Have you ever found your bathroom suddenly plunged into darkness after the light bulb burned out? Luckily, changing a downlight bulb in the bathroom is easy with the right tools.
However, if you’re not sure about how to fix your bathroom lights or bathroom spotlight or you just want some extra guidance, here are step-by-step instructions for how to change a downlight bulb in the bathroom.
What’s A Downlight Bulb?
A downlight bulb is a light fixture attached to the ceiling of your bathroom, either through the ceiling itself or ceiling wall panels. Downlight bulbs are known as such for their placement, as they face in a downward direction with the goal to light an area below.
Typically, they are much larger than other light bulbs you could find in your home. They are usually installed in fixtures that are designed to be much larger than other light fixtures because they contain multiple lamps or reflectors to give off a complete 360-degree light source.
Downlight bulbs are also used in commercial spaces, such as offices and retail stores, where they have to have enough power to illuminate an entire room. However, the size of downlight bulbs can vary depending on their intended function. Some might require a conventional bulb while others use LED. If you’re not sure what type of downlight bulb you have, just take it out and look at the base for the manufacturer’s name or model number.
Traditionally downlight bulbs had been used in commercial areas for stores and offices, as a way of lighting a room easily and efficiently, however, downlights have now become the thing of domestic homes, with it becoming increasingly popular choice for bathroom lighting and kitchen lighting downlight bulbs are becoming the norm in most homes.
Downlights are becoming increasingly popular as a way of adding additional flair to your bathroom designs, they can be perfectly combined with bathroom wall panels for a sleek design, or alternatively can be placed around your shower or wet room for a minimalistic bathroom approach.
In recent years downlights have become the star of bathroom lighting ideas, using ceiling spotlight pieces to highlight specific areas of your bathroom such as bathroom vanity unit designs stations and shower enclosures. Fitting LED lights into a metal surround or lighting fixtures as the latest bathroom accessory.
Bathroom downlights are also known as bathroom ceiling lights and bathroom ceiling spots and are ideal in contemporary bathrooms for a brighter lighting station
In kitchen designs downlighting is the perfect way to highlight your under-cupboard areas and are a great tool for highlight work stations, pairing downlighting across your entire kitchen can create a modern aesthetic for kitchen designs. Downlighting is also known to appear in kitchen areas underneath cupboards, to create the illusion of a light kitchen floor design, these can typically be seen in modernised kitchens and contemporary interior design concepts.
So what do you do when you need to replace your downlight bulb?
Tools & Equipment
Before we start, you’ll need a few things:
- A screwdriver
- The new LED light bulb
- A ladder or step stool
- A towel
- Safety glasses if the bulb is particularly dusty
Changing the downlight bulb
1. Turn off the power
Ok, so the most important step, turn off the light switch to your downlight bulb, positioning a ladder underneath your light fixture.
2. Unscrew the light bulb
Once you’ve waited 20-30 minutes for your bulb to cool (that’s if it was previously on) you can begin removing the bulb, the best thing about downlights is that you don’t have to be an electrician to replace and remove downlights. Simply hold each end of your old downlight bulb fixture, gentle start to wiggle it out of it’s place, you should see that it slowly moves from the built in socket, once you gradually pull the bulb and it’s casing further you should be able to see two clamps either side, holding on to the clamps you can retrieve your old light bulb carefully.
3. Plug in your new LED bulb
Plug in and feed your lighting cable back through the original downlight socket making sure that the clamps are placed back through the socket gently. You should just be able to place your new downlight in it’s original fixture without having to readjust any of the mounting brackets.
Most downlight sockets are a simple to remove, without having to use a screwdriver to unplug, however there are some (typically kitchen installed downlights) that require a screwdriver to remove the bulb from it’s ceiling socket, if your mounting bracket has screws you should loosen the screws on either side of the downlight bulb’s mounting bracket with an adjustable wrench or screwdriver.
Then, remove the old lightbulb and replace it with a new one. Finally, tighten all of the screws with your adjustable wrench or screwdriver and connect any wires that might have come loose with wire connectors or tape them back together with electrical tape.
Cleaning Up
After replacing your bulb you may notice some dust fall out from your ceiling fixture, laying a towel down beforehand can prevent a mass-clean up needed, if your light fixtures are only small you may be able to simply wipe over with a cloth afterwards, cleaning your bathroom after any installation or diy project can be tricky, if you need any advice on bathroom cleaning hacks, check out our helpful bathroom cleaning guide.
