I'm brazilian. Me and everyone I've ever known had electric showers in their homes.
Despite the clickable name, they are perfectly fine. If they weren't, the entirety of latin america wouldn't be using them. The worst case scenareo is if the house doesn't have grounding. In that case you can get a lil' zap when closing turning the shower off while wet. I remember when growing up, my mom would rent cheap apartments in the beach for us to stay a few days during the holidays, and she always made us shower while wearing flip flops to avoid getting the lil' zap. I'm not entirely convinced this worked.
> The worst case scenareo is if the house doesn't have grounding.
The worst case scenario is instant death, which has happened to a family member. It's just a risk that is accepted in Brazil that wouldn't be in Europe or the US.
The same is true of many gas appliances sold in Brazil. My CO alarm regularly goes off in Brazilian homes when cooking - another death of a family member of a friend is why I carry that now.
Again a perfectly acceptable risk in Brazil that also kills Brazilians, but that isn't accepted in some other countries. For now, at least.
Both of you are right. If installed properly it's safe, however worst case scenario used to be not "just" instant death but death by carbonization with your body being set on fire by electricity.
Pictures of that are some of the most horrifying things you'll see. Fortunately this does not happen anymore due to residual-current devices and safety mechanisms in the shower heads.
Source: Brazilian police forensics expert in the 90s
One mitigation for the gas risk in Latin America is that houses are rarely fully sealed with shut windows like they are in US and Europe. Because of the high electricity prices, windows are often open for ventilation.
I have an induction cooker. It doesn't have the gas issue but magnetic, eletric and eletromagnetic fields are orders of magnitudes above the safety values according to my measures. I don't know how safe that is on the long run (and AFAIK nobody does). Yet the scientific consensus is slowly changing to show that non-ionizing radiation isn't as safe as previously thought and is linked to brain cancer and male infertility among other things.
The major difference being that the UK-approved on is a ceramic heater: a resistive wire suspended in ceramic, encased in a grounded metal sheath (for transfer of heat). Regulations demand fixed cabling, of appropriate size, all on a quick-acting 30mA-leak RCBO at the consumer unit. Ignoring regs is a good way to lose your accreditation, get sued into oblivion so most electricians follow them to the letter and beyond. Paperwork to that fact is required for the installation.
If the wire touched the metal, or water got into the element and bridged the circuit to earth, the breaker would cut out immediately.
The suicide shower relies on the exposed resistive heater having a lower resistance than the water, and then a functional earth-leakage breaking device.
In perfect conditions, they're probably Safe Enough™, but there are so many failure modes. Earth failure (corrosion? never installed? fast enough?), dodgy water chemistry, exposed cabling, an exposed join because the included terminations are only ~15cm. Often installed in countries without rigorous electrical safety standards. Just a bad idea.
They need to upgrade to the Irish version [1]. Presumably these are safer, and the flow rate and temperatures are probably better. Mine is rated at 9kW, so it can get a decent stream of piping hot water going in no time.
They are really popular here, and every house that I've been in has at least one shower with one of these installed.
Honestly not sure why though. I come from a country where hot water came from a tank and it's pressurized to ~3 bar, and showers are glorious. So I don't understand why they are so popular in some places. I have a hot water tank (called "immersion") in my apartment, yet it's not plumbed to my shower, it only goes to the bath and basins. And seemingly this type of arrangement is not very popular in Ireland. I guess the benefit is that teenagers taking their time in the shower can't drain the hot water tank, so there's always hot water on demand. Probably also more energy efficient in the long run.
9kW, as in, a 40A current in 220V? If you consider 127V in some regions, it's a 70A current, so wires at least 3mm thick for 40A, or 5mm for 70A. These seem much scarier (and prone to fire risks if not respected) than the shower itself. Without taking into account the likelihood of a breaker box tripping at such high loads.
It seems that the standard rated power of Brazilian showers is 5.5 kW. But then again, Irish weather seems harsher than Brazilian weather.
Seeing the constructions makes me think that we're blessed in Germany for getting all three phases even in single apartments.
