Marine Grade Wet Room Lighting Package in Matt Black

For a room that is wet all day: 316 stainless throughout, because a wet room is wet all day and 304 stainless will tea stain in a couple of years.

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: varies by fitting, and every one is listed with its cut out and its overall diameter in the pack list
• Light output: 4200 lumens across the package at 86 lumens per circuit watt
• Colour temperature: chosen above
• 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 Most bathroom fittings quote a CRI in the eighties and do not quote R9 at all, which is how you end up shaving by a light that makes you look ill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, and the SELV circuits dim on the transformer rather than on the mains side, which is what stops a 12 volt fitting flickering at the bottom of the dial
• 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 IP testing to BS EN 60529 with a certificate on file
• Weight: approximately 11.2 kilograms
• Guarantee: seven years on the fitting, the LED module and 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
• Corrosion: triple plated over brass, salt spray tested to 500 hours
• Gaskets: silicone, captive, and replaceable without removing the fitting
• Ambient rating: 45 degrees, which is a wet room specification
• Drainage: every recessed fitting is drilled and gasketed so condensate cannot pool on the lens

What arrives

• every fitting in the package
• the SELV transformer where required
• IP68 rated gel filled connectors
• silicone gaskets and spare gaskets
• a zone drawing for your room
• 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. On a wet room the two things that matter are the transformer position for any SELV circuit, which must be outside the zones, and the gasket seating, which has to be clean and dry when the fitting goes in. A gasket compressed onto a speck of plaster leaks for the rest of its life.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

A wet room is not a bathroom with more tiles. The humidity is higher for longer, the fittings are wetted directly rather than splashed, and the corrosion problem is real: 304 stainless, which is what most of the trade sells as stainless, will show orange tea staining within two or three years in a wet room and looks like rust because it is. Everything on this page is 316 or triple plated brass, and we state the salt spray hours rather than the word stainless.