This has never been the case in any house that I have lived in but I often find that the light switch to the bathroom in other people’s houses is somewhere outside of the bathroom. Sometimes, it is a single switch that is right on the wall as you walk in and that is only a little annoying. However, I have seen some setups where the bathroom switch is on a wall across the hall combined with several other switches etc. I can see one person making what I see as a mistake but many people?
In small bathrooms the light switch is often installed outside to minimize the possibility of its operation by someone who’s standing in a puddle of water, which might expose them to the danger of a shock. Most building codes require that electrical fixtures be located a certain distance away from a shower or bath.
I’ve only ever seen this when I’ve gone out of the country. In every home I’ve ever lived in, or visited in my neck of the woods, the light was in the bathroom. When I went to South Africa, I was mildly surprised the first time I saw one outside the bathroom; I was a little amazed when I realized that was the norm.
Then I found out that it was the same when I went to London. So while it’s strange to me, apparently it’s the norm everywhere else. Which is a shame, because I was robbed my entire childhood of the hilarity that could have ensued, as Smeghead suggested. Course now I can just flip the breaker switch on my brother, but that lacks finesse
I thought it was to reduce the likelihood of someone trying to operate the switch with dripping wet hands and being accidentally electrocuted - I’m not aure how real a possibility that is, but that’s what I’ve always been told. Most UK bathroom lights are operated either by a conventional switch outside the door or a ceiling-mounted pull-cord (although I think this might not be the case for newer properties).
Every house and flat I’ve lived in in the UK has had a pull-cord switch in the bathroom. Hotels tend to have outside-the-room switches, and in some places I’ve stayed there was a cluster of switches you had to noodle around with to get the bathroom light on as there was no rationale behind their placement.
Like Mangetout says it’s to make it difficult to prod a wet switch with wet hands and wet feet on a wet floor which is a good recipe for electocution.
There’s also the danger of a light switch within a bathroom getting accidentaly sprayed with water from the shower or something. Person then goes to switch light off and zap. There are regulations (in the UK certainly, I’d imagine other countries have similar) that specify where you can place electrical items in a bathroom in relation to the sink, bath, etc. If the room is quite small there may be no option other than to place the switch outside.
I’m pretty sure I have seen ordinary-looking rocker switches in bathrooms in newer houses though and I have a feeling that the panels are now designed to be reliably splashproof (I’m not talking about those switches with a rubber membrane across the front).
What do British and South African light switches look like? The only European switches I know are German, and they’re pretty much universally what we in the States call “decorator style” switches (like Leviton Decora brand), which aside from not looking like they’re 50 years old, are a lot easier to press either on or off. I guess what I’m saying is, wouldn’t this design kind of mitigate chances of shock?
I’m not a NEC (US National Electrical Code) expert at all – but I do know that modern bathrooms must be wired for GFCI. But I also think that lights/fans must be on a separate circuit, which usually aren’t GFCI. Anyone know for certain whether modern bathrooms in the US (or anywhere for that matter) require or permit the lighting to be connected to the GFCI circuit?
Standard British light switches tend to be a square white fascia about 3 inches on a side, with one or two vertically-oriented flat rectangular rocker switches; fascias with more than two switches are often rectangular, rather than square. The ‘On’ position is ‘down’ - on flat rocker switches, the bottom is pressed in (and the protruding edge of the top is often coloured red), on the less common toggle switches (which are still the same internally), ‘down’ is still ‘on’.
The switch fascia is held in place with a pair of machine screws, one on either side of the switch.
Serious electrical incidents, such as fire or severe shock, tend to happen as a result of a whole string of failed warnings, unheeded advice and plain bad luck.
You get a chain of events, someone maybe installed something without an earth, it doesn’t kill anyone because there is no nearby fault, maybe the bath gets moved from its previous location to a corner unit to make room for the cats litter box, whatever.
Now the light switch in the bathroom is directly above the bath, then someone decides to install an electric shower, perhaps with booster pumps and it uses the bath as the drain tray.
User goes for shower but the light bulb blows, first reaction is to try the light switch BOOM!
That’s one scenario, the problem for any electrical installer is that they cannot predict exactly what will happen to th einstallation when they have completed the job.
In the UK we nearly always use pull cord light switches, we have a set of wiring regulations which have one chapter dedicated to ‘Special Locations’.
These are places and areas where circumstances dictate that the risk of elcetric shock are greater than normal, and that the severity of that shock is likely to be greater than normal.
Places like saunas, bathrooms, swimming pools are included.
In the UK there is a complete ban ( with one exception ) of having any socket outlets in a bathroom. All electrical items ( such as extractor fans of heaters ) must be " hard wired " via a fused spur. The only exception is a shaver socket . This takes different pins to an ordinary plug , is connected via an isolating transformer and is protected by a very low rated fuse , ( a couple of hundred milliamperes ).
When I stay in hotels in Pennsylvania and California, this is always the case. When I stay in the same brand of hotel (Marriott’s Residence Inn properties) in Colorado, the switch is inside the bathroom. I have a feeling that there is an aspect of state commercial electrical codes at work here.
In a very old house, especially a rural one, the bathroom may have been added on years after the house was built. Before that, there would have been an outhouse. Thus the switch that now lights up the bathroom once turned on the back porch light.
That’s basically the way they look in South Africa, too, except sometimes they were horizontally oriented. And some of them had little red markings that were revealed when a light was switched on.
So let me ask you this – why is down = on, and up = off. I guess that would be like asking me to explain why it’s just the opposite here, but I could back it up with this:
[ul]
[li]Doors are “on” when the lock is in the up position (i.e., you can open the door). On the other hand, I guess the lock itself is then off (i.e., you can open the door).[/li][li]Water is “on” when the valve is in the upmost position, whether it be a kitchen faucet or a screw valve and some types of plunger valves.[/li][li]When the light is on, the switch “points” toward the sky or the light, so you know it’s on or off.[/li][li]Aha! Industrial equipment! Aside from a black-red color code, up always means energized, and down always means de-energized. Unless it’s a twist-type disconnect.[/li][/ul]
Granted, in three- and more-way switch circuits, this logic is thrown out. Oh, and my X10 switches don’t toggle at all, you just tap 'em and they toggle electronically.
I’d always had a soft spot for the Brits, but now I have to question my beliefs. To imagine that your whole country has its switches upside-down is just preposturous. Oh, South Africa’s okay, though, since being upside down on the globe kind of flips their switches the right way.
