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
The video showed only a very economical switching mechanism and a dependency on having the earth wire properly connected. I would feel a lot better about using it if a hair-trigger balance fault interruptor was integrated into the showerhead.
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.
Yeah, all the problems I've had were in relatively high-end apartments in SP and Brasilia, for exactly that reason. The killer combination of AC and gas cookers.
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%.
The actual video title is "Lorenzetti Electric Shower Head", the HN submission title is edited to include the nickname "suicide shower head". I think the best would be is to just use the actual video title here.
FWIW it's just a nickname for their apparently dangerous design (which doesn't necessarily translate to actually dangerous), it has nothing to do with suicides.
It is extremely common that these showers are installed visibly ungrounded which is extremely dangerous by developed country standards. It's common to feel a tingling sensation while showering if you are in any way tall (over 175cm).
That said, it's obviously something millions of people live with, so it's still relatively safe in grand terms.
It's a design of shower water heater where the water and electricity deliberately mix. The electricity flows through the water to heat it up, at the same time as that water is in contact with your head.
In pretty much every other country, this is illegal and against code because it is considered very unsafe. But somehow it seems to work for Brazil, Turkey, and a bunch of poorer nations.
It doesn't (usually) kill the users due to a bunch of clever design and good luck, which goes like this:
* The power grid provides two wires. "Live", normally around 220 volts AC (110 in usa), and "Neutral", usually near zero - perhaps 5 volts AC. The Earth is at 0 volts AC, and is connected to all your water, pipes, plumbing, metal things in your bathroom, etc.
* Normal devices like light bulbs allow electrons to flow between Live and Neutral, but should not allow electrons to flow to Earth. Normally, if flow to earth is detected, a GFCI/RCD will switch everything off for safety, since a human might be on that path!
* The resistance of a wet-skinned human is such that if 5 volts AC is put across them, they'll barely feel it, but if 220 volts AC is across them, they'll probably die.
* This shower relies on connecting Live (220V) to the water, and also connecting Neutral (~5V) to the water. That causes electrons to flow through the water, and it to heat up.
* However, the connections are arranged so that the neutral is far closer to your head than the live - so the voltage your head sees is perhaps only 5 volts relative to the Earth (and the wet floor you're standing on). You feel the tingly electric-water, but you don't die today.
* But the big risk is that if the neutral wire were to fail anywhere between the shower and the power station for any reason, now the water you're standing in becomes Live at 220V and you die today.
I don't think any current flow in the water is deliberate. The heating comes from the resistive heating of the coil. The issue (i think) is the coil being uninsulated, allowing some current to leak out through the water, hence the tingling sensation others have mentioned.
There are some places that don't have the neutral. My home is 3x127 plus neutral tho. I did 2x127 to the shower, no neutral. But I do have ground and the IDR (differential residual interruption protection device).
> Same experience in a Costa Rica hostel! Except in that case my skin just gently tingled where the water touched it. It was a case of, “I know that sensation, and I certainly shouldn’t be feeling it in the shower”
30yo Brazilian here. I nor anyone I know have heard of issues with electric shower headers. Electricity in Brazil is highly available and relatively cheap. I actually think they're amazing and I would pick it over any gas shower out there, they heat up pretty much instantly and some models even offer high precision temperature control of 1 degree Celsius.
I'm hoping you're right but I have yet to see a gas heater that actually heats up the water that cooled down in the pipes since the last usage so that you actually get warm water instantly.
They heat up instantly, but I usually have to choose between high pressure and heat. Only when turned down to low pressure does the heat work well (you can subtlety hear it click on at low pressure). But it depends in the specific model and usually not bad. (In Guatemala) And have been zapped plenty of times as others described.
You can use an 1:1 isolation transformer to make it safer (if I would ever travel to Brazil, I would definitely have one in by suitcase). They aren't very cheap (otherwise, they would be used in setups like that...) because the metal load it takes to make one.
However, with modern electronics one can be manufactured much cheaper, exercising the same phenomenon which switching-mode PSUs use - increase the AC frequency with a MOSFET, so the transformer can be smaller = more efficient.
That’s not the actual title and it’s missing (2017), the comment section had the consensus that these shower heads are actually very common and safe to use.
More often than not it is the wiring connecting the showerheads that is not well done. I got zapped at least once when I worked in Brazil so I took extra care handling the lever that selects the temperature.
