Demisting Mirror with a Magnifying Insert in Brushed Chrome

A demisting mirror, front lit: a five times magnifying circle set into the main glass and lit separately.

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: zone 2 and outside the zones. Zone 2 is the 600mm band beyond zone 1 and the 600mm radius around a washbasin tap. It is not rated for zone 1, which means not directly over the bath
• 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: chosen above. Depth 42mm from the wall, which is thin enough not to catch a shoulder at a basin
• Light output: 1250 lumens at 84 lumens per circuit watt, giving 300 lux at the face from 400mm, which is the figure to compare and the one nobody publishes
• Colour temperature: 4000K neutral white as standard
• 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 Most bathroom fittings quote a CRI in the eighties and do not quote R9 at all, which is how you end up shaving by a light that makes you look ill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: touch dimmable on the mirror itself, from 10 to 100 per cent, with no flicker at the bottom of the range
• Electrical: Class 2, double insulated, hard wired to a fused spur behind the mirror. A 100mm access hole is needed in the tiling and the template shows where
• Fire rating: not applicable to a wall or surface mounted fitting
• Standards: BS EN 60598-2-1, BS EN 1036 for the silvered glass, and BS EN 12150 for the toughened substrate. Every mirror is safety backed so it holds together if it is broken
• Weight: approximately 22.4 kilograms
• 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
• Demister pad: covers 80 per cent of the glass area, 60 watts per square metre, switched with the light and clear in about four minutes. The demister is a heated pad laminated to the back of the glass. It clears an area the size of the pad and no more, which is why the pad size is stated below rather than just the word demister. A pad that covers a third of a mirror will clear a third of a mirror.
• Glass: 5mm silvered float, safety backed to BS EN 1036, with a polished and sealed edge
• Lit panels: sandblasted rather than printed, so the light is even down the whole panel instead of banded
• Mounting: two brackets and a levelling screw, one person to fit

What arrives

• the mirror
• the wall brackets and levelling screws
• a paper drilling template
• the connection block and gland
• installation instructions and a cleaning card

Installation

A registered electrician for the spur. 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 mirror hangs on two brackets with a levelling screw, so one person can fit it and adjust it afterwards. Leave the access hole where the template shows, because reaching a connection block behind a fitted mirror through the wrong hole is a tiling job.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

A backlit mirror throws its light at the wall behind it and returns a halo. It is beautiful and it does not light your face. If this mirror is the only light source at your basin, choose a front lit one instead, or add a light above. That is the whole decision on this page. A front lit mirror puts 300 lux on a face from 400mm with the light coming from each side at eye height, which fills the shadows under the brow and the chin. A backlit mirror puts perhaps 40 lux on a face and all of it bounced. Buy backlit for the look and add a light above the basin, or buy front lit and be done.