Bathroom Mirrors and Zones within a bathroom

Its always worth refreshing your knowledge of bathroom zones with regards to lighting and in our case bathroom mirrors. Every illuminated bathroom mirror you purchase will have an IP rating. This basically tells you how watertight the unit will be. Your bathroom is broken down in to zones that tell you where you can install your bathroom mirror dependent upon its IP rating. Inside the actual bathtub is Zone 0. Above the bath to the ceiling (up to 2.25 metres) is zone 1. Outside zone 1 up to 60cm is zone 2 and everything outside this is an outside zone with no rules regarding installation. Also an area within 60cm of the taps on your sink is also zone 2.

Most bathroom mirrors tend to be IP44 rated. In this instance you can install the mirror in zones 1 and 2 and all outside zones. (you wouldn't really want to install the bathroom mirror inside zone 0 as this is inside the bathtub which would be rather unusual). Sometimes a mirror may have an IP rating of IP21. Most cabinets are like this because they can be opened or maybe they have an exposed shaver socket. In this instance the bathroom mirror could only be installed inside Zone 2.

As with everything common sense also should play a part. For extra bathroom mirror guidance I have included the following picture to demonstrate the above described zonal system.