Here it's quote common (if no cheaper method of central hot water is available) to have on-demand water heaters like https://www.clage.com/de/produkte/durchlauferhitzer which usually have a maximum power output of 21 kW, so they aren't just used for showers, but can also fill up a bathtub quite quickly. They also don't hang inside the shower, but on any nearby wall.
They're connected to three-phase power with a 32A fuse on each phase.
Minor point, but the immersion is the heating element that extends to within the tank, short for "immersion heater".
The tanks generally also have a heat exchanger within that's hooked up to the wet central heating system, that way you can have 1 boiler so both central heating and water heating.
Thanks, a foreigner here so I just parrot what the locals say :). I do have an oil furnace/boiler, which heats the water in the tank. My "immersion heater" then is so far never been switched on because I just run the boiler for 10 minutes a day.
> Honestly not sure why though. I come from a country where hot water came from a tank and it's pressurized to ~3 bar, and showers are glorious. So I don't understand why they are so popular in some places.
A very common (albeit somewhat old-fashioned) plumbing setup in this part of the world is an 'open vented' system where hot water is supplied at comparatively low pressure - a cold water storage tank in the attic provides a pressure head of about 0.5 bar to a hot water tank, which feeds the hot taps. That's plenty for hand washing, but not really enough for a shower.
Whereas the electric shower takes mains pressure cold water only - giving you a shower without needing to replace or upgrade your hot water / central heating / boiler system.
There are other options (such as a pressure-boosting pump on the hot tank outlet - or replacing the tank with something newer) but changing between types is difficult enough it would usually only be done as part of a complete bathroom refit, which can easily cost $5,000+
Thanks, so I guess the actual plumbing might not be pressure rated, so the power shower is a cheaper upgrade compared to redoing the whole house's plumbing.
I'm brazilian and had one of these in my house my entire life. They are not dangerous as it sounds. BUT, gas showers are (please translate to you language):
No. Proper gas powered water heaters have oxygen sensors for quite some time, and ours kick-in before we feel anything about oxygen levels, and it doesn't reset until you get proper amount of fresh air in.
Moreover, newer models are completely sealed, breathing air from outside and directly dumping exhaust outside with a fan, via a coaxial pipe.
When I visited south america in 2006, I immediately noticed the water heating systems directly built into the shower heads. They were basically omnipresent, in every hostel I stayed at. I am a software person, with only bare minimum EE understanding. But this setup spooked me a lot. But after a few rounds, you think to yourself: "They are using this stuff around here everywhere, it can't be as dangerous as you think." Let 5 weeks pass, and I enter the shower in a hotel in Cusco, Peru. Showering was fine, until I tried to turn off the water, which closed the loop. I have to say, I am pretty happy south america only has 110V. I had to wrap a towel around my hand to be able to close the valve. So, I was right in not trusting this stuff. Its weird and dangerous. But its apparently omnipresent in the countries down there...
Hm? South America is at least half 220-240V including Peru, though it's not uncommon in my experience to have a centre-tapped transformer to supply 110V for US sourced appliances like in the Caribbean.
Y capacitors in power supplies cause a small leakage current. If you are using an unpolarised plug you may get a lower voltage by rotating its orientation.
do you have a hygrometer available? below 50% relative humidity, I get zapped every time I touch my mid-2012 mac book air. I've taken to drying clothes in my living room when the relative humidity goes under 50%.
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Despite the clickable name, they are perfectly fine. If they weren't, the entirety of latin america wouldn't be using them. The worst case scenareo is if the house doesn't have grounding. In that case you can get a lil' zap when closing turning the shower off while wet. I remember when growing up, my mom would rent cheap apartments in the beach for us to stay a few days during the holidays, and she always made us shower while wearing flip flops to avoid getting the lil' zap. I'm not entirely convinced this worked.
The worst case scenario is instant death, which has happened to a family member. It's just a risk that is accepted in Brazil that wouldn't be in Europe or the US.
