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Comment by pmlnr | Hacker News Reader

That's building regulations, sadly. Sockets need to be multiple meters from splash zones, but there's an exception for shaver sockets, which have their own transformer, limited amps, and have a plug that looks very similar to the non-grounded EU plugs.

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Yeah, both bathrooms in my (UK) home have such sockets, I don't actually use them, the electric toothbrush gets charged by this desk instead, but they exist.

Regulations change over time, this home's bathrooms are all interior, with fans to evacuate moisture, and the toilets accordingly have internal overflow†, both these features were not legal when my parents home was built.

† Historically for a residential toilet in the UK if the water rises above the intended maximum level in the tank, it just runs into a pipe to the outside of the building, in principle you can now see what's wrong and it's not dangerous... but, if you don't fix it promptly this results in a stain on the building exterior, as well as potentially wider water damage, plus it can freeze in mid-winter which isn't good. But wait, a toilet has a very obvious place to dump unwanted water, it's connected to the sewer and if that is broken you've got much more serious problems. So a modern toilet tank just re-uses the flush mechanism to dump excess water the same place as everything else. This elegant solution, already needed in some commercial applications, was I believe made legal in newer residential building regulations maybe in the 1980s.

Thank you, now I have even more highly specific but useless information about British homes. It will sit next to my knowledge about why you guys (used to) have two faucets.

They still mostly choose to have two taps in the bathroom.

Part of the reason I emigrated.

You don't use GFCI's in the UK?

https://www.canadianhomeinspection.com/home-reference-librar...

Yes - though we call them RCDs and they're typically located in the consumer unit. Up until recently they'd be shared across several circuits (a "split" or "dual" RCD consumer unit). Nowadays regs are pushing for each cicruit in the consumer unit to be protected individually by their own RCBO (almost the same thing as an RCD/GFCI)

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