ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades How not to install an electric shower:

Ragnar,

if this is a large 100L unit, the ceiling would have to be very high up. I find it more likely that Paul is right in that it is a smaller unit. Like Sven wrote, the water is probably fairly warm to start with, which reduced the amount of water you need to heat and store.

True, and 100l units aren't really required for a shower, maybe it's a 30l unit or something like that. The only time I remember seeing such a beast used much it was in a Hungarian castle that had ceilings close to 4m or maybe even higher, there it looked like that.

We used to have the really large electric "geysers" here years ago.

The house to which I moved as a kid around 1970 still had a lot of pre-WWII fittings in it, and there was one of these monsters over the tub in the bathroom.

I would guess it was around 25 Imperial gallons in capacity (about 30 U.S. gals. or 113 liters).

Sven,
I'd venture to say that that is a plastic mounting block, used to surface-mount the socket.
The discolourisation that you see on the block and cover is more than likely a build-up of mould.
Yuck!.
However, the socket may well be out
of reach, but with India's record of typically poor installation methods, this could probably be called a Top-Dollar job!.

Here's 2 pictures of Indian sockets that I found on the Net:



Strange looking animal!.

{Message edited to fix up image tag}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 03-05-2004).]

Weird looking animal yes, but it's actually practical.

The left outlet can accept either 5 or 15 amp BS-546 plugs.

The right outlet is a "universal" and is commonly used in travel adapters.

You can connect:

American 15-amp (two or three pin)
Europlug,
Australian/Chinese/Argentinian,
BS-546 5-amp
BS-1363
Italian/Chilean 10-amp,
Swiss
probably also Israeli (haven't tried that last one)

I recognize that picture. It appears that the sockets were in a hotel....if so, it would make sense to put in such universal outlets so the user doesn't have to fiddle with dodgy adapters when connecting his dual-voltage appliance.

Wouldn't plugging an Argentinian plug into this socket be dangerous?.

Why? It's the same as the Australian one..except the polarity is reversed. And mains voltage in Argentina is 220-240 or something like that.

Polarity is not an issue really...unless you're EXTREMELY gung-ho on safety.

I would think polaritiy in Aus/NZ/Argentine appliences is pretty much irrelivant as the vast majority of them are identical to European versions anyway and would be designed to ship with unpolarised Europlug / Schuko (CEE 7/7) and they would more than likely comply with the European low voltage directives etc.

Have NZ/Aus followed the Cenelec move to 230V ratings ?

Sorry Sven, but the dimensions aren't right for that, and the 15A BS546 plug has a much larger earth pin than the 5A.

This outlet looks like the type designed to accept a 3-pin 5A BS546 plug, or the 2-pin 5A version (the latter has the line/neutral pins slightly closer together than it's 3-pin variant).

I have a couple of old BS546 adapters that have the same arrangement.