The same is true of many gas appliances sold in Brazil. My CO alarm regularly goes off in Brazilian homes when cooking - another death of a family member of a friend is why I carry that now.
Again a perfectly acceptable risk in Brazil that also kills Brazilians, but that isn't accepted in some other countries. For now, at least.
Pictures of that are some of the most horrifying things you'll see. Fortunately this does not happen anymore due to residual-current devices and safety mechanisms in the shower heads.
Source: Brazilian police forensics expert in the 90s
One mitigation for the gas risk in Latin America is that houses are rarely fully sealed with shut windows like they are in US and Europe. Because of the high electricity prices, windows are often open for ventilation.
Dead Comment
He also did one on a UK-approved unit for comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwuhFLsowRc
The units aren't dangerous if installed properly, but they're not many failures from delivering a nasty shock.
If the wire touched the metal, or water got into the element and bridged the circuit to earth, the breaker would cut out immediately.
The suicide shower relies on the exposed resistive heater having a lower resistance than the water, and then a functional earth-leakage breaking device.
In perfect conditions, they're probably Safe Enough™, but there are so many failure modes. Earth failure (corrosion? never installed? fast enough?), dodgy water chemistry, exposed cabling, an exposed join because the included terminations are only ~15cm. Often installed in countries without rigorous electrical safety standards. Just a bad idea.
They are really popular here, and every house that I've been in has at least one shower with one of these installed.
Honestly not sure why though. I come from a country where hot water came from a tank and it's pressurized to ~3 bar, and showers are glorious. So I don't understand why they are so popular in some places. I have a hot water tank (called "immersion") in my apartment, yet it's not plumbed to my shower, it only goes to the bath and basins. And seemingly this type of arrangement is not very popular in Ireland. I guess the benefit is that teenagers taking their time in the shower can't drain the hot water tank, so there's always hot water on demand. Probably also more energy efficient in the long run.
1 - https://www.screwfix.ie/c/showers/cat820272?showerproducttyp...
It seems that the standard rated power of Brazilian showers is 5.5 kW. But then again, Irish weather seems harsher than Brazilian weather.
Here it's quote common (if no cheaper method of central hot water is available) to have on-demand water heaters like https://www.clage.com/de/produkte/durchlauferhitzer which usually have a maximum power output of 21 kW, so they aren't just used for showers, but can also fill up a bathtub quite quickly. They also don't hang inside the shower, but on any nearby wall.
They're connected to three-phase power with a 32A fuse on each phase.
The 127 just heat less. Max 5500W. The 240 can go up to 7500W in some versions.
The tanks generally also have a heat exchanger within that's hooked up to the wet central heating system, that way you can have 1 boiler so both central heating and water heating.
A very common (albeit somewhat old-fashioned) plumbing setup in this part of the world is an 'open vented' system where hot water is supplied at comparatively low pressure - a cold water storage tank in the attic provides a pressure head of about 0.5 bar to a hot water tank, which feeds the hot taps. That's plenty for hand washing, but not really enough for a shower.
Whereas the electric shower takes mains pressure cold water only - giving you a shower without needing to replace or upgrade your hot water / central heating / boiler system.
There are other options (such as a pressure-boosting pump on the hot tank outlet - or replacing the tank with something newer) but changing between types is difficult enough it would usually only be done as part of a complete bathroom refit, which can easily cost $5,000+
https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2019/...
No. Proper gas powered water heaters have oxygen sensors for quite some time, and ours kick-in before we feel anything about oxygen levels, and it doesn't reset until you get proper amount of fresh air in.
Moreover, newer models are completely sealed, breathing air from outside and directly dumping exhaust outside with a fan, via a coaxial pipe.
Wikipedia has a handy map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#/media/File:...
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/kbr-got-bonuses-wo...
Do you mean the American Electric "Suicide" Computer?
Yes I've been zapped by it numerous times.
Zapped by shower heads? Don't know anyone.
Almost died from a gas heated shower because of a leak? I know one person.
Yes, this is anecdata.
http://www.aplomb.nl/SMPS_leakage/Doc_ie.html
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