Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

No sockets in bathrooms, why?

2»

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    M cebee wrote: »
    i'm not aware of any restrictions with domestic 3-phase.
    fitted it plenty of times when needed

    usually single phase is adequate and cheaper-there's a 16kva supply available if needed

    You wouldn't install a 400V cooker though. That's fairly normal on the continent.
    You've three phase sockets in the kitchen and sometimes utility there.

    Three phase here in domestic gets split into multiple single phase circuits.

    Until the 1970s / 1980s three phase washing machines and tumble dryers were available in some continental countries.

    The difference over there is in some places the power company will not deliver more than say 32amp single phase supplies. In some places even less than that. So, for a normal home you'd need 3 phase.

    I had an apartment in Spain where we had 16 amps for an entire one bedroom apartment!!!!


  • Posts: 7,499 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Solair wrote: »
    You wouldn't install a 400V cooker though. That's fairly normal on the continent.
    !

    Ive done it more than once,
    deffo not normal tho


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    urbanledge wrote: »

    Ive done it more than once,
    deffo not normal tho

    You regularly see a domestic 3 phase socket in France. It's just a flat wall plate like ours. Unshuttered, five pin, no RCD etc. Not the industrial style ones we use here.

    Can't see that happening here!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,391 ✭✭✭whomitconcerns


    Solair wrote: »
    Into the shaver socket in your bathroom? Often located in the mirror light....Can't really see the difference other than you can't plug in heavy appliances like hair dryers!

    And what about the current? My understanding was that they were a diff current? And why cant they be the same size plug as the euro plug anyway not like our made up sizes. Or is it due to the current?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    And what about the current? My understanding was that they were a diff current? And why cant they be the same size plug as the euro plug anyway not like our made up sizes. Or is it due to the current?

    The shaver sockets are fine for small items like tooth brushes, electric shavers etc. Their output socket is supplied through a transformer, which electrically iolates its output voltage from the mains, which prevents shocks to earth from them.

    They are only suitable for low current appliances as the transformer in them is small. Even something like a hairdryer would be too high a current for using in them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    And what about the current? My understanding was that they were a diff current? And why cant they be the same size plug as the euro plug anyway not like our made up sizes. Or is it due to the current?

    You can safely use toothbrushes, shavers, waterpiks etc in the shaver socket in your bathroom. That's exactly what it's designed for.

    The UK shaver socket accepts the older style UK shaver plug which is very like a continental 2-pin plug used for very low powered appliances i.e. the small, flat plug you find on things like shavers, radios etc. The only difference is the UK plug has shorter, fatter pins.
    A lot of shavers/toothbrushes etc sold here still come with that plug. It's a complete pain in the rear as you can't plug them into continental sockets!

    It's nothing to do with technical differences in the supply system, rather that the UK just used that standard since at least the 1920s and never changed.

    They kept the shaver plug because it was neat, small and practical for carrying around in your luggage.

    The shaver socket will however accept European 2-pin 2.5amp plugs i.e. what you'd normally find on a shaver / toothbrush etc.

    If you were to plug in a heavy appliance like a hairdryer, the socket would just trip out, even if the plug fitted.

    A lot of shaver sockets can also connect with North American shavers/toothbrushes and supply 115 volts! This is probably useful in hotels, but I can't understand why we bother with this in houses. You nearly always find a switch or 2 sockets rated 230V and 115V...

    Many of them will also accept Australia/NZ shaver plugs too (also 230V but with slanty pins)

    Our shaver sockets do not directly connect you to the mains. They connect you via an isolating transformer which gives a pretty serious level of shock protection. If anything, you'd be a lot safer using your waterpik in an Irish bathroom socket than with a regular continental mains socket.

    Long wiki article explaining isolation transformers : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_transformer

    If there isn't one on the wall, check bathroom mirror lights / bathroom cabinets. They're often hidden like this : shaver-socket.jpg or part of the mirror light.

    Don't plug a hairdryer / curling tongs or anything like that into them, even if the plug fits. It will just blow the fuse in the socket / trip it out. Some are resettable easily, some aren't.

    The socket in the bathroom will only supply about 15-20Watts max. A hair dryer could be up to 2000W, where as a toothbrush / waterpik is perfectly suitable at only a few watts max. Most hair clippers etc are fine too.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,431 ✭✭✭M cebee


    Solair wrote: »

    That's why I never understand why we only require RCDs on sockets. Ireland had had that requirement for quite a long time.

    The UK recently leap frogged us in terms of safety by requiring RCDs on everything.

    They simply use a few combined RCBOs (a breaker & rcd in one unit) to achieve this. The cost of RCDs fell dramatically over the last decade or more. When they came out first, they were very expensive so electrical norms only requires one for all the socket circuits.

    Our logic for not including lighting was that you could be plunged into darkness if just one RCD controlled all your lighting circuits. Nowadays you could just use several devices to split them up.

