I am wondering how to be able to select different lighting levels in the bathroom, for instance by having a central light plus downlights. The big snag is that, instead of, say, a three gang switch as could be used elsewhere, this would need three pull switches, which would be faintly ludicrous.
Short of putting the control outside the door, is there a neat solution?
Chris
Well you could put a bell on each I suppose.
How about
.andy
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What would that achieve, still only single pole!
Dave Jones
Putting a 3 gang switch outside the door would be the best solution. Unless you wanted to go with zoned remote control.... ..
SJW A.C.S. Ltd.
Please don't top post.
One could use three of them, buried under the tiles if wanted.
.andy
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How about low voltage remote switching, have the low voltage switches inside the bathroom and have the relays or what ever else where ?
"Chris J Dixon" wrote | I am wondering how to be able to select different lighting levels | in the bathroom, for instance by having a central light plus | downlights. The big snag is that, instead of, say, a three gang | switch as could be used elsewhere, this would need three pull | switches, which would be faintly ludicrous. | Short of putting the control outside the door, is there a neat | solution?
You can get pull-switch dimmers
Otherwise, I had a look at a radiant bathroom wall heater in B&Q the other week. It had a sequential pull switch that cycled through off, 1, 2, 3 bars. If such a switch could be obtained separately and mounted in an appropriate enclosure...
Owain
What you need is something like those pull switches commonly found on ceiling fans that has a 1-2-3-off arrangement. Don't know where you'd get one from though.
Lidl recently sold 3x 13A remote controlled switches + a remote controlled dimmer with on/off. £17.99. This system could be incorporated in the ceiling void with a bit of work. The RC switches are also available from CPC but at a higher price. The control is 9V battery operated and works up to about 40' IME. Regards Capitol
4 pulls just to turn the thing off, complete with mandatory disco sequence every time. I dont think so.
Sensible solution is to use an ordinary triple wall switch bank in the bathroom, but run say 6v or 12v through it, connecting it to 3 relays outside the bathroom, which is where the mains power switching is done.
Convenient to use, does what you want, looks normal, and not even expensive.
Regards, NT
As of the 2001(?) Amendment to the Regs which introduced bathroom Zoning... yes there is. This amendment introduced a *substantial* change to UK practice; it's now OK to have 'ordinary' lightswitches in bathrooms provided they're out of reach (in Zone 3 or non-Zone), meaning 0.6m horizontally away from nearest edge of bath or shower. (The Amendment itself is a little obscure as to whether such switches in Zone 3 should be RCD protected - it's possible to read it either way, though I believe sensible reading is that it's not required). The cable to the switch and the switch back-box still need to be supplementary bonded (though using the CPC, i.e. the 'earth wire', in the cable is OK as the bonding conductor,
*provided* that the supp. bonding is made in or 'close to' the bathroom: e.g. the ceiling void just above the b/room or the loft directly above the b/room would be OK, but relying on the common earthing at the consumer unit would definitely *not* be!).So, depending on your bathroom physical layout, this may allow you to use a 'normal' 3-gang plateswitch, or 3 splash-protected wall-mount switches, or similar, rather than either having switching outside, or remote-control or SELV exotica. Of course, if your bathroom layout makes the natural place(s) for such switches too close to the bath/shower, you're at least partially stuffed - though you may find a single pullcord by the close-to-bath entry position and a 2-gang switch further away for your Mood Lighting to be another way around.
Of course there's still a strict prohibition on *sockets* anywhere in the bathroom, and a requirement that other appliances (such as a washing machine and tumble drier - yes, these are permitted if as far from the bath as Zone 3 / out-of-zones) be supplied through a 30mA RCD. And you need to have general regard to the suitability of stuff you install - hence the nudge in the above to consider either splashproof wallswitches, or at least well-made ones where operation with wet hands isn't likely to cause a problem.
It takes a while for changes like these to seep into the conciousness of practicing electricians (whether pro or clued-up d-i-y), mind you: the sight of an ordinary plateswitch in a bathroom may induce apoplexy in someone performing an Inspection at the time of sale, say, and no amount of printing PDFs of the Amendment from the IEE website will persuade someone in the grip of certain detection of a Violation ;-)
Stefek
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