How to pick the right infrared lamp for your bathroom
Getting the wattage right for your bathroom heater is a bit of a balancing act. If you go too low, you’re still shivering in your towel. Go too high, and you’re just throwing money away on your electric bill—or worse, you’re overheating the fixture until the bulb pops.
Figuring out how much power you actually need
I usually break it down into three simple sizes. If you’ve got a tiny powder room (under 4m²), a single 250W to 400W short-wave lamp does the trick. For a standard bathroom (4m² to 8m²), you’ll probably want two lamps, totaling around 600W to 800W. Then you have those huge master baths over 8m²—those are the ones where you need the heavy hitters, 1000W or more. But here is the thing: the floor space isn’t the only thing that matters. Short-wave heat doesn’t really “warm up the air.” It’s more like sunlight; it hits your skin and the floor directly. Because of that,**your ceiling height is a huge factor.**If your ceilings are high (like 3 meters), you’ll need more wattage just to feel that same cozy warmth that a lower ceiling provides.
The trade-offs (and a warning about your wiring)
Higher wattage means you get warm fast. Really fast. But that intensity puts a lot of stress on your connectors and wiring. If you’re installing anything over 600W, please do yourself a favor and use high-temperature rated wiring. You don’t want your insulation melting inside your walls. Also, think about your circuit breaker. A 1000W lamp is great, but if it’s sharing a line with a powerful water heater and a ventilation fan, you might find yourself staring at a dark room because you tripped the breaker.
A few tips from the field
When you’re putting it in, make sure the lamp is seated firmly in the socket. If it’s loose, you get those little electrical arcs that fry the contacts. It’s a pain to fix once it happens. And one last thing: check the angle of the reflector. If it’s slightly off, you’re wasting about 30% of the heat by bouncing it back into the ceiling instead of down onto you. A quick adjustment makes a world of difference.