Also, light switches etc have to go outside or be operated by a pull cord. Basically, you had to design the bathroom in such a way that no electrical gear could be contacted while standing in the bath/shower etc.
Do the Irish regs. actually ban regular wall switches from the bathroom entirely, or just require any such devices to be placed out of reach of the tub/shower?
Many people in the U.K. (including some who should know better) are under the impression that the I.E.E. regs. state that all light switches in a bathroom must be the pullcord type. That's never been the case; the old "6 ft. rule" simply required that wall switches be placed so as to be out of reach from the bath/shower.
In Ireland, according to the ETCI safety stats, almost all electrocutions (and there aren't very many) were caused by direct contact with overhead cables or PoCo plant. Most of which occured on farms or construction sites. Accidents involving domestic appliances or wiring seem to be pretty rare.
They're pretty much the same arguments we've been seeing against Part P here. The number of electrocutions in the U.K. is down to well under 50 per year, and the majority of those are caused by contact with overhead HV lines, industrial wiring, and so on. Of the small number of domestic fatalities left, many are then faulty appliances. That leaves a
tiny number which are caused by faulty wiring which is in any way covered by Part P.
You can't guard against sheer stupidity anyway. Back in the mid-1980s two young men were electrocuted in the village where I lived while trying to take down a C.B. antenna. There was 18 ft. of vertical antenna atop a 20 ft. steel mast and the idiots tried to take it down in one piece, balanced up a ladder in a tree, by lifting the whole lot above their heads.
All the current safety precautions in the book wouldn't have stopped "dumb & dumber" from getting killed.
