Bathroom heater/downlighter.

[Peter Crosland]

A friend who does not have net access has asked me if I could find a combined infra-red bathroom heater and light. His is renovating his bathroom and would like a replacement for his existing unit which, although functional, is show signs of age. I have trawled the net to find one without success so I wonder if anyone here knows of a source? Plenty of heaters and plenty of lights but no combined units. Your help would be much appreciated.

gee six jay en [e-mail]

Replace the words with the numbers to email me

[Andrew Gabriel]

Gosh -- I remember those -- a light in the middle and a circular slica glass tube enclosed heating element in a reflector wrapped around it, something like 500 or 750W?

If I'm recalling it correctly, it would fail a PAT test today, as the guard was not finger-proof, and the silica glass case of a heating element has to to be treated as a live part, so it would fail the IP2X test.

I think you may need to buy a separate heater and light. Personally, I prefer the wall mounted downflow fan heaters to radiant heaters as supplementary electric heating in a bathroom.

[Ian Stirling]

Oddly I diddn't see the original post. Hmm.

4*500W floodlights?

[BigWallop]

We used to use a 250 Watts Heat Lamp in the bathroom of our old flat. Used to work a treat and it wasn't a small room. Used to take the chill off the winter mornings in no time.

Works out a lot cheaper to install and run too, because the lamps are only between £5 or £6 a go and the holder is already on the ceiling.

Might be something to suggest to your mate.

[BigWallop]

There are also these units sold by most of the electrical wholesalers and by these people on-line:

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm surprised it's still available.

You might have some difficulty fitting this in a bathroom any more, as I don't believe it can be fitted in any zone...

The guard clearly doesn't meet IP2X. The element still looks like it's in a silica glass tube, and thus counts as an exposed live part. This means it can only be used where protection against electric shock is by means of being out of reach, a method which is specifically not permitted in any zone in a bathroom.

So it would need to mounted outside all zones, i.e. with it's lowest part higher than 2.25m and more than 0.6m horizontally from edge of bath/shower, or more than 2.4m horizontally from edge of bath or shower.

[BigWallop]

I think these units are OK to use in the bathroom because they are fully insulated internally to the modern standards and they are operated by pull-cord switching.

[Lee]

Curious now :), Why is a silica glass tubed element treated as an exposed live part?

Is it because silica glass is conductive when hot? (Remembering that chemistry experiment long ago... )

Or is it because it can break, and do the same rules apply to lamps now?

Lee

[Andrew Gabriel]

If so, I didn't know about that.

I believe so.

People aren't silly enough to carry on using a broken lamp. They are in the case of a broken heater because it carries on working regardless of broken silica glass tube and spirals of live wire ozing out.

[mike ring]

[e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) wrote in news:calbhu$8e9$ [e-mail]:

But they're so butt-ugly!!

Unless you know different, of course, in which case a steer would be appreciated

mike

[BigWallop]

I have to admit to not really liking them either. No matter how much they try to change the design, the basic shape is always an ugly looking thing on a ceiling. I much prefer just a good old fashioned heat lamp in the winter to heat a bathroom.

[Lee]

Err, forget about that ;) I just checked and it is about 1Meg at around

700 C, so not enough to be a problem at 240v. Suspect the experiment was performed with a somewhat higher voltage...

ISWYM :)

Lee

[Andrew Gabriel]

I don't consider any heaters particularly attractive, but neither does any one type seem significantly worse than another to me.