Was watching a House Hunters International in Bogota, Columbia and one of the apartments had an electric shower head. The American freaked out, and even the Colombian said he could recall getting shocks from one when he was a kid. They both decided against taking that apartment, not the least of which was due to this showerhead heating element.
This thing just looks like a really, really bad idea on so many levels!
I recall reading in Berlin ages ago about a woman who thought using her coffee/tea heating coil to hang in her bathtub and keep the water warm on a cold January day would be a great idea. It didn’t work out well and it was her very last bath.
Granted, this electric shower head heater is designed for taking showers (unlike the stupid idea of hanging an electrical coil heater in a tub), but still - call me timid or chicken or a wimp, but somehow seeing electrical coils hanging in my shower would make me decide body odor was not all that horrible of a price to pay to avoid showering - ever!
Would you/did you ever take a shower with this electrical cord hanging in there above your head?!
If it’s installed correctly, It shouldn’t be any more dangerous than your current electric water heater.
Note that I don’t consider connections that are insulated with electrical tape to be “installed correctly.”
The devices themselves are usually safe, but it’s the installation that can kill you. The one pictured appears to be entirely encased in plastic, so I don’t see how you could get shocked even if you touched it while showering.
In most of southeast Asia the water heaters are mounted inside the bathroom and connected to the shower head by a flexible hose similar to that of a sink sprayer. The casing and temperature control knob are all plastic.
You will find a ground terminal inside if you open them, but this is only for grounding the internal boiler and doesn’t afford any significant protection beyond that, since the case is nothing more than heavy plastic anyway.
It’s silly to change your mind about buying a house just because of this; it would be a very cheap “fix”.
I’ve been using then for the last 15 years. They’re incredibly safe if you take the smallest precautions durin installations. You can get a small shock if your hands touch the showerhead.
Drawbacks:
More flow means less temperature.
It cannot overcome really cold water, because it increases the temperature by a certan ammount of degrees.
A really long shower can burn the resistor (which takes 1 minute to replace)
It draws a lot of electricity and might set off your circuit breakers if you turn on another power-hungry appliance.
These are in use everywhere in Brazil. They really don’t work too bad-a major reason is that the tap water is usually at least 60 F. If this were in North America (40 degree tapwater), the heater would be useless.
I was watching a Brazilian TV show-it featured a tragic accident (the teenage son of the house wife was electrocuted in the show). The reason was that the control switch was broken-and they would turn on the heater by twisting the not wire on with a pair of pliers! The kid goes in, standing in water, and contacts a 220 volt line-yikes!
They’re still frequently used around here (and were even more common before solar and inline-electric heaters came into the market). As beowulff points out, the taped connections in your example would raise eyebrows among us – we prefer there should be a continuously insulated line going from the heater all the way back to a GFI plug or to the junction box. Not only that but in the OP example if you look closer it seems like the third (ground) wire is taped directly to the water pipe itself right at the showerhead.
These are common in Thailand. We don’t have one in our present residence but have had in the past. Never had a problem with them anywhere. As mentioned above, the key is to install it properly, but I’ve never heard of it being a big issue.
I have come across such things in Britain and I feel very insecure every time I use one. There is also the case of a tourist couple that got electrocuted in a shower in Thailand last year.
Uhhh…if one took “the smallest precautions” during installation, then you shouldn’t be getting any shocks when you touch the showerhead. That’s a sign the shower head isn’t grounded properly…which seems odd, to me, because aren’t most ground connections made to a water pipe? I mean…the pipe’s right there, how hard could it be to wire the ground to it?
Actually…I guess since it’s in a wet area (duh) it should use a GFCI, but I imagine a lot of places these are used don’t have the same regulations that the US has. But still…even a regular, proper, ground shouldn’t be giving anyone any shocks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the homes these are used in don’t have a proper ground at all…so the showerhead is wired to the ground connector, but back at the junction box, that ground either isn’t attached to anything, or is attached to the neutral line, which is much worse, but I think was also a common thing to do, and might still be in some areas.
Instantaneous shower heaters are very common (almost ubiquitous), but they’re usually a wall-mounted, permanently-installed unit - the heating happens in a completely sealed box with dials, fixed on the wall, and the shower head is on the end of a hose.
I’m about to install one like thisin my own bathroom (replacing a similar, but old and decrepit one).
It’s pretty much the only option for us because:
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No. That’s a violation of code. At one time it was common practice to ground to water pipes and the entire house was required to ground through the cold water pipe. Those rules changed when folks started using plastic pipe. You can no longer rely on water pipes for grounds, and your house has to be grounded through an independent copper rod. Any metal water pipes are required to be grounded though, but it’s backwards from the way it used to be. It used to be that the water pipes were the ground. Now there’s a separate ground and the water pipes are required to be grounded to it.
If you get a shock from touching the shower head (or any other part of your water system) then it’s wrong and needs fixed. Period.
I’ve used them a few times in Brazil. Personally, I hate’em–the ones I tried didn’t so much “spray hot water” but rather “dribbled luke-warm water” even when optimized. I’ll take a tankless water heater over that any day of the week.
I guess, although having taken one apart, they seem pretty well designed with respect to sealing the electrical parts away from exposure to water - and if they’re connected to a supply via an RCD, there shouldn’t be anything to fear.