Extractor Fan with a Light and a Pull Cord in Brushed Chrome

A fan and a light in one hole: a cord for the boost, for a bathroom with one switch and a fan that should not run every time somebody uses the room.

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: 125mm cut out, 175mm overall, and a 100mm duct spigot
• Light output: 620 lumens from the light at 82 lumens per circuit watt, and 85 cubic metres an hour of extract measured in the installed configuration rather than at the bare motor
• Colour temperature: 3000K on the light
• Colour rendering: CRI 80, which is the legal minimum for a domestic fitting and is honest for the money. It is fine for a cloakroom and it is not what you want beside a shaving mirror
• Dimming: the light is mains dimmable, the fan is not
• Electrical: Class 2 on the light, Class 2 on the fan, with separate switched live and permanent live so the overrun works. Both fed from a fused spur outside the zones
• Fire rating: not fire rated. If the ceiling below is a fire compartment, which it is in a flat and in most two storey extensions, this fitting needs a fire hood or a different product
• Standards: BS EN 60335-2-80 for the fan, BS EN 60598 for the luminaire, and tested to the extract rate quoted rather than the rate of the bare motor
• Weight: approximately 1.7 kilograms
• Guarantee: three years
• 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
• Extract rate: 85 cubic metres an hour, against the 15 litres a second that Part F of the Building Regulations asks of an intermittent bathroom fan. That is 54 cubic metres an hour, so this has headroom
• Noise: 28dB at three metres
• Ducting: 100mm rigid duct to an outside wall or a tile vent. A fan ducted into a loft void is a fan that rots a roof, and it is more common than anybody admits
• Overrun: one to thirty minutes, adjustable on the back

What arrives

• the fan and light unit
• the duct spigot and a backdraught shutter
• a cut out template
• the wiring diagram and instructions

Installation

A registered electrician, and somebody who will duct it properly. 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. Rigid 100mm duct, the shortest run you can manage, to an outside wall or a tile vent. Every bend costs you extract and flexible duct costs you more than every bend.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

Fan extract rates are quoted two ways and only one of them is honest. The free air rate is what the motor does with no duct attached and it is what goes on the box. The installed rate is what it does through three metres of 100mm duct and a bend, and it is typically 40 per cent lower. Every figure on this page is the installed rate. Part F asks for 15 litres a second, which is 54 cubic metres an hour, and a fan quoted at 90 free air will often not reach it.