    I think you're as likely to get a shock while switching a faulty light switch or changing a bulb as you are from a plugged in appliance.

    afaik the new uk regs on rcd's is for circuits buried in plaster

    -don't think it has anything to do with hazards of changing lightbulbs


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    M cebee wrote: »
    afaik the new uk regs on rcd's is for circuits buried in plaster

    -don't think it has anything to do with hazards of changing lightbulbs

    Reading the background to it, it was a bit of everything.

    Mostly to make installations DIY-idiot proof.

    We all know Britain and Ireland need a lot of DIY-idiot proofing.

    Remember, there are a lot of continental countries where it's almost illegal to wire a plug, never mind carry out major electrical work in your own home. :)
    I think it's the Swiss that won't even sell you a plug unless they see your electrical contractors' license !! WAY too dangerous.

    The effect of RCD-protecting every circuit in the UK is that as more homes get that, it will be almost impossible to get a fatal electric shock even if you went seriously out of your way to get one. The only possible way you could would be if someone were to open the distribution board / tamper with the meter directly.

    The change in the UK's very dramatic though. We had a half-way house where only sockets were protected for quite a long time.
    They had a situation where RCDs were relatively new-fangled optional things until very recently. Often your only protection was a big, clunky rewirable fuse on the distribution board. A lot of them often even had the wrong fuse wire used where someone decided that the fuse blew too often / couldn't find the correct fuse wire.

    Even the concept of expecting domestic consumers to rewire a fuse with fuse wire was a bit mad!

    The UK also had to be forced by an EU directive to require plugs to be fitted to appliances. There was a very long period where plugs did not come with appliances at all and you had to fit your own. This was based on some nonsense that they couldn't be sure what type of sockets you had in your house... There was a change over period between the old round pin and new square pins plugs, but they allowed that mess to continue for WAY too long.

    Again, it was a bit weird to expect consumers to fit their own plugs, not to mention quite dangerous.

    It resulted them in having to run public information films like this, as some people didn't bother using plugs and just stuck the wires straight into the sockets using match sticks, or used another plug to hold them in place!


    Warning: Video contains some bad acting. However, it does show the importance of fitting a plug to your drill, particularly if you're planning on drilling a hole into a giant metal top hat.


    Older UK domestic fuses look like something out of Dr Frankensteins lab! At least in Ireland we had those bottle-shaped German-type cartridge fuses which were a lot more idiot-proof.

    I wouldn't really rate the older British wiring systems as particularly safe. They were very slow to adopt modern protections, although when they finally did, they really went the whole hog!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    Solair wrote: »

    The effect of RCD-protecting every circuit in the UK is that as more homes get that, it will be almost impossible to get a fatal electric shock even if you went seriously out of your way to get one. The only possible way you could would be if someone were to open the distribution board / tamper with the meter directly.

    It would be possible at any point there is a live and neutral. A person contacting an RCD protected live terminal will be unlikely to trip an RCD unless in good contact with an earth.

    Of course the RCD greatly reduces the electrocution risk, if someone in contact with a live, and does not trip the RCD, then there is not a dangerous level flowing. But contact with a socket L and N, and the RCD wont trip unless the person is also contacting earth with a decent enough path, which wont be happening in shoes/runners on the ground, or bare feet on wooden floors etc.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    Bruthal wrote: »
    It would be possible at any point there is a live and neutral. A person contacting an RCD protected live terminal will be unlikely to trip an RCD unless in good contact with an earth.

    Of course the RCD greatly reduces the electrocution risk, if someone in contact with a live, and does not trip the RCD, then there is not a dangerous level flowing. But contact with a socket L and N, and the RCD wont trip unless the person is also contacting earth with a decent enough path, which wont be happening in shoes/runners on the ground, or bare feet on wooden floors etc.

    Well, the only serious risk would be if you managed to connect yourself between live and neutral and in such a way that the current flowed across your body.

    Which isn't impossible, but it's pretty unlikely.

    It cuts most risks of serious shocks. Sticking your finger into a junction box or appliance or whatever and touching live and neutral could still give you quite a nasty shock / burn though.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,166 ✭✭✭enda1


    So is there consensus that with respect to modern wiring and safety standards, we should be allowed to have sockets (other than the shaver socket device) in bathrooms?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    enda1 wrote: »
    So is there consensus that with respect to modern wiring and safety standards, we should be allowed to have sockets (other than the shaver socket device) in bathrooms?

    Well, it's a pretty conservative setup that we have here.
    I suppose part of the rational may be that, certainly in a British context, where RCD protected sockets were not generally used at all until very recently, you could risk things like sockets being added by DIY enthusiasts or bathroom installers who didn't have a clue what they were doing and had seen them in more modern installations.

    Also, most Irish / UK bathrooms still only have non-RCD protected lighting circuits! So, the shaver socket is typically supplied from that. Hence the need for isolation transformers etc.

    Even if it were allowed, retrofitting sockets to existing bathrooms would actually require fairly serious wiring as you'd have to take a feed from an RCD-protected circuit.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,166 ✭✭✭enda1


    Solair wrote: »
    Well, it's a pretty conservative setup that we have here.
    I suppose part of the rational may be that, certainly in a British context, where RCD protected sockets were not generally used at all until very recently, you could risk things like sockets being added by DIY enthusiasts or bathroom installers who didn't have a clue what they were doing and had seen them in more modern installations.

