Shaver lights or lighting with shaving points incorporated became necessary as hotel and guest houses changed from having shared bathroom facilities to providing rooms with wash hand basins or ensuite bathrooms. Linolite was one of the first companies to offer a shaver light and their razorlight is still manufactured to this day.
The linear mains lamp used in some shaver lights provides a warm, soft and sometimes yellow light and are quite fragile. Acrylic diffusers do become brittle with time from UV rays and heat from the lamp. Extreme caution should be used when fitting a linear mains lamp shaver light in hotels as the product will quickly overheat if the shaver light is covered with a towel. The running costs and maintenance issues of a 60w lamp with a short lamp life should also be considered in addition to the above.
All shaver lights or lighting with shaving sockets for installation in the UK needs to have an integral isolating transformer. This requirement hasn’t changed since the regulation was created back in 1930. At that time circuits were protected by fuse wire or fuse cartridges and it would be quite easy to receive a nasty or fatal electric shock from an electric razor dropping into the sink - hence the requirement to have an isolating transformer within the shaver light. An isolating transformer restricts the current to 1 amp (20 watts) giving greater protection for the user. The move to miniature circuit breakers and cross bonding (Earthing of metallic fixtures) within the bathroom now gives greater protection but the requirement still applies.
Please note that the design of the UK two pin reversible plug (BS4573:1970) differs from two pin reversible plugs produced for use in Europe. Some manufacturers have designed their product to work with both but no precedent is in place for this to be a standard.
Lastly we have been presented with anecdotal evidence that for a hotel to achieve a certain grade (star, diamond etc) the shaver socket needs to be able to accommodate 110/120v shavers as well as 230/240v and UK and European two pin reversible plugs. If anyone can shed some light on this we will pass this information on to our users.
|
Bathroom
.JPG "Stylish Over Mirror Shaver Light")