ChatterBank0 min ago
Bathrooms and stupidity
Two questions:
a) Why are electrical sockets illegal in bathrooms in the UK? (I presume they are since there never are any) Are people really that stupid that they need to enforce this as law? In Spain where I live now, there are usually several sockets in every bathroom and believe it or not there aren't dozens of spaniards being electrocuted every day.....so why ?
b) Basin taps in UK bathrooms. Why on earth, in room in the house where you might possibly most want a warm flow of water, are so many UK taps split into Hot and Cold ? Anyone with half a brain would be able to imagine that instead of burning or freezing or being forced to fill a basin (silly waste of water) it might be nice to enjoy a steady controllable MIXED flow of water? Is it law, or just decades of bovine like stupidity? I'm really curious...
Thanks
Answers
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Hi.. I'm not sure if it is a legal requirement to have the lights as they are are but for obvious safety reasons I guess they make sense, but it's quite a pain when you have to use something electrical and you have to run an extension!
As for the taps... not all taps have the two pipes. I think they were used in old houses. Have you ever seen the gadgets they've come up with to solve the 2 tap problem? It's a hose mixer that looks like something used to milk cows!!!
...you MUST have noticed that after a hot bath or shower, the walls and everything else for that matter are wringing wet with condensation...water and electricity are not good companions so if you imagine the wiring and the tiled walls being covered in condensation.......well, just don't touch the walls then.....to put it simply...water and electricity are too dangerous to be in close proximity with human beings )<G>
...to answer your other question......to open the cold tap (which is open to the main water supply) at the same time as the hot watersupply, which has been in the cold water tank and boiler and could have been in contact with all kinds of contamination eg dead rats or birds (you name it) would be to risk the contaminated hot water backing up into the fresh water supply...might not be a big risk but nevertheless a definate public health issue...hence we keep them apart...hope this helps...commoner
In Germany I have three electical sockets in my bathroom. Two of them have like a flip hinge cover over them (above the sink!) but the other one is a standard socket (it's low and next to a radiator). The electric lights and extracter fan are operated by normal switches too - switches in Germany are huge things and far better than the UK ones. Perhaps the size of the switch prevents water getting into the very centre? Not sure!
My basin also has a mixer on it too.
For the same reasons, bathrooms must have pullcords not switches for the lights. It's also not allowed for a home owner who isn't suitably qualfied to install an external (therefore weatherproof) socket. You need a professional to do it.
It's basically because, firsly it's stupid and unnecessary to have a plug socket in the bathroom unless it's specially designed to be waterproof. Secondly, it's illegal to stop stupid people doing it anyway. You can get electric shaver sockets which have to be properly wired and fused and are very low current even though they use mains voltage. These are used to power most anything you might possibly need in daily use in a bathroom (i.e. a shaver).
For the properly of working in a bathroom, an extension lead is hardly a chore and it also makes you think twice before you start work because you have to ACTUALLY INTRODUCE the electricity into the wet, condensation-filled, bathroom yourself.
Secondly, taps on sinks (basins) are split into hot and cold most probably mainly due to tradition but also that people used to have some water which wasn't suitable for consumption but fine for washing in, water tanks and pigeons and so on.
just get a mixer tap fitted if its bothering you!
and while the average grown up can be trusted with electricity in the bathroom, bathrooms are not only used by grownups - children, elderly and infirm, mentally ill, drunk or drugged people, even animals could knock something that has been left plugged in -into your bath! there might even be a rise in murders - people faking 'accidents' who knows? - there is always a bigger picture.
Electricity will always take the path of least resistance to get to the earth. A light switch works by connecting one wire to another to make the circuit of the lightbulb complete.
The plastic casing of the lightswitch insulates the wire from our bodies, because the electricity prefers to go through the copper wire than "jump" through the plastic (electricity does jump - it happens all the time in thunderstorms) to get to the earth through our bodies.
When the human body is wet, it lowers the resistance considerably, so much that occasionally the resistance might be lowered enough that the electricity would jump through the plastic to our bodies and to earth.
Obviously this is still very unlikely. I would assume the same is true for powerpoint switches, but I'm not stupid enough to go poking around in sockets with dripping wet hands.
I think the UK is a bit health-and-safety mad, to be honest. I recently went to Holland on a trip with college and saw a lot of things which simply would have been declared unsafe had they been in the UK, and I idn't see anybody die from then either.
If you have water to the washbasin and bath coming from the header then all I can say is .....clean your teeth downstairs......I would never drink water directly from the header tank..NEVER NEVER....be like drinking from puddles!
I believe the regulatory zones around water basins and toilets are less restrictive.
There is a psychological element, imposing a restriction emphasises the potential danger and makes people think about what they are doing.
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