Shower Extractor Fan with an IP65 Light in Matt White

A fan and a light in one hole: rated for zone 1 so it can go directly above the shower, which is where the steam actually is and where most fans are not allowed.

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: 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 1.9 kilograms
• Guarantee: three years
• Finish: a powder coated matt white that disappears into a ceiling, and the cheapest honest finish we stock
• 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.