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manager Libby Strong.
This means heat lamps, like the IXL
Tastics, have no warm up period because
the IR lamps provide instantaneous heat.
Further, new technologies are
changing the way in which end users
use the product. And what is the big
development in bathroom lighting?
Unsurprisingly, it’s LED.
Of course, given that LEDs offer very
little heat output it is unlikely they will
ever replace tungsten halogen as a heat
bulb. But they are finding a home as a
replacement for CFLs.
However, this has lead to an
unexpected problem.
“If you haven’t got enough air flowing
around the LEDs then the heat lamps
can degrade the life of the diodes. This
is because of the sensitive electronics
used in LEDs. So, in the Tastic Neo range
from IXL, you can’t run the LEDs at the
same time as the heat lamp – they’ll
automatically turn off when the heat
lamp is on.
“In some of the cheaper copy products
coming in from China, the manufacturers
are just putting a heat lamp in with the
LEDs and hoping everything will be fine,
but that’s not the case.”
Where most sparkies go wrong with
choosing a heat, light and ventilation
system is properly sizing a room to
determine the space’s needs.
“Sparkies don’t always size up
bathrooms correctly. If you want the best
result for your customer, you really need
to provide a quality product that has the
extraction capacity required for the size
of room you’re venting,” Libby says.
“You really need to do your homework.”
According to IXL Appliance’s
Ventilation Selection Guide
, selecting the
right fan is easy.
First, you have to select your required
application. The size or capacity of the
exhaust fan you need is determined by
the type of room it is to be installed in,
as different rooms require different
rates of air flow.
The rate of air flow is the number of
times the total room volume of air is
changed per hour (measured as ‘ACH’ -
see Figure 1).
From there, calculate the room volume
in cubic metres (m
3
) by multiplying the
length by width, by height (L x W x H). For