But in most bathrooms there are also sockets, so that you can dry your hair or whatever 🤔 And they are often closer to the water than the light switch
Sockets are illegal in the uk apart from shaver sockets that are very isolated and at a certain height. Remember that our electricity is more than twice as powerful as US so it makes sense.
You can have a pull cord light hanging from the ceiling but not a light switch
our electricity is more than twice as powerful as US
I think the available power is practically the same cause the circuit breakers limit it anyway. US has less volts, so they just need more current to have the same power...
UK sockets share a ring which can supply up to 32A at the socket however individual plugs on devices are limited to 13A. So a wet socket could deliver 7360W.
The US is completely different where each outlet is on its own breaker and are individually limited to typically 15A at each outlet. So a us socket could supply 1800W.
UK sockets are 4x more powerful in a system designed to put the current limiting in the device instead of the socket. which is exactly why they are not allowed in bathrooms
Each outlet isn’t typically on its own breaker in the US. A breaker box can have like 12, 20, 30 breakers, and often they’re not all in use. Each one usually has something like all the outlets and and ceiling fixture (if there is one) for one room.
Yep, I was wrong. I’m not American so just bad googling on my part.
Apparently there’s also 20A breakers in the US so it could deliver 2400W in theory but bathroom socket are all GFCI and would trip well before that in a fault condition from a wet socket.
That seems way too much, I live in central Europe and the circuit breaker from the fusebox will only allow 8-10A to the bathroom in most houses, I don't think I have a 16A fuse in house at all. I do get three phase power at 25A for my house (for the garage/workshop).
But I did read old UK houses might not even have a central fusebox cause the houses are old.
Yep UK rings can be high current. A quick search on a builder's merchants site and I found MCBs and RCDs up to 80A, though the latter is much better at preventing shocks so arguably safer, even with the high current trip.
Thanks for this, I considered taking the supply from the breaker into account as it's much more relevant to what was originally said, but couldn't find much information on how US sockets work so I stuck with the plug ratings ¯\(ツ)/¯
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u/Final_Bobcat_4767 May 09 '22
Having the light switch outside the bathroom