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Surely in this day and age we should be able to replace the isolation transformer approach with a 10mA RCD protected socket.

Perhaps it could even have BS1363 and shaver socket configuration.

Dave,
They aren't only in hotels over here, you were required to have an isolating transformer type socket in your house before the advent of the RCD, a LOT of houses here built in the 60's and 70's still have them.

I remember taking one out during a renovation job, because "it was never used", the guy in the house used disposable razors.

Anyhow, I unscrewed the plate from the wall and out fell the transformer, it was hot enough to make a decent burn in the carpet next to the vanity.
This is what is in a a lot of peoples walls, live all the time (the switch on the front, isolates the secondary side, not the primary).
Just hope that birds can't get into your bathroom walls.
I took the thing outside and measured it with a multimeter temperature, I got 218C.

I'm not keen on RCD's, but anything has to be better than a fire hazard in your walls.

I had no idea it was Kiwi practice to do this. Evidently, things were different prior to merging of the wiring rules.
I guess a non isolated/non RCD protected 240V 10A power point in the bathroom must horrify those who haven't grown up with them.
How does one use a hairdryer or portable heater where there is only 20VA shaver outlet?

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the British 2-pin 5-amp plug (on the left) and the European equivalent (on the right). These are both older examples from the 1960s:

Both of the above have now got sleeved pins.

As you can see they're deceptively similar to a Europlug :



It's a total pain in the ... when you go to the continent and discover that it will not fit any known socket!

Quite a lot of British and Irish tourists are baffled as to why their 2-pin shaver plug won't fit a French 2-pin socket as they look like they should fit and our shaver plugs look almost identical to CEE 7/16 2.5amp plugs used on almost every small appliance in Europe (Except here!)

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As for using a hairdryer or portable heater in a bathroom here - you don't. It's as simple as that.
In most bathrooms the light switches / fan switches etc are also located outside the door in the hallway. Or, sometimes on the ceiling (operated by a non-conductive pull-cord)

While they might be well meaning regulations, they are very outdated. A 10mA RCD protected socket would be far more sensible.

Just dug out this old thread as I remembered what might happen with old shaver sockets...

They have been used in Austria and Germany too as outlets in bathrooms were banned here too until I guess the 1970s. The Austrian version used boxes similar to US boxes with screws at the top and bottom, large enough to fit a modern double Schuko socket. Of course as the shaver sockets were classified "protected by isolation transformer" no ground wire was run to the socket. Now guess what happens if someone decides to replace the shaver socket with Schuko... found this at a friend's place.

My grandmother's place (bathroom rewired around 1980) was even weirder - it had a shaver socket and regular Schuko sitting side by side... kinda defying the point of the shaver socket I guess. On the other hand, the whole place was wired by complete morons, so why wonder? Missing grounds throughout, scorch marks in about any junction boxes, wires all colors of the rainbow strewn around at random... like the pipe with a red ground wire and the red phase... (the old black/grey/red system allowed red to be used for both purposes, but not simultaneously of course).