# Two Questions About Hotel Bathrooms **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653 "2013-09-12T13:12:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/81 "2013-09-16T15:28:42Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Most bathrooms in houses tend to have pull cord switches inside the bathroom, in my experience. I prefer the switch on the outside, as I have visions of hundreds of sweaty, wee covered hands rubbing against the uncleanable cord, but that’s just me and my OCD. My last bathroom (in the UK) had an automatic light that was triggered by a motion sensor when you opened the door. With the one really annoying problem that if you sat still on the loo for too long (ahem), then the light would assume no one was there and turn itself off. Which would then involve waving my arms around with my trousers round my ankles. Not to be recommended. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/82 "2013-09-16T15:30:36Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > then the light would assume no one was there and turn itself off. Which would then involve waving my arms around with my trousers round my ankles. > > Not to be recommended. If you’re on the throne, what difference does the position of your trousers make when waving your arms? ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/83 "2013-09-16T16:44:31Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > In AUS, we’ve always understood that our desire to have different wiring rules to the rest of world was to protect local industry, and to demonstrate, in a quiet, laconic, understated kind of way, our technical superiority. > > As a Aus/American I’ve translated that to American for you. That is NOT how an Australian would express it. And they would take a different meaning from those words that I expect Americans to take. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Explain? Yeah! What’s the AUS translation? 🙂 > [@Acsenray](#): > > If you’re on the throne, what difference does the position of your trousers make when waving your arms? Dignity. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/84 "2013-09-16T16:54:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Dignity. No one’s there to see it. How does it affect your dignity? Unless you consider having to wave itself to be undignified. Do you keep your arms immobile out of a sense of dignity? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/85 "2013-09-17T10:56:45Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I assume that is talking about an electric water heater located near the shower. A lot of places in Europe, of you want a hot shower you have to switch on the heater 20 minutes ahead of time to let it heat up some water. Following up on Floater’s thought, I have heard these things are sometimes called “widowmakers.” I did get a pretty strong shock in a Honduras hotel bathroom from one of these once – it was dodgily installed. But hey, I haven’t been depressed since! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/86 "2013-09-17T12:10:11Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > No one’s there to see it. How does it affect your dignity? Unless you consider having to wave itself to be undignified. Do you keep your arms immobile out of a sense of dignity? Because in order to trigger the light, I had to stand up. A delicate manoeuvre depending on circumstances. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/87 "2013-09-17T12:13:27Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I did get a pretty strong shock in a Honduras hotel bathroom from one of these once – it was dodgily installed. A young Swedish couple were killed in a hotel shower in Thailand the other year because of this. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/88 "2013-09-18T12:36:24Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Following up on Floater’s thought, I have heard these things are sometimes called “widowmakers.” I did get a pretty strong shock in a Honduras hotel bathroom from one of these once – it was dodgily installed. But hey, I haven’t been depressed since! 😉 I know a lot of people on here are very sceptical about electric showers, but seriously, the type that we have here in the UK are very safe. I rememeber [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=662590) expressing horror at the very idea of an electric shower, but I have never seen anything like the shoddy looking [example](http://www.gringosabroad.com/electric-showers-are-they-safe-how-shocking/) in that OP. That looks like something installed at Auschwitz after the gas got cut off. :eek: My electric shower looks like [this](http://www-1.plumbworld.co.uk/mira-galena-98kw-slate-with-citrus-00021805M.jpg). And [here](http://bitsbobsonline.co.uk/media/diagrams1/Mira_Alero_J95X_.jpg) is what’s inside. It’s considerably more than just a couple of wires sticking into a shower head. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/89 "2013-09-18T12:57:06Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > It’s considerably more than just a couple of wires sticking into a shower head. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wednesday\_Evening](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Wednesday\_Evening](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wednesday_Evening)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653/90 "2013-09-18T20:28:38Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > The lower ceiling is almost always to permit piping and ducting without encroaching on valuable floor space, whether it’s within rooms or within common areas. As a structural engineer who has designed hotels, I can elaborate on this a bit. Building developers like the floor-to-floor height to be as small as possible because that way they can maximize the number of rooms while minimizing the cost of building construction. In hotels, the floor layout is conducive to having all the ductwork and piping in the hallways and bathrooms. In a hotel you can also get away with having a low ceiling in the bathrooms and hallways. So you build the hotel so that the underside of the structural floor is the ceiling of the room below (concrete flat plate construction, typically). This gets you the smallest floor-to-floor height possible. Then you build a lower ceiling in the bathrooms and hallways and run the ductwork and piping between the structural floor and the ceiling. This doesn’t typically work for other building layouts because the room layouts are such that the ductwork and piping is all over the footprint of the building. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-questions-about-hotel-bathrooms/668653.md?page=4)