ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Some german electrical info

Sven,
The transformer-isolated shaver outlet is still the only permitted socket in a bathroom here.

Andy,
This is one area where my views differ from those held by most Brits. I would like to see our IEE relax the rules on outlets in bathrooms and allow one suitable for hair-dryers and such like, subject to GFI/RCD provisions.

You might like to look back at this thread where we discussed the extension cord angle (near the top of the second page).

Kupplung is called trailing socket in English.

The schuko style ones more closely resemble a BS cable coupling however.

Strangely enough hairdryers and bathrooms aren't two things that we associate here in Ireland. I don't know of anyone who would actually dry their hair in the bathroom. It's normally something that is done in the bedroom at the dressing table infront of a mirror, often sitting down and sorrounded by haircare products and other associated appliences like tongs etc.. It's much more civilized than standing up at the sink (washtub) in a small steamy room! You just towel dry your hair in the bathroom.

From an electrical point of view it's normal to install at least 2 X double sockets in a typical bedroom these days. Normally one at either side of the bed and one near the dressing table/mirror. (depending on the room size)

I found it very frustrating in France to discover just a single ungrounded outlet in a fairly modern bedroom. Modern bedrooms are full of electronic gagets, computers, hairdryers, lamps, etc etc.

Also, you'd always have had to designed a system here to handle up to 3KW portable heaters in bedrooms as they were in quite common use. It doesn't seem to be the case elsewhere in europe.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-30-2003).]

In Italy we once had to dry our hair standing in a hallway. However that was hardly the elctrician's fault, only the hallway receptacles were the only Schuko ones. Can't remember whether the bathrooms had any receptacles at all, apart from the ones for the wall-mounted electric heaters, and our rooms only had Italian recptacles. In our room some ingenious sparky had installed a 16A only one, so we couldn't even use Euro plugs. We resorted to routing the cords of our cell phone chargers through the gap under the door.
Boy was I glad I had short hair that only needed towel drying! I can still remember the girls with long hair cursing!
Here it seems to be just the other way round, everybody dries his/her hair in the bathroom, so you've almost always got at least two outlets.

Italy doesn't officially use schuko though so it would be the norm to only find Italian sockets. The only way around it is to bring a Schuko - Italian adaptor .. which are available quite easily in a hardware store in Italy

Actually for Italian, Swiss and Danish tourists here in Ireland it used to be practically impossible to get an adaptor to fit the grounded plugs as the only ones available were either 2-pin and only accepted Europlugs etc or were schuko. It's somewhat easier now to get an adaptor that handles all of the various European grounded plugs. it's basically a schuko recepticle with various shuttered holes for the alternative grounding systems.

i got a italian->Schuko adaptor in a supermarket in italy for 1€ or so. has the 10A three-pin on the "italian" and a schuko socket on the second side. although the packing looked cheap, the piece seems to be OK, it's even got these shutters inside the holes that only open up when both pins are pushed in.

why does italy use separate 10 and 16A systems??

Texas Ranger, was ist der Unterschied zwischen Receptacle, Outlet und Socket? oder ist das alles dasselbe?

[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 10-30-2003).]

yep we can still have the shaver socket in bathrooms,,

i dont know if Paul UK can post on here a picture of the new regs regarding bathrooms..

it would make things a lot clearer

What is the biggest device that can be plugged into a shaver socket (in terms of amperage, wattage, etc.) without blowing up the isolation transformer?

I'm assuming a small mains-operated solid-state table radio will be fine, right? The thirty year old critter I'm listening to here uses about 5 watts at 120 volts AC.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 10-30-2003).]

Yeah italy's system's actually quite different from anything elsewhere. There are 2 different ratings for plugs and sockets.

10A have thin pins in the same spacing as a Europlug with the centre earth pin.

16A have thicker pins spaced further apart than a Europlug. You cannot insert a 16A plug into a 10A outlet but you can insert a 10A plug into either outlet.


Italian 16A plug
Pins diameter: 5mm spaced 26mm apart.



Italian 10A plug
Pins spaced 19mm apart 4mm diameter



For comparison: A CEE 7/7 plug (note the pins are spaced just like an italian 10A plug but are too fat to fit into an italian 10A socket and too close together to fit into a 16A socket) (not necessarily a bad thing as it prevents schuko plugs being used without a ground connection in italy!)



Finally: an open rewirable italian 16A plug. note the pins are quite a bit thicker than schuko.





[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-30-2003).]