A bathroom light problem

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

A friend has a new flat. The bathroom light is reachable by anyone standing in the bath, and the bath has a combi-boiler-fed shower over it, so there'll be soon be lots of water and steam in the vicinity. (Before that, there was a weaker elctric shower in the same place.)

As soon as I saw it I said I thought the bathroom light was a problem, being a 'trendy' cluster of 3 spotlights, maybe ok in a bedroom but not there. I've not checked yet, but I'm near certain that it's a 240V fitting, not a low voltage one, mainly because I've not seen any transformer anywhere.

The light is in Zone 1, possibly borderline Zone 2, but I guess not. When I looked at bathroom lights in B&Q, even those marked as suitable for Zone 1 said on their instructions (buried inside the box, of course

- good thing I opened it for a read) that the circuit should have a RCD fitted as well. The house does have circuit breakers rather than old-fashioned fusewire fuses, but I'm not sure if the breakers are modern enough for a RCD-type to replace the current lighting circuit breaker.

I'm sure that's what's required in the long term, but I'm wondering if there are any short-term alternatives. I presume that even an enclosed Zone 1 type light would be better than what's installed now? I also wondered if one of the bulkhead-type outside lights would be a safer alternative?

I also wonder if anyone makes a standalone RCD that could be sited outside the bathroom (eg high up on the hall wall?) and have the existing bathroom light circuit routed through it - ie could I take cable out of the current bathroom ceiling pull-switch and through the wall to a RCD then back in to the existing light circuit (or something)?

No-one wants to have to dig the existing ceiling apart looking for the cables in it at this stage, as I suspect would be necessary if we wanted either to replace the existing lighting circuit just in that room, or indeed if we needed to completely disconnect that room's lighting circuit and run a new one.

[ben]

So whats your problem with the lights in the bathroom?

[Will]

I reckon that you must be the latest incarnation of Dimm?

[ben]

Why I wanna know whats the problem where the lights are sited and whats wrong with having LV lights in a bathroom?

They must be alright as they are, otherwise the landlord/previous occupier would of said something.

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

^^^^ ITYM "would have" ?

[ocidental]

This is a way of adding an RCD

Something about zones here

You could use an external bulkhead with an ipx4, certainly cheap but looks a bit odd and would need an RCD if in zone 1. I know I've seen shower lights that were'nt downlighters but mostly they are downlighters, that is the wiring is all sealed in the ceiling void out of the bathroom. They look quite good, are cheap and easy to fit in your case, but you'd be going from 3 lights to 1.

Would it be possible to move the lights to zone 3? I suppose it depends on which way the joists are going.

[Stuart]

OP said he doesn't think they ARE LV. Stuart

[ben]

My LV's can be reached if I stood up in the bath, there's no getting away with it as the ceiling is low. Me thinks he's making a lot of work for his friend.

[Tim Mitchell]

Pay attention at the back, they are talking about MAINS lights not LV.

Even if it is mains I am not sure it is something to worry about, unless people make a habit of swinging on the light fitting to get out of the bath.

[ben]

Pay attention at the front, He hasn't said its 240V and if your putting that type of lighting in a bathroom LV is the choice. :-P

[Tim Mitchell]

Definitely LV is best, but in his first post he said "but I'm near certain that it's a 240V fitting, not a low voltage one, mainly because I've not seen any transformer anywhere."

[ben]

Yeah! but I've known people to stick the transformer in the ceiling near to one of the lights, daft buggers. :-)

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

It is touchable by anyone standing in the bath having a shower.

nothing, but I don't think the present lights are LV. Putting LV ones in is a long-term solution as far as I'm concerned because - I assume - we'd need to tear the ceiling down to get at the present main wires buried in it, to remove them. The switch for this light is also at ceiling height so I wouldn't guarantee that the whole supply might not be high up. That is, there's no certainty that I could find the light's supply under the floor and terminate it.

Rubbish. Previous occupier clearly did things without thought of safety issues - probably wasn't even aware that there are safety issues.

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

Someone not thinking could reach out and touch the light, and I suppose might do if they thought they were about to slip.

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

No, that's right, I merely said I thought it was.

I'm not trying to decide what the best kind of new light in a brand new redecorated bathroom would be, so eg not considering downlighters in a ceiling suspended under the present one - that'd be easy. I'm trying to find out how to make the present situation safer. The new owner of the flat will doubtless consider redoing the whole bathroom at some later date when funds permit but it's not going to happen soon.

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

This is an old flat, with an artexed (I think) ceiling. There's nowhere to put a transformer, short of visiting the upstairs neighbours and taking up their floor.

[John Rumm]

You can get 12V transformers that are small enough to go through the mounting hole for the lights themselves. So if you already have switched mains routed to several luminairs, then it would be simplest to go for one transformer per light.

[Jeremy C B Nicoll]

Unfortunately we don't have luminaires mounted in holes at all. We have a surface mounted triple spotlight.

[John Rumm]

If you want to change the fitting however there is nothing stopping you going for a through hole mounting, or for that matter a surface mounting one that covers the small hole required to hide the transformer ;-)