LED lights in shower niches

My builder agreed to install LED strip lighting to all of my shower niches, however the site supervisor and electrician have never done this before, so I am looking for guidance please.

My thoughts are:

-Install waterproof strips and case
-Ensuure Diffuser/case is installed after waterproofing but before tiling
-Tiler to tile up to diffuser
-Use adhesive over waterproof membrane rather than screwing in so as not to impact integrity of the waterproofing



How does this sound?

My other concern is if the diffuser is cut so as to provide a snug fit, it will be difficult in future to remove the cover to get the strip out, should it require changing.


Would appreciate any thoughts. Thank you

I have had some interior designers want me to include this in lots of my apartment building lighting designs, and I have talked them out of it. I know it looks good, but as you seem to have understood it does create a lot of issues with waterproofing, tiling, and installing the strip so that it itself is waterproof and can be replaced if it fails. To do it properly becomes very expensive. I consideres it for my own bathrooms and decided against it for these reasons.

Another thing they love to do is put pendant lights over bath tubs, which in most cases is actually illegal and is electrically unsafe.

I blame The Block for perpetuating these trends.

a big +1 to that.

It looks pretty, and trendy, and all the rest, but it is unsafe.

Is it really unsafe if it's extra low voltage LEDs and the driver is placed securely away in a waterproof location ?

PD

Now that's post from the crypt !


Well I'm guessing LED's with IP66 ratings would be fine if they are also low voltage, but I'm not sure if it would pass standards though.

Mine are ip65 and also in diffuser casing. They are recessed up into the niche. Even when I'm cleaning I don't think there's ever been a need to directly spray water on them.

Hi Mrs JM.....

How did you get the power to the LED strips and where are the drivers ??

Thanks,

PD

Make that plus 2.

I wouldn't want to do it and when you need to replace the LED light when it's dead it might become your worst nightmare.


Kind Regards,

Bruce
"Building an Eden Brae Waldorf 50 in North Kellyville"
Blog: http://waldorf50.blogspot.com.au

A Mobile Solicitor at Wong & Horta Lawyers
Website: http://www.whlawyers.com.au

I keep hearing "But it's unsafe" but no-one is suggesting that they're going to use a cheap Chinese bed-side lamp in the shower area !!

I was thinking, off the top of my head, having a strip of (say) IP67 LEDs at the top of the niche.

In the back corner of the niche have a small conduit running UP inside the wall cavity where the 12v power lead could run to the driver nice and safe and dry in the ceiling.

So there's only 12v (in a sealed IP67 lighting fixture) in the shower niche and any stray water would have to fall UP around two metres to get anywhere near the driver.

PD

This is more or less my set up. The electrician left the electrical cable out of the wall when the waterproofing was done. The led's and diffuser casing was then installed after the tiles were laid on the back wall of the niche and then they tiled up to the casing.

Only issue is the idiot at the shop provided the wrong diffuser case and the top doesn't pop out easily. In fact I think when the strip needs to be changed we will have to smash the casing.

Hopefully that's not for a long long time or until after we sell and move and I won't have to deal with it!

I could imagine at that stage, you could possibly damage the water proofing and create a huge job to rectify the same.

I could imagine at that stage, you could possibly damage the water proofing and create a huge job to rectify the same. /quote]
This stage is a vacant block of land !!

That is why I was thinking of having the builder drop a conduit through the cavity wall terminating (say 25mm) into where the shower niche will be built.

Then the villa-board goes on and the conduit comes through the board and is sealed like any other penetration such as taps / mixers / shower jets.

Then the tilers do their thing and once tiled the excess conduit it trimmed flush with the tiles at the top of the niche.

Finally, the LED strip can be stuck to the 'roof' of the niche and the 12v feed wire fed UP the conduit (with a dab of silicon) to the driver in the ceiling.

Should the LED strip fail at any point in the future it's simply a matter of plucking out the silicon, disconnecting the LV wire in the ceiling and pulling it back down the conduit.

A smart person would tie a draw-string to the wire as they pulled it down to simply draw a replacement cable back into the ceiling.

Any issues with this ??

PD

I would also recommend you to consider installing dimmer for the strip LED lights.