How come non-NEMA countries don't have RCD-equipped sockets? (This is the impression I get).
They do exist, but they're helluva expensive and I've never seen one for real.
Besides it'd be awfully tight to cram such an outlet into a standard box.
American boxes are extaordinarily huge and deep. Our standard boxes are just 65mm in diameter and 50mm deep, and the recessed Schuko receptacles take up most of it. You're barely able to squeeze a set of strip connectors behind it. So fitting a GFI into one of those would be near impossible I guess. Easier to fit a single-space surface mount enclosure with a full-house RCD next to the panel.
In Germany they have the problem with their "classic grounding" when it comes to upgrading with RCDs. I always have trouble to keep from using bad language when describing that system. It means that they just ran phase and neutral to each socket and put a jumper wire from neutral to ground. Some receptacles even had 2 ground terminals for that purpose. Areas that used this grounding method as opposed to TT systems (only local ground rod) had for more electrical deaths. In Western Germany this practice was outlawed in 1973, in Eastern Germany only after reuniting in 1990. However, the GDR already had mandatory bathroom RCDs in 1984, long before Western Germany.
