Fire Rated IP65 Downlight Trade Pack with CRI 97 in Brushed Chrome

A trade pack of fire rated downlights: CRI 97 with R9 above 90, which is a photographic specification and worth the money in a bathroom and a kitchen and nowhere else.

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. Zone 1 is directly above the bath or the shower tray up to 2.25 metres from the floor, and this fitting is rated for it
• IP rating: IP65. Dust tight, and protected against low pressure water jets from any direction. This is the rating for zone 1, which is directly above a bath or in a shower
• Dimensions: 85mm cut out, 92mm overall diameter, 55mm insertion depth above the ceiling
• Light output: 650 lumens per fitting at 92 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: 3000K as standard, or selectable on the models that say so
• 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 Most bathroom fittings quote a CRI in the eighties and do not quote R9 at all, which is how you end up shaving by a light that makes you look ill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: mains dimmable, trailing edge, to 1 per cent without flicker or drop out
• 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, plus BS 476 Part 21 fire testing with certificates for both plasterboard and timber joist constructions
• Weight: approximately 0.5 kilograms per fitting
• Guarantee: seven years on the fitting, the LED module and 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
• Pack: chosen above, and the price per fitting falls at twenty and again at thirty
• Insulation: may be covered directly with insulation, no hood required, which is the whole point of an integrated fire rated fitting
• Insertion depth: 55mm, which clears a 47mm joist void and is the number that catches people out on a first floor bathroom
• Certificates: fire, IP and photometric test reports downloadable from this page rather than on request

What arrives

• the fittings, with integral drivers and flex tails
• IP65 rated push fit connectors
• spare gaskets
• a cut out template
• fire and IP test certificates

Installation

A registered electrician. 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 fitting is fire rated in itself, so no hood is needed and insulation may be laid straight over it. Check the 55mm insertion depth against your joist void before you cut the first hole, because a first floor bathroom ceiling with 47mm joists and a plasterboard skin is tighter than it looks.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

Fire rating is not a nice to have. If the ceiling below the bathroom is a fire compartment, which it is in every flat and in most two storey houses where the room below is habitable, cutting an 85mm hole in it without a fire rated fitting or a hood breaches Part B of the Building Regulations. The certificate for these is on this page, for both plasterboard and timber joist constructions, because a fitting tested in only one of those is only rated in one of those.