Bathroom Refresh Kit with Four Downlights and a Mirror Light in Brushed Chrome

A small kit rather than a whole scheme: the smallest sensible whole room change: four IP65 downlights, a mirror bar and a dimmer matched to the load.

Bathroom lighting is the one part of a house where getting it wrong is a safety matter rather than a taste matter, and it is sold almost entirely on photographs. Every listing here states the zone the fitting may be installed in, the IP rating with both digits explained, the colour rendering index, the lumen output and the efficacy in lumens per circuit watt. If a fitting is not suitable above a bath we say so on the page you are buying it from. If a mirror is backlit and will not light your face, we say that too.

Specification

• Zone: zones 1 and 2 and outside the zones, which is every position in a domestic bathroom except inside the bath itself
• IP rating: IP44. The first digit, 4, means protected against solid objects over 1mm. The second digit, 4, means protected against splashing water from any direction. It is the minimum for zone 2 and it is not enough for zone 1
• Dimensions: every fitting in the kit is listed with its cut out and its overall size on the pack list
• Light output: sized to the room the kit is named for, at 86 lumens per circuit watt. Efficacy is quoted in lumens per circuit watt, which counts the driver losses, rather than lumens per chip watt, which does not. Part L of the Building Regulations asks for 75 lumens per circuit watt on new work and a great many fittings sold as compliant are quoted the other way.
• Colour temperature: chosen above, and every fitting in the kit is supplied at the same colour temperature, because a bathroom with two whites in it looks like a mistake
• Colour rendering: CRI 95, measured, with R9 above 60. R9 is the deep red value and it is the one that decides whether skin looks like skin. Most bathroom fittings quote a CRI in the eighties and do not quote R9 at all, which is how you end up shaving by a light that makes you look ill
• Dimming: a trailing edge dimmer is included where the kit has a dimmable circuit, and it is matched to the total load with 20 per cent headroom
• Electrical: Class 2, double insulated, with an integral constant current driver. No earth required and nothing separate to find a home for above the ceiling
• Fire rating: fire rated to 30, 60 and 90 minutes, tested to BS 476 Part 21 in both plasterboard and timber joist constructions, and the test certificate is downloadable from this page
• Standards: BS EN 60598 for luminaires, BS EN 62471 photobiological safety at the exempt group, BS EN 55015 for electromagnetic emissions, UKCA and CE marked
• Weight: approximately 3.8 kilograms for the kit
• Guarantee: five years on the fitting and the LED module, two years on the driver
• Finish: the same triple plate with a directional brush, which hides limescale spotting far better than polished does and is the sensible choice in a hard water area
• Why a kit: the fittings match, the drivers are from one family, the total load is inside the dimmer's rating, and it is one delivery and one electrician's visit
• Saving: about 10 per cent against the same items bought separately
• Zone card: a laminated zone diagram is in every kit, which is the thing the electrician will want to see
• Scale: this is the step between buying one fitting and buying a whole scheme, and it is where most bathroom refreshes actually sit

What arrives

• every fitting listed in the kit name
• a matched trailing edge dimmer where applicable
• IP65 or IP68 connectors as the positions require
• a laminated zone diagram
• cut out templates and instructions

Installation

A registered electrician, two to four hours depending on the kit. Electrical work in a room containing a bath or a shower is notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations in England and Wales. That means it has to be done by a registered electrician or signed off by building control. Replacing a like for like fitting on an existing circuit is not notifiable. Adding a new circuit, a new socket or a new spur is. The zone diagram in the box is dimensioned, so it can be laid on the floor and the positions marked before anything is cut.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

There is a real gap in this category between buying one fitting and commissioning a whole scheme, and most bathroom projects sit in it. These kits are that step: matched fittings, one colour temperature, drivers from one family and a dimmer sized to the load, for the price of a couple of hundred pounds over buying the pieces. If the bathroom is being stripped back to brick, buy a scheme instead and get the ceiling plan with it.