When you have the heating on and you have wet clothes on the radiators, dry clothes or nothing, does it impact the amount of heat dispersed to heat your home?

Question

Are the clothes absorbing some of the heat or do they absorb it and just release it anyway to your home so it doesn’t make a difference what is on top of the radiator.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Some of the energy goes into turning the water into water vapor that can float away from the clothes, so it will warm the room air less. It also raises the humidity in the room. If some of that new water vapor in the air later condenses on a surface, it will slightly warm that surface. Neither one is a huge effect for one radiator full of damp clothes.