    Also, most Irish / UK bathrooms still only have non-RCD protected lighting circuits! So, the shaver socket is typically supplied from that. Hence the need for isolation transformers etc.

    Even if it were allowed, retrofitting sockets to existing bathrooms would actually require fairly serious wiring as you'd have to take a feed from an RCD-protected circuit.


    So. Yes then? :p


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    enda1 wrote: »


    So. Yes then? :p

    If done correctly, I don't really see what the big deal is. Last time I checked the laws of physics in Ireland and Britain were the same as Germany and France, despite what some English people will tell you!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    Solair wrote: »
    Well, the only serious risk would be if you managed to connect yourself between live and neutral and in such a way that the current flowed across your body.

    Which isn't impossible, but it's pretty unlikely.

    Which is unlikely, contacting Live and Neutral, or the current going across the body?

    If a person contacts only the Live in a socket, they likely will perceive nothing, and no RCD will trip. If they now contact Neutral, no more current will flow on the earth path than when only the Live was contacted, so still no tripping of the RCD.

    But my postings were just in reply to mentioning the DB as the only possible place this can happen even for someone that went looking for a shock.

    Id say myself, RCDs on lights will possibly happen sometime, although RCBOs would be the practical method.

    RCDs/RCBO`s probably offer some fire protection on faulty circuits too.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    The Americans are starting to use arc fault detectors too. They seem to be an improvement on fire protection. Picks up am arcing fault and trips out.

    Probably a bigger deal in wooden houses and with their 110V system you tend to get more high amp, maxed out circuits and fire hazards than with 230V


  • Registered Users Posts: 371 ✭✭larchill


    An electrician has told me that our regs are tighter than most (even the UK). Common sense dictates that sockets are best kept from bathrooms, shaver sockets with isolating transformers excepted. We are damper than most, look @ how damp it was with the recent mild weather. Much dryer in Europe. I'd agree that our 13A sockets are cumbersome. The continential ones are far neater & more universal @ are used @ the same voltage: 220/230V. Not mush of the world uses our 13A format - bit like driving on the left when most do so on the right!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    larchill wrote: »
    An electrician has told me that our regs are tighter than most (even the UK). Common sense dictates that sockets are best kept from bathrooms, shaver sockets with isolating transformers excepted. We are damper than most, look @ how damp it was with the recent mild weather. Much dryer in Europe. I'd agree that our 13A sockets are cumbersome. The continential ones are far neater & more universal @ are used @ the same voltage: 220/230V. Not mush of the world uses our 13A format - bit like driving on the left when most do so on the right!

    It's just a different approach.

    It's nothing to do with the weather. It doesn't generally rain in your house (if it does you need a new roof).

    BS1363 plugs are also disastrous in outdoor, wet areas.

    Schuko (continental) plugs come in outdoor rated versions and have a recessed socket that helps keep your fingers very far from live pins.

    Our system rely on an added on sheath on the pins.

    I don't buy the climate differences as a reason for different rules.

    It's just parallel development of rules by different regulatory authorities.

    In general, when done correctly, European systems are all very safe. It's usually only a problem when someone does some DIY hack job or you're dealing with very obsolete wiring.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    Solair wrote: »
    The Americans are starting to use arc fault detectors too. They seem to be an improvement on fire protection. Picks up am arcing fault and trips out.

    Yea arcing from L to N from dampness etc might not trip either the MCB or RCD.

    Id assume they detect erratic current flows to detect arcing currents, and for a certain time frame, or else they might trip when a switch is turned on or off due to its arcing.

    They could prevent shower isolators from badly burning with bad connections, which neither an MCB or RCD would do.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,230 ✭✭✭Solair


    Yeah, I think that's basically the point.

    Because of wooden construction, the US has always taken electrical fire safety very very seriously.

    Most states tend to require everything to be in metal, flexible ducting (looks like shower hoses) and metal boxes etc.

    The low voltage doesn't help either! Lots of very over loaded circuits are common.

    The Arc fault device seems like a good idea though. Modern electronics are making lots of these things possible and cheap!


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17 Seraphim1


    I'm sure it was scene in a film where someone throws an electric fire into,a bath to kill someone is the real reason why we don't have sockets in our bathrooms. That and nuisance tripping.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,422 ✭✭✭✭Bruthal


    Seraphim1 wrote: »
    I'm sure it was scene in a film where someone throws an electric fire into,a bath to kill someone is the real reason why we don't have sockets in our bathrooms.
    What we see in films might not happen in real life.

    And if it is to prevent attempted murder in baths, then we may need to ban knives in the press, hammers in the tool box, extension leads that could be brought to the bathroom by a prospective electrocutioner etc etc.
    That and nuisance tripping.
    If sockets were wired into the bathroom on a dedicated RCBO circuit, then not much problem there.


Advertisement