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JANUARY 2022 LIGHTING JOURNAL
Between heat, damp, corrosion, chemicals, glare and the need to be ensuring public safety at all times, illuminating swimming pools and wet areas can be challenging By Roger Beckett
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t is no secret that wet area lighting is a specialised arena, one where the decorative and the functional combine to create the remarkable. The latest innovations from manufacturers, coupled with in-depth photometrics, performance reviews and analyses and, of course, LED technology, now means it is easier than ever to create the perfect scheme. In fact, whereas it used to be the case that strip-out-and-replace was about the only option for regenerating tired wet and underwater areas, nowadays it is becoming increasingly straightforward simply to retrofit older projects, so as to give them a new lease of life and enhanced efficiency at a fraction of the cost. The starting point when thinking at wet area lighting is BS7671:2018, the eight-
Figure 1. This graphic, from BS7671, shows some of the different zoning issues you need to consider when lighting wet environments
eenth edition of the wiring regulations [1]. These address swimming pools, regardless of which zone you’re working within, and cover the correct specification of
fittings and the best (and most robust) designs suitable for areas of humidity or corrosive environments, for example, spas and saunas. Bear in mind that public pools
