Mirror Heater Demister Switch

[hankmarvin]

Hello,

I'm fitting a large mirror and heater pad in the new bathroom I'm building and I need some opinions/ideas on powering it.

First thought was to wire it to the bathroom light, fine but means it will come on a lot when it isn't needed, the summer, when the bath shower isn't on etc etc and reliant on someone not leaving the lights on but does mean it will actually get used and not forgotten.

It could be connected to a second pull cord, bit messy and reliant on someone remembering to turn off.

Some sort of timer switch, not sure whats available really?


I wonder if option one is best but put a switch in between light power and mirror so it will come on with the lights unless the heater switch is turned off.


Help would be great.


Cheers
Hank

 

[stem]

How about a humidity sensor? Then it will only come on when there is a risk of condensation forming on the mirror.

An example can be found here.

 

[lloyda]

I had exactly this dilemma a few months ago. The electrician tried to persuade me to wire in with the lights, but to me this was just wasting electricity. The mirror is about 2m long so the heating pads are a reasonable size. You don't need to heat the mirror whenever someone uses the bathroom. In the end I opted for a timer relay from the LightwaveRF range. That way I can place the switch adjacent to the mirror, with no safety worries, and have it turn the heating pads off after 10 minutes if they get forgotten. (In fact we placed double switches at each end of the mirror just to maintain the symmetry, and use the second switch of each to control the mirror lighting.)

 

[hankmarvin]

I had exactly this dilemma a few months ago. The electrician tried to persuade me to wire in with the lights, but to me this was just wasting electricity. The mirror is about 2m long so the heating pads are a reasonable size. You don't need to heat the mirror whenever someone uses the bathroom. In the end I opted for a timer relay from the LightwaveRF range. That way I can place the switch adjacent to the mirror, with no safety worries, and have it turn the heating pads off after 10 minutes if they get forgotten. (In fact we placed double switches at each end of the mirror just to maintain the symmetry, and use the second switch of each to control the mirror lighting.)

Yeah this mirror will be very similar.

can you remember what items you bought? I have looked at lightwave stuff before but I'm not too clued up on it. I wouldn't really want to put a lot of their infrastructure in for my small requirement although I guess I could use a switch as you have to turn the lights/extractor on too.

But I guess I need some sort of receiver to push power out to my devices and a switch to go in bathroom.

 

[coopersim]

What about a flow sensor to the shower head?

 

[Taylortwocities]

Many mirrors have a heater on/off switch. Mine has as switch which is always on, But the supply to the heater is wired to come on when the lights do.
An average sized heat pad is around 60watts so I'm not tearing may hair out with the expense of it all…..

 

[lloyda]

can you remember what items you bought? I have looked at lightwave stuff before but I'm not too clued up on it. I wouldn't really want to put a lot of their infrastructure in for my small requirement although I guess I could use a switch as you have to turn the lights/extractor on too.

But I guess I need some sort of receiver to push power out to my devices and a switch to go in bathroom.

I used one of these timed relays. If you want a single switch, use one of these (available in different colours). Note that the switch can be surface mounted - no need for a back box.