Three Vanity Lights and Two Bidet Outlets in Ridgefield, WA

Hanging a vanity light and finding power for a bidet seat are two small jobs we get asked about a lot, and they get done wrong a lot. This home in Ridgefield needed three vanity lights and two bidet outlets, and we did all five in an afternoon.

Bidet seats and the extension cord

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

So people run an extension cord from the vanity outlet, along the baseboard, behind the toilet. In a bathroom. On a circuit that’s protected because the room gets wet.

That’s what our bathroom outlet work is there to fix. An outlet where the cord reaches takes about an hour and gets rid of a cord that never should have been on that floor.

Two things make a good bidet outlet:

• Height. Low enough that you don’t see the cord above the seat, high enough to clear the baseboard and trim.
• Side. The cord comes out one side of the seat. Put the outlet on the other side and the cord wraps around the bowl.

We figure out both standing in the room with the seat in front of us, not off a drawing.

GFCI isn’t optional

Bathroom outlets need GFCI protection, and a new one is no exception. Both new outlets stayed on protected circuits.

Here’s why it matters: a bidet seat puts water and household power a few inches from a person. GFCI protection is what stands between a fault and the person sitting there. Our post on GFCI protection in a bathroom covers how it’s different from AFCI.

Vanity lights come down to the box

We hung three new vanity lights over three mirrors, and each one started the same way: check what’s behind the old light before putting up the new one.

Older bathrooms often have a light on a box that was fine for one bulb and a small canopy, and not so fine for a five-light bar. The mount has to fit the light, the box has to be tight in the wall, and the light has to end up level and centered on the mirror, not on the box. Those aren’t always the same spot.

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.