Should Electric Showers Be Switched Off If Not In Use?

[Trevor]

A Thai hotelier advised me to turn off the power isolation switch when not using the electric shower. Whether it was for safety reasons or economy I was not quite sure. But I always thought the unit remained dead electrically unless water started flowing through the heating element and there was no practical reason for isolating the power, except for maintenance and emergencies.

Will any budding electricians kindly elucidate?

[britmaveric]

Safety reasons I'd assume. Hope its grounded.

[naka]

I won't get into the safety aspect, suffice to say I do not trust them given the

un-earthed Thai system.

But no, they consume no power when the water is not running.

Naka.

[david96]

It would be recomended that an IP56 weatherproof switch and cables terminated with nylon cable glands. Circuit to have an RCD fitted.Equipment should be earthed in an approved manner. RCD 10ma instead of the normal 30ma. The switch is for isolation purposes, the heater should be fitted internally with a flow switch,temp controller and a manual reset overtemperature cutout.

[h90]

Safety reasons I'd assume. Hope its grounded.

What a question: I stay here 5 years and didn't see a single one grounded (beside my own which I grounded).

<sarcastic mode>

It doesn't make any more hot with ground and it doesn't improve safety if you route a ground cable to the the roof and there it is either unconnected (so the farang has the cable, because without cable he does not pay) or connect it somewhere to the zero line (connect to zero same same ground).

</sarcastic mode>

What I do, but I don't know if it helps much, before I turn off water I turn off the heating. I think when the hot water stays inside it might build up calcium carbonate more easy where it is in contact with the heating coil, as when the water is a bit cooler. That might increase life of it.

So maybe my heater stays instead of 3 years, 3 years and 5 minutes :D

[Smilodon]

If you REALLY need to know, then open up the electrical panel, find the circuit(s) that lead to the shower and use a clamp-on ammeter to determine if there is any current flow any time other than when water is flowing.

Clamp-on ammeters are available at electrical industry supply wholesalers.

[thaihome]

There is a third world tradition, developed through years of hard experience to disconnect electrical appliances when not in use.

TH

[Chang_paarp]

There is a third world tradition, developed through years of hard experience to disconnect electrical appliances when not in use.

TH

This is a result of the quality of the power supply. It is not unusual to get spike and surges that can severely damage electrical equipment. Add this to buildings that are often make from combustible material. The experience of others has created this tradition/habit.

[lopburi3]

1. Some models do consume electrical power - my Sanyo for example has a built in night light always on.

2. All should be grounded - new models even have this requirement written in large Thai letters on outside of case - suspect most are still not.

3. Flow control switch 'could' fail so no power would be an advantage in that case.

4. Believe older models did not have flow control and had to be manually turned off (but I was using gas back then).

5. As said the Thai will often pull every plug in the house when not in use - and it is hard to argue against that when the electric system is so full of potential safety issues - at least part of system is safe for awhile. This assumes use of switch - pulling plugs you can argue that the danger is greater handling the plugs multi times a day than having unit with power.

[Smilodon]

To digress a bit, if electrical power quality is a concern to you, and you have plenty of money to spend, there are a few things you can do to make protection more convenient especially regarding your electronics:

A.) Install switches to turn off your plugins that feed your electronic toys so you don't have to pull plugs.

B.) Buy surge suppressors to protect stuff that is left plugged in

C.) Buy UPSes... Uninterruptible Power Supplies. They not only actively guard against too high or low voltage, and improper frequencies, they will feed your toys from a backup battery until power returns to normal or the battery runs out.

D.) And this is for someone who has quite a bit more money invested in electronics, put your whole house on a rackmount UPS system so that everything is protected from surges and spikes, and, depending on the number of batteries you buy to provide backup power and how much power you use, you can enjoy power even during a total outage.

E.) On top of that, you can get a generator to supply power after the first (user determined) time frame, so it will kick on and take over from the utility company, saving your batteries. The generator can be fueled by however much fuel you deem desirable, and can run indefinitely.

Edited February 3, 2007 by Smilodon