How to actually pick the right infrared lamp for your bathroom
Picking an infrared lamp isn’t about following a rigid formula. It’s more about feeling out the space. In a bathroom, you want shortwave lamps. Why? Because they don’t waste time trying to warm up the air—which is basically impossible in a damp room—they just heat you and the surfaces around you directly.
Getting the power right
You can’t just grab the biggest lamp on the shelf and hope for the best. If you’re dealing with a tiny powder room (anything under 4 square meters), stick to something in the 400W to 600W range. If you throw a 1200W beast into a small stall, the room will heat up way too fast. Your thermostat will start flipping on and off every few seconds. It’s annoying, and it’ll kill your relay and the lamp itself much sooner than it should. For bigger master baths or commercial showers—think 8 to 12 square meters—you’re looking at 800W to 1500W. But here is a pro tip: don’t put all those eggs in one basket. Instead of one massive, scorching lamp, use two or three smaller ones. It gets rid of those annoying cold spots and means nobody is going to get a heat-burn because they happened to stand right under the one “hot zone.”
The trade-off
More wattage means you get warm instantly. That sounds great, right? But there’s a catch. A 1500W lamp pulls a lot of juice. You’ve got to make sure your wiring is thick enough to handle that draw. If the wires are too thin, you’ll get a voltage drop, and your lamp will never actually hit the temperature it’s supposed to. It’ll just feel… lukewarm.
Where to put them
Height is everything here. Aim for about 2.2 to 2.5 meters. Any lower and it feels like you’re standing under a heat gun—way too aggressive for your skin. Any higher and the heat just vanishes into the ceiling before it ever reaches you. And please, make sure you use IPX4 rated housings. Bathrooms are wet. You don’t want moisture creeping into the sockets and causing a short circuit. That’s a problem you definitely don’t want to deal with.