I just installed a new onde and upgraded to a 220/240V since I can use a smaller section wire gauge. No neutral, just 2x120V live wires.
But since I'm not a suicidal person, and I'm following the NBR5410 standards, I also installed a decent ground wire and a differential residual interruption device. Any current above 30mA in excess and the circuit is off.
Why do people only discuss flow heating vs gas heating? In Switzerland I never saw either of them and only know warm water boilers my whole life. I freaked out seeing electricity going into the bathroom in Thailand, where ungrounded homes are common. Are boilers that uncommon in the rest of the world?
Is the problem the head isn’t well built? Or wired incorrectly?
I don’t think I’ve seen one with the heater on the head, but electric showers and other electric water heaters are perfectly normal in my country, the comments suggest they might not be in America?
The device seems fine; but as he said, it is insane that it is sold with the short wire attached. This is a clear extra cost for the manufacture and can only be to encourage wire nuts or other unsuitable joint just next to running water.
I was born in Brazil and lived there for a while. Can tell you that the amount of shenanigans that go around grounding is just crazy.
For example I lived in an apartment where the shower literally refused to work until I had to tinker with it and disable its grounding.
Now you are wondering, why I disabled the grounding of a dangerous electric shower? Well, it is no less dangerous than the rest of the whole stupid building, that although it is extremely against the building code to do so, they literally tied the "neutral" wire to the "ground" wire in the whole building. Meaning that all grounded power sockets, were actually not grounded at all and instead had the ground pin connected to the neutral pin.
Yes, it is bad and dangerous as it sounds, got shocked multiple times at that apartment and had appliances short circuit. But did complaining to authorities did anything to fix it? Nope. They don't care until someone die, then they find some random guy not connected to politics to sue.
See lastest supreme court decisions, that freed all corrupt construction company people that have connections to the party in power.
Brazil has deep, chronic issues, with corruption and the construction industry, you literally can't build anything big without corruption, it is just silly. My father was a civil engineer and the stories I heard from his friends were just crazy balls, not only the corruption people know about, but lots that people don't. Did you knew that São Paulo has some tunnels with MISSING SUPPORTS because people fucked up and let cement leak from the machinery into the river, and the government decision to fix the situation was just tell engineers to not put some safeish percentage of supports on their section and not tell other engineers about it so nobody know what supports are missing? This way the government avoided buying more cement after the last batch ended in the river.
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
The video showed only a very economical switching mechanism and a dependency on having the earth wire properly connected. I would feel a lot better about using it if a hair-trigger balance fault interruptor was integrated into the showerhead.
I'm sorry to hear about these deaths.
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.
Yeah, all the problems I've had were in relatively high-end apartments in SP and Brasilia, for exactly that reason. The killer combination of AC and gas cookers.
Its probably based on the same myth that makes people think its the rubber tires that makes cars safe during a lightning storm.
[flagged]
Big Clive also did a teardown and analysis of them, including the fault conditions that would make it dangerous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNjA0aee07k
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.
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.
More analysis (including calculations) from another YouTuber: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuQ_AAkkgIg
Is there also some written information to be found somewhere?
https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=FuQ_AAkkgIg
"We're sorry, YouTube is currently blocking us from fetching subtitles preventing us from generating a summary for you. We're working on a fix!"
That almost sounds like a bug that could be sold as a feature "the shower with that extra wake up jolt!".
Well... Not gonna lie, the few times ive been cycled by HV I was very awake afterwards... And then really sleepy...
How did it happens?
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.
1 - https://www.screwfix.ie/c/showers/cat820272?showerproducttyp...
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.
Those heaters are also popular in Russia, at least in Soviet-era buildings where the central water heater breaks frequently.
Both 127 and 220/240V are 32A, 40A Max.
The 127 just heat less. Max 5500W. The 240 can go up to 7500W in some versions.
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.
Do those showers you have linked to actually do the heating as well?
Yes. Temperature and flow rate are adjusted by the two knobs. It has its own 40A breaker at my distribution box.
And at only ~100x the price.
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):
https://noticias.uol.com.br/cotidiano/ultimas-noticias/2019/...
> Now, gas showers are
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.
Wikipedia has a handy map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#/media/File:...
