Bathroom Lighting Zones Explained

Wiring regulations are there to give us guidelines on whats safe and whats not so you may have already heard about bathroom lighting zones?

 So what we have here is the bathroom broken down into hazardous areas. Regulations stipulate that light fixtures must meet certain criteria in order to be considered safe in certain locations adjacent to water.

Zone 0 requires a light fitting to be IP67 rated which is actually considered to be safe when immersed in water. This area is actually inside the bath or shower itself.

Zone 1 requires a light fitting to be IP44 rated or above. Its actually generally considered safer to use an IP65 rated fitting. Its worth noting most shower lights are actually IP65. This includes the area above a bath up to a height of 2.25mtrs from the floor. If the light is mains voltage an RCD must be used to protect the circuit in this zone.

Zone 2 also requires a light fitting to be IP44 rated or above. This includes the area 0.6mtrs from the outside perimieter of the bath or wash basin up to a height of 2.25mtrs from the floor.

Zone 3 generally consider an IP20 light fitting as safe. We would recomend IP20 plus.

Commercial users should also note if there is ever a likely hood of water jets being used perhaps for cleaning purposes light fittings must have a minimum rating of IP65.

Full IET wiring regulations can be found as a PDF download at the bottom of this page.

If you want any help or advise please get in touch we are only to happy to help.

See all our Bathroom Lights, Zone 1 Lighting, Zone 2 Lighting or Zone 3 Lighting.