french bathroom sockets

[partpdoctor]

hi everyone
i just brought my tots to disneyland paris, so now im broke, but enough of that!
in our hotel bathroom there was a british style 115/230v isolating shaving transformer on one side of the sink and a french shuko style 230V socket on the other side.
i thought this was odd till i got to the airport, in their toilets, it was exactly the same.
can anyone shed light on this. I am sure it is simple but I don't get it!
regards

 

[Adam_151]

We are one of the very few contries in which the regulations dis-allow sockets in bathroom, and the only other countries that do (mainly ireland, and maybe the odd old british colony) are contries who also work to BS7671

The streets of france and germany appear not to be littered with bodies from bathroom electrocutions tho...

(there is actually one guy who used to post on here who has installed a shuko 230v socket in his new shower room in the extension and got it past the building inspector, [as you probably know, part P doesn't require things to be done to any particular set of standards, and the approved document P, recommends BS7671, closely followed by equivelent EU subsitute] by doing to german regulations... he had to translate the german 'minor works cert' tho )

 

[plugwash]

yes if you are stupid enough to use electrical equipment while in the bath you may well hurt or kill yourself. just as if you are stupid enough to get a couple of metal objects and stick them in the earth and then the live of our sockets you are likely to hurt or kill yourself.

ultimately prohibiting every situation where an idiot might hurt themselves is just going to make life hell for everyone, people need to be educated on the dangers that face them in the world and those who can't be educated on such matters (young children, those with severe learning difficulties, the senile) need to be protected from such things by thier carers.

btw note that schuko (german) sockets and french sockets are considerablly different though hybrid plugs are the norm nowadays.

 

[solair]

Most countries allow sockets in the bathroom, but they also require them to be heavily RCD protected.

The old shaver socket requirement in the UK and Ireland is rather out of date and pre-dates RCDs.

Also, our regulations are rather contradictory. We'd faint at the thought of a light switch in a bathroom, but we allow a 45A electric shower in the actual shower cubical.

It all comes down to doing things according to the code though. If electrical installations are done properly according to French code, Irish Code, UK Code, US Code etc.. they're generally very safe.

Where things get scary is when things are not carried out to code or where you're dealing with totally obsolete wiring (as can be the cases in some old mediteranian holiday homes.. wiring could be 40+ years old)

The shaver socket in your French hotel bathroom is simply to make sure that visiting tourists can plug in a shaver. Hence the 110/220V selectability.

The normal French 230V socket is for your hairdryer / tongs / etc..
In general, you're safe enough as if you drop it into the sink the RCD will trip immediately.