IP44 Picture Style Wall Light for a Mirror in Matt Black

A wall light for a bathroom: a small arm and shade over the top of a mirror, in the manner of a picture light.

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: varies by model, and the projection from the wall is stated on the drawing in the gallery
• Light output: 620 lumens at 84 lumens per circuit watt
• Colour temperature: chosen above
• Colour rendering: CRI 90, with R9 above 50, which is a good deal better than the eighties that this category usually offers and is enough for everything except colour matching makeup
• Dimming: mains dimmable, trailing edge
• Electrical: Class 1, earthed, with a gasketed back plate. A metal bodied fitting in a bathroom is earthed and that is not negotiable
• Fire rating: not applicable to a wall or surface mounted fitting
• 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 1.8 kilograms
• Guarantee: five years on the fitting and the LED module, two years on the driver
• Finish: a fine texture matt black powder coat over a chromated primer, because black paint straight onto aluminium in a bathroom lifts at the edges within two years
• Height: 1600mm to centre if it is beside a mirror, which puts the source at face height and is the reason wall lights beat downlights at a basin
• Gasket: silicone at the back plate, and the wall under it needs to be flat
• Glass: moulded and toughened

What arrives

• the fitting
• the gasketed back plate
• fixings for tile and plasterboard
• a drilling template
• installation instructions

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 back plate gasket needs a flat clean surface, so on a tiled wall it should sit on whole tiles rather than across a grout line where it can.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

A pair of wall lights at face height either side of a mirror is the best lighting a bathroom can have, and it costs less than the six downlights that usually get fitted instead. The catch is that it has to be decided before the tiling, because two cables at 1600mm on a tiled wall are not a retrofit. The zones come from BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations. Zone 0 is inside the bath or shower tray. Zone 1 is above it to 2.25 metres. Zone 2 is the 600mm band beyond zone 1 and the 600mm radius around a basin tap. Outside those, the regulations impose no IP requirement, though a bathroom is still a bathroom and steam still rises. Every product page here states which zones the fitting is rated for.