are much weaker than those on metal taps.

If the pipes have shorter or Metric shanks, you will need to fit an adapter first. Wrap some PTFE tape around the threads then screw the adapter in place. Fit the supply pipes in the ordinary way.

If you are fitting a mixer tap, you may find that the old supply pipes are arranged the opposite way round to the mixer - with the hot on the left. If this is the case, it's much simpler to swap the tap heads.

Turn the water back on and check for leaks. If any appear, check the joints carefully and either tighten them or remake them with new sealing washers.

Replacing bib taps
Bib taps are very simple to replace. There are variations in design, but normally it is just a matter of turning off the water, unscrewing and disconnecting the existing taps, then screwing the new ones in their place. If you have to grip the body of the tap to turn it, wrap it with cloth to prevent it being marked. Use a new sealing washer in the connector, and wrap the screw threads with PTFE tape.

However, since bib taps are quite often part of an unsightly and antiquated exposed plumbing system, you may well want to renew the whole installation. In this case, the job will involve extending or rerouting the pipework, as well as fitting a new sink.

Looking at the Bisque designer radiator site, i was really impressed by the quality of their innovative designer towel rails. As the first company to bring designer radiators to the UK, they have a lot of useful information on their site. They also have biographies on each of their desgners and provide a history of the company. You can browse their range of bathroom and kitchen radiators including the Cobra-therm towel radiator and the Orbit towel radiator. They also do a great range of general radiators and non-heated towel rails

I've just been scouring the Internet for nice looking heated towel rails and i found DCShort.com who appear to be an Australian company who offer a great range of designer towel rails. Chrome plated, polished stainless steel, curved, ladders, wall-mounted, floor-mounted, you name it they seem to have any type of heated towel rail you can imagine. They even have an extravagant 'Lava' towel rail which is actually made from blue glass and would look incredibly swanky in any bathroom.

Interesting article by Rosie Millard in The Telegraph discussing what are the dos and don'ts when selecting a new bathroom to go in your house.

Baths must be white and you must have matching towels on your heated towel rails. Shower must be one of those huge ones designed by Philippe Starck, only use cakes of white soap and don't even think about using low budget toilet roll! Unfortunately she does recommend buying heated towel rails from B&Q but we can't all be perfect.

Mocking aside, the article on splashing out on your bathroom is a good read and it discusses how it can actually add value to your house!

A couple of articles i have read on the Internet recently have used heated towel rails as a mark of luxury when describing accommodation. The Wikipedia page for the residences at Exeter University describes one of it's hall as having en-suites, double beds, heated towel rails and balconies as a sign of its high standard.

Another article on the luxury SHorelines Hotel in Bognor Regis specifically mentions that the rooms have "king-size beds, wide screen TVs and heated towel rails." Great!

Good to know that having a heated towel rail is generally considered so prestigious!!

I was dismayed to read on the BBC website an article about cruelty in the children's care system in Northern Ireland. One victim of abuse told the terrible story of being beaten with a towel rail. I wonder what the badly behaved towel rail must've done to deserve that. I agree with the writer of the article and hope this kind of abuse can be eradicated from the system very soon.

Another horrifying abuse of a towel rail was reported when a gang suspected of burgling Cilla Black broke into another house in Cheshire and tied the lady owner to a towel rail. Need i say, this is not the main purpose of this piece of bathroom furniture and we are not happy that it was associated with such a serious crime!

As if this wasn't enough, a soldier in Dorset selfishly hung himself with the help of a towel rail without so much as a thought of the damage to the public image of the towel radiator industry.

Any further misuses will of course be reported here...

Back in 2004, housing tenants on Tyneside were given incentives by the local housing association if they paid their rent on time. The Gateshead Housing Company was offering around £200 in DIY vouchers to anyone in their properties paying rent on time. 

I read a great article about the things people take from their houses when they move. According to a survey carried out by The Halifax in 2006, one in ten people admitted to taking their towel rails and toilet roll holders with them when moving house!

Whilst i can't believe that people actually bothered to take wheelie bins or their house numbers, i can fully understand people taking their towel rails with them. Depending on where you buy them, heated towel rails can cost a substantial amount of money, so i don't blame sellers for taken them when they move.

Light bulbs and floorboards though?? I can't abide that. You can read the full article on towel rails and other things here.

Ever since i was born, i knew in the deep recesses of my mind, that i was born to blog about towel rails and related paraphernalia. Chrome, stainless steel, electric or dual fuel, I've been obsessing about heated towel radiators ever since i can remember and now thanks to the beauty of a free Weebly website, i can blog about my passion until my heart's content!

Forget about a traditional radiator hooked up to the central heating purely designed to heat a room. For me no bathroom, en-suite or general washing area is complete without that curvaceous silver piece of apparatus on a wall providing support for a nice fluffy towel.

Wake up the nation, towel rails are my vocation, this is the New Power Generation for the towel radiator. This is an historical moment for heated towel rails all across the world. Let fans of bathroom equipment unite and convene here for the most thrilling experience an abulutionist can possibly hope for...