Having watched quite a few episodes of Holmes on Homes and various other DIY/home repair type shows that are produced in Canada, (seems to be most of the shows on the DIY Network and HGTV) I’ve noticed two particular differences in Canadian homes vs US homes.
Is there any particular reason Canadian electrical panels tend to be installed horizontally? Here in the US, breaker panels are normally vertical, and sized to fit between two wall studs.
On to the bathroom… Canadians seem to like a spout about four inches above the floor in their showers. What is this for? Washing their toes?
ETChange - I read wrong - all the circuit breaker boxes I’ve seen (and I’ve seen quite a few) have all been vertical. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one installed horizontally, so I can’t help you with that.
I don’t know what you’re talking about with the shower spouts - I’ve never seen a spout in a shower four inches off the floor.
Most panels that I have seen here in Ontario are positioned vertically. Where i have seen a horizontal panel, it usually looks like a retrofit to go in the space where an old, smaller, fusebox was.
The low spout is called a toe tester - you can check the temp before being scalded or frozen. After all, you have one in a tub/shower combo so why not a stall shower? This doesn’t seem to appear as much in modern custom showers today.
When I prepare for a shower, I turn the shower on, then take off my clothes. By the time I return, the water is warm. I stick my hand in the stream to make sure it is the temp I want, then I step into the shower.
Why would anyone want these “toe tester” things? I’ve never heard of such a thing. What can they do that simply sticking my hand into the water not do?
In regards to the electrical panels, I’ve seen horizontal ones in a few older Canadian homes (i.e. pre-1930ish), but it seems that they have been installed vertically for many years now.
There was a time when the electrical meter was not necessarily outside–in one old house I remember living in when I was young, the meter was inside, next to the electrical panel in the basement, and the meter reader had to knock on the door to come in and read it.
I’ve never seen a Canadian electrical panel installed horizontally. Every one I’ve seen is vertical. Industrial, house _ I’ve flipped a LOT of breakers (especially offices) and cannot recall a single place where the breakers were not in single or double vertical rows.
They are typically installed on the surface, not embedded in between studs. You find them between the studs in places like finished offices where the wiring is hidden in the wall. In an unfinished basement, typically all the wiring is exposed and accessible to some degree.
The power comes from above (or maybe, below) and each side of 220V feeds the vertical metal bars to which the breakers attach. One phase(?) each side, ground in the middle.
There is likely a master breaker above the box, or a big D-switch.
The wires for each circuit come in the side of the panel and bolt into a breaker. If the box were recessed between studs, the wires would have to come in the top and bottom (which some do anyway).
On older houses the main panel will fill up and they may run a conduit to feed a second breaker panel, may a foot or two to the side, also mounted vertically.
I have never ever ever seen a toe-thingy in Canada; but then 90% of the houses have shower-with-tub; places that have showers have a high-up nozzle on the wall or ceiling, like the USA. 3/4 of the showers I’ve been in were big open mult-head industrial, mst of the rest are commercial surrounds with integrated floor. The one they built in our new house, 6 years ago, is tiles. It has a plain hand-hose-on-a-mount shower. The fanciest option I saw was the 2-side-spray car wash look option. The other was the “rain shower” with the 9-inch-across head. I saw nothing at foot level. Maybe I don’t frequent the hip happening plumbing stores.
Me, too. And besides, if the water is warm waaaaay down there, when you flip the lever, there is still residual cold water between the toe tester and the shower head. Same thing happens in a bath/tub combo.
As for electrical panels in the garage… I think it’s code here (at least in CA) that the meter has to be on the outside. Sub-panel in the garage or inside the house, but main panel outside. Always.
As a Canadian I don’t think the toe tester is being properly applied. I prefer the Asian version, wherein the “toe tester” tap is installed at a height that accommodates putting a bucket beneath it. That you can attach a hose to, for say washing the dog. Much more utile in my experience.
I’ve never seen a horizontal electrical box in any house, for what that’s worth.
Under Windows: Click Start menu to get the search box (if you have Windows 8, open a search box through some other, mysterious ritual) , type “charmap” and press Enter. In Character Map, locate the desired symbol (on my screen, the degree sign is right under the left curly bracket). Click on it. Then you have 2 choices:
Click on Select, then click on Copy. Paste into your document.
At the bottom right of the Character Map window, there is probably an indication of what you need to type to produce this character. For the degree sign, it’s Alt-0176, so while editing your document you just press down the LEFT Alt key and type 0 1 7 6 on your numeric keypad, then release the Alt key.
In Canada, too, I think almost all electrical meters are outdoors (so are gas meters). The only one inside the house is the water meter.
(Our home builder charged us $1200 to put the electrical panel, during installation, in the unfinished basement area instead of on the wall inside from the meter - $1200 for essentially 30 feet of thick cable. and no need to build a pretty cabinet door, have all electrical fully accessible instead of buried behind a finished wall. They sure know how to stick it to customers.)
It may not take long to flip a breaker, but if you ar running back and forth trying to find the right one, you might spend a lot of time in front of the panel. Besides, in some houses it’s small enough that you can hear someone yell “not that one! That turned off the TV.” this is easier inside the basement than out in the garage. Not many houses around here without basements.
(Or you turn the radio up real loud, plugged into the outlet, and keep trying the breakers until the noise stops. Unfortunately, it’s getting more and more annoying to randomly kill power to parts of the house, based on the number of power-dependent boxes that need resetting after).
)