Oh, I really was just guessing here, since I was traveling without any tech, so I never needed a wall outlet... Thanks for pointing this out!
A US defense contractor got a bonus after they did the same thing to US troops in Afghanistan.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/kbr-got-bonuses-wo...
Electroboom did a video about these things 5 years ago too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06w3-l1AzFk
Does anyone feel a similar tingling when touching their MacBook while it’s plugged in?
> MacBook
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.
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.
http://www.aplomb.nl/SMPS_leakage/Doc_ie.html
Yes that happens when the power supply isn't grounded. Use the extension cable instead of the duckhead as it connects the ground pin.
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%.
Apple kit is awful for that, same applies with phones too.
Yep I do. Metal casing gives me the tingling.
me, that's me
I think we need a summary here first. I'm not going to watch something with this title until I know what I'm about to get into...
The actual video title is "Lorenzetti Electric Shower Head", the HN submission title is edited to include the nickname "suicide shower head". I think the best would be is to just use the actual video title here.
FWIW it's just a nickname for their apparently dangerous design (which doesn't necessarily translate to actually dangerous), it has nothing to do with suicides.
It is extremely common that these showers are installed visibly ungrounded which is extremely dangerous by developed country standards. It's common to feel a tingling sensation while showering if you are in any way tall (over 175cm).
That said, it's obviously something millions of people live with, so it's still relatively safe in grand terms.
> It's common to feel a tingling sensation while showering if you are in any way tall
Why does the user's height make a difference?
Closer to the shower head, less resistance from the water.
It's a design of shower water heater where the water and electricity deliberately mix. The electricity flows through the water to heat it up, at the same time as that water is in contact with your head.
In pretty much every other country, this is illegal and against code because it is considered very unsafe. But somehow it seems to work for Brazil, Turkey, and a bunch of poorer nations.
It doesn't (usually) kill the users due to a bunch of clever design and good luck, which goes like this:
* The power grid provides two wires. "Live", normally around 220 volts AC (110 in usa), and "Neutral", usually near zero - perhaps 5 volts AC. The Earth is at 0 volts AC, and is connected to all your water, pipes, plumbing, metal things in your bathroom, etc.
* Normal devices like light bulbs allow electrons to flow between Live and Neutral, but should not allow electrons to flow to Earth. Normally, if flow to earth is detected, a GFCI/RCD will switch everything off for safety, since a human might be on that path!
* The resistance of a wet-skinned human is such that if 5 volts AC is put across them, they'll barely feel it, but if 220 volts AC is across them, they'll probably die.
* This shower relies on connecting Live (220V) to the water, and also connecting Neutral (~5V) to the water. That causes electrons to flow through the water, and it to heat up.
* However, the connections are arranged so that the neutral is far closer to your head than the live - so the voltage your head sees is perhaps only 5 volts relative to the Earth (and the wet floor you're standing on). You feel the tingly electric-water, but you don't die today.
* But the big risk is that if the neutral wire were to fail anywhere between the shower and the power station for any reason, now the water you're standing in becomes Live at 220V and you die today.
I don't think any current flow in the water is deliberate. The heating comes from the resistive heating of the coil. The issue (i think) is the coil being uninsulated, allowing some current to leak out through the water, hence the tingling sensation others have mentioned.
My bad... the video features a design with a coil. There are others which use a grid and the waters conductivity.
There are some places that don't have the neutral. My home is 3x127 plus neutral tho. I did 2x127 to the shower, no neutral. But I do have ground and the IDR (differential residual interruption protection device).
It refers to a design commonly used in South America where a live wire is run to the shower head and used to heat water just before it is expelled
It's ok to watch, that's just the nickname of the device because of how risky it is to use.
So, you want someone else to watch it for you first?
> Same experience in a Costa Rica hostel! Except in that case my skin just gently tingled where the water touched it. It was a case of, “I know that sensation, and I certainly shouldn’t be feeling it in the shower”
~ A comment I left on the topic of these shower heads a little while ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41250231
30yo Brazilian here. I nor anyone I know have heard of issues with electric shower headers. Electricity in Brazil is highly available and relatively cheap. I actually think they're amazing and I would pick it over any gas shower out there, they heat up pretty much instantly and some models even offer high precision temperature control of 1 degree Celsius.
FWIW "heats up instantly" and "has 1 degree temperature control" also describes modern gas heaters.
