I stumbled across this picture from India

If he'd moved the cord out of the way there wouldn't be any problem with that. Those heaters are usually 1500W, so no prob with the socket rating. Maybe it's a bit close to the shower, ok. But no problem with the wiring. See those connected to Schuko plugs all the time.

The socket appears not to be rated for wet areas. Even if it is, is it sufficiently high up on the wall to come out of the shower zone? Is it RCD protected?

The power (15/16A?) could be sufficient if this is a hot water cylinder and not an instantaneous water heater. The cord appears too thin for the latter. I'm more curious about the plumbing.

It's a BS546 socket/plug although may comply with an Indian version of that standard.

It would be rated 15A although thesedays may have been re-rated to 16A in India.

I have no idea wheather an RCD is fitted but would suspect, given the apparent age of the installation, that is could be simply fused.

The cord looks about right... the enormous size of the BS546 plug and the unusual size of the box it's mounted in make it look much smaller than it is.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 03-01-2004).]

There appears to be an Indian standard which contains the BS 546 5A and 15A plugs, but in 6A and 16A version, just like in South Africa.

IS 1293:1988 "Plugs and socket outlets of rated voltage up to and including 250 volts and rated current upto and including 16 amperes"

{Edited twice to correct numbers}

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 03-01-2004).]

They should have at least used a plastic box for the wall socket though.

That thing it's in now looks like a metal surface-mount "handy box" that is severely rusted.

I've seen worse. There are some flash heater types that attach to the showerhead. And the picture I saw of one showed little wire pigtails taped to the supply wires hanging in the air over the water pipe.

Is the water in India really that cold that you need a water heater?

I know some warm areas of countries near the tropics (or even in the USA Southwest) you can bathe quite comfortably in the cool-to-room temp. water that comes straight out of the pipe.

When I was in Tucson, Arizona I just opened the cold water tap when taking a shower or washing my hands or whatever. Here in New York, the water comes from the mountains outside the city so the water is pretty icy year round.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 03-01-2004).]

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 03-01-2004).]

It looks like a storage-type water heater (just a few gallons) rather than an instantaneous type. Could be rated at up to around 3kW, and the cord looks about right in comaprison to the plug: BS546 plugs really are bulky.

Hard to tell from the picture, but to me it looks like the evil 100l storage type they sell at every hardware store here. IIRC 230V 1500W, usually connected via Schuko plug and socket. I'd definitely placed the outlet near the top of the cylinder though.

SvenNYC


It can be nice to have a warmer than room temp shower though Even in the tropics..

Old (1920s/30s) bathrooms here would have commonly had local gas water heaters.

Modern small local electric heaters are still quite common in places where there is no hotwater system. Commonly found in a cupboard under the sink in office kitchens.

Until the 1970ies central heating systems didn't really catch here, so wall mount gas water heaters (usually 5 or 10l on-demand types, I once posted a pic of a 5l type) are still pretty common. I think replacements are still readily available.
I looked up www.baumax.at, here's the facts about electric storage heaters.
120l tank, 2000W, 230V, stainless steel tank,6 bar max. pressure, 119 Euro.
5l open system 39,99 Euro.

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.

OK Paul. I should have known...considering I do own 5-amp two pin and three pin plugs!

My question now is, was the two-pin and three-pin 5-amp plug ever commonly used in India?

Everything I've seen about Indian electrical installations involves 15-amp plugs....three-pin. Same as the South Africans.

djk,
We have always used the 230/400V system here in New Zealand.
Maybe Dapo or others could confirm this, but I'm sure that Australia still uses the 240/415V nomenclature.
Just as a note, where on earth does that word "nomenclature" come from?
And what does it mean?!.

All the current references for India just give the 15A BS546 connectors, but I wouldn't be surprised if the 5A versions were also used at one time under British influence.


From the Concise Oxford Dictionary:

nomenclature n. Person's or community's system of names for things; terminology of a science etc.; systematic naming. (French, from Latin nomenclatura).

nomenclator n. Slave etc. orig. in ancient Rome with duty of announcing names of persons met, usher assigning places at banquet; giver or inventor of names, esp. in scientific classification. (From Latin nomen=name, calare=call.)