little 24” monster

[foraloysius]

In my previous apartment in Groningen I had a whole house GFI, but the dedicated laundry connection box was excluded from it. I sometimes had a washing machine running while showering. The laundry appliances were far away enough from the shower corner so you couldn't touch the washers. One was a bit closer I used an extension cord to run that, never did it while showering. The outlet that I used for that one was on the GFI though. These days electrical appliances are that safe that electrocution is hardly a hazard anymore. You will have to get into an appliance to come in touch with the electrical components.

 

[foraloysius]

This picture was taken in my bathroom. The shower corner is left from the AEG toploader. The bathroom was about 2 x 3 meters.

 

[iej]

They're somewhat improved, in the sense that there's more plastic used in the machines and the design of a lot of components is safer, but there are still considerable shock hazards from Class I appliances, particularly in wet environments if there's any issue with earth continuity (grounding).

Using trailing sockets in bathrooms is just insanely dangerous if there's no RCD. I mean if you want to take the risk, fine! However, it's not just bad practice it's really dangerous.

If you take a typical extension cord, socket part is unlikely to have any significant IP rating and will have live metal components just behind the plastic casing and extremely close to openings. All if takes is to drop that into an area with pool of water on the floor or to grab it with wet enough hands and you'll get an electric shock.

Bathroom devices absolutely should be on an RCD. Just because if works and hasn't killed you, doesn't mean it's safe or advisable.

 

[foraloysius]

The grounded extension cord was plugged into an outlet on a GFI, so I didn't worry about that. I never used the AEG toploader while showering. BTW, it wasn't a trailing socket, just a regular double isolated extension cord that could only take one plug.

The frontloaders were on fixed bathroom connection with pull cord.

 

[logixx]

All I remember is how inconvenient I found it to have to blow dry my hair in my bedroom when I studied in the UK because there was no "proper" outlet in my en-suite bathroom. All the girls on my floor had extension cords so they could do their hair in front of the mirror.

And well, then there was this little thing about either washing your hands either under running ice water or steam. ;p