Three Vanity Lights and Two Bidet Outlets in Ridgefield, WA

Two small jobs that come up constantly and get done badly just as often: hanging a vanity light, and finding power for a bidet seat. This home in Ridgefield needed three of the first and two of the second, and Newman Electric did all five in an afternoon.

Bidet seats and the extension cord problem

A heated bidet seat needs a receptacle, and almost no bathroom built before about 2015 has one behind the toilet.

What happens next is predictable: the homeowner runs an extension cord from the vanity receptacle, along the baseboard, behind the toilet. In a bathroom. On a circuit that is protected precisely because that room is wet.

That is the situation the vanity lighting and bathroom outlets side of our work exists to prevent. A receptacle installed where the cord actually reaches costs an hour and removes a cord that should never have been on that floor.

Two details make the difference between a good bidet outlet and an awkward one:

• Height. Low enough that the cord is not visible above the seat, high enough to clear the baseboard and any trim.
• Side. The cord exits one side of the seat, and putting the receptacle on the other side means the cord loops around the bowl.

Both are decided by standing in the room with the seat in front of you, not from a plan.

GFCI is not optional here

Bathroom receptacles require GFCI protection, and adding a new one does not create an exemption. Both new outlets stayed on protected circuits.

It is worth being blunt about why: a bidet seat is a device that puts water and mains electricity within a few inches of a person. GFCI protection is the thing standing between a fault and the person sitting on it. Our comparison of GFCI protection in a bathroom covers how it differs from AFCI.

Vanity lights are about the box, not the fixture

Three new vanity fixtures went in over three mirrors, and the work in each was the same: check what is behind the old one before committing to the new one.

Older bathrooms frequently have a light hung off a box that was fine for a single 60-watt bulb and a small canopy, and less fine for a five-light bar. The mounting has to suit the fixture, the box has to be secure in the wall, and the fixture has to end up level and centred on the mirror rather than on the box, which is not always the same point.

Adding a bidet, replacing a vanity light, or updating a bathroom in Ridgefield or Battle Ground? Call 360-828-7143 or get the bathroom updated without an extension cord in it.