How to actually pick the right infrared heater for your bathroom
Here is the secret: you don’t just buy the biggest, most powerful heater you can find. If you do, you’re basically throwing money away—or worse, you’ll end up roasting your toes while your shoulders are still freezing. It’s all about getting the wattage to match the size of your room. Finding your sweet spot If you’ve got a tiny powder room (anything under 4m²), a 400W to 600W shortwave lamp is plenty. They kick in fast. You’ll feel the warmth the second you flip the switch. For those mid-sized bathrooms—somewhere between 4m² and 8m²—you’ll want to look at 800W to 1200W. Now, if you have one of those massive master baths over 10m², a single lamp probably won’t cut it. You’ll likely need a few 1200W units or one big high-output array to keep the whole room feeling cozy. But be careful. If you go too heavy on the power in a small space, you get these weird “hot spots” where one corner is a sauna and the rest of the room is still chilly. On the flip side, if the heater is too weak, it has to work overtime just to keep up, which wears out the filament and kills the lamp way faster. Making the heat work for you The cool thing about infrared is that it doesn’t bother heating the air. It goes straight for your skin and the surfaces around you. It’s a much more direct kind of warmth. To get the most out of it, try to mount your lamps about 2.2 to 2.5 meters up. One quick warning: check your ceiling. If you’ve got cheap PVC panels and a high-wattage lamp, you might actually scorch the plastic. Using aluminum reflectors is a smart move here—they bounce that heat right down where you actually need it. The boring (but important) electrical stuff High-wattage lamps feel great, but they’re hungry for power. If you’re planning to install a few 1200W units in one area, please check your breaker. And whatever you do, don’t just plug these into a cheap extension cord. That’s a great way to trip your power or, even worse, melt a wire. Use dedicated high-temp wiring so the system can run all winter without any scares.