Slim IP65 Downlight at 25mm Deep in Brushed Chrome

A downlight for a bathroom: 25mm above the ceiling with a remote driver, for a concrete soffit or a void that does not exist.

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, 40mm insertion depth above the ceiling
• Light output: 580 lumens at 84 lumens per circuit watt, 110 degree beam. 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: 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, to 1 per cent
• Electrical: Class 2 with a remote driver on a 2 metre lead, which has to be accessible for maintenance. Plan a hatch or place it in the loft, because a driver buried in a sealed void is a fault waiting to happen
• 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 60598 for luminaires, BS EN 62471 photobiological safety at the exempt group, BS EN 55015 for electromagnetic emissions, UKCA and CE marked
• Weight: approximately 0.30 kilograms
• 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
• Insulation: must not be covered. This fitting is not fire rated and needs a hood in a fire compartment ceiling
• Insertion depth: 40mm, and this is the figure that decides whether it fits your joist void
• Beam angle: 110 degrees
• Gasket: silicone, captive, replaceable

What arrives

• the downlight with its driver and flex tail
• an IP65 push fit connector
• a spare gasket
• a cut out template
• test certificates by download

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. Check the insertion depth against your void before cutting, and lay the cut outs out from the basin and the bath rather than evenly across the ceiling, because an evenly spaced grid reliably puts a light directly behind the person using the mirror.

Choosing between this and the alternatives

Three specifications decide a bathroom downlight and only one of them is usually printed on the box. IP65 rather than IP44 if it is going in zone 1, which is over the bath or in the shower. Fire rated if the ceiling is a fire compartment, which it is in every flat. And beam angle, which should be narrow for a high ceiling and wide for a low one. Lumens matter far less than any of those, and colour rendering matters more than lumens.