I'm hoping you're right but I have yet to see a gas heater that actually heats up the water that cooled down in the pipes since the last usage so that you actually get warm water instantly.
I mean, it may be a couple seconds (like 5, not 30+), but ~every modern house in Japan has a heater like that.
They heat up instantly, but I usually have to choose between high pressure and heat. Only when turned down to low pressure does the heat work well (you can subtlety hear it click on at low pressure). But it depends in the specific model and usually not bad. (In Guatemala) And have been zapped plenty of times as others described.
You can use an 1:1 isolation transformer to make it safer (if I would ever travel to Brazil, I would definitely have one in by suitcase). They aren't very cheap (otherwise, they would be used in setups like that...) because the metal load it takes to make one.
However, with modern electronics one can be manufactured much cheaper, exercising the same phenomenon which switching-mode PSUs use - increase the AC frequency with a MOSFET, so the transformer can be smaller = more efficient.
That’s not the actual title and it’s missing (2017), the comment section had the consensus that these shower heads are actually very common and safe to use.
I remember some tourists in Thailand being killed by one of these:
https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/4436799
More often than not it is the wiring connecting the showerheads that is not well done. I got zapped at least once when I worked in Brazil so I took extra care handling the lever that selects the temperature.
While not directly related, I feel the following is keeping with the spirit of the thread:
>Images of water heater/HVAC corrugated gas lines that are glowing red hot because they became electrified: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/post-your-tech-cringe-gore/1...
I just installed a new onde and upgraded to a 220/240V since I can use a smaller section wire gauge. No neutral, just 2x120V live wires.
But since I'm not a suicidal person, and I'm following the NBR5410 standards, I also installed a decent ground wire and a differential residual interruption device. Any current above 30mA in excess and the circuit is off.
Why do people only discuss flow heating vs gas heating? In Switzerland I never saw either of them and only know warm water boilers my whole life. I freaked out seeing electricity going into the bathroom in Thailand, where ungrounded homes are common. Are boilers that uncommon in the rest of the world?
Is this any more efficient than a typical hot water tank in US homes?
Is the problem the head isn’t well built? Or wired incorrectly?
I don’t think I’ve seen one with the heater on the head, but electric showers and other electric water heaters are perfectly normal in my country, the comments suggest they might not be in America?
They certaily are common in America. The unit in the video is made in Brazil and is very common not only there but in many other American countries!
The device seems fine; but as he said, it is insane that it is sold with the short wire attached. This is a clear extra cost for the manufacture and can only be to encourage wire nuts or other unsuitable joint just next to running water.
Couldn’t one just gfci the circuit on the breaker level?
I bet it would insta-trip even with the showerhead working as expected
> Even here in the Philippines, many properties don't have any grounded sockets.
Wait, what!? They've obviously got ground for the AC circuit, but why aren't they standard on the rest of the plugs?
I was born in Brazil and lived there for a while. Can tell you that the amount of shenanigans that go around grounding is just crazy.
For example I lived in an apartment where the shower literally refused to work until I had to tinker with it and disable its grounding.
Now you are wondering, why I disabled the grounding of a dangerous electric shower? Well, it is no less dangerous than the rest of the whole stupid building, that although it is extremely against the building code to do so, they literally tied the "neutral" wire to the "ground" wire in the whole building. Meaning that all grounded power sockets, were actually not grounded at all and instead had the ground pin connected to the neutral pin.
Yes, it is bad and dangerous as it sounds, got shocked multiple times at that apartment and had appliances short circuit. But did complaining to authorities did anything to fix it? Nope. They don't care until someone die, then they find some random guy not connected to politics to sue.
See lastest supreme court decisions, that freed all corrupt construction company people that have connections to the party in power.
Brazil has deep, chronic issues, with corruption and the construction industry, you literally can't build anything big without corruption, it is just silly. My father was a civil engineer and the stories I heard from his friends were just crazy balls, not only the corruption people know about, but lots that people don't. Did you knew that São Paulo has some tunnels with MISSING SUPPORTS because people fucked up and let cement leak from the machinery into the river, and the government decision to fix the situation was just tell engineers to not put some safeish percentage of supports on their section and not tell other engineers about it so nobody know what supports are missing? This way the government avoided buying more cement after the last batch ended in the river.
Vilash
How is this legal?