water and electricity don't mix?

danielsmusic said:

hmm, what about this situation then.
what if i drop a desk lamp in to the bath while i am sitting in it. i have salt and minerals mixed with the water as well. would the current flow to me or through the fillerment

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Most likely the bathwater would be grounded and the electricity would end up flowing through you.

I watched Mythbusters this afternoon, they were checking the viability of being killed by an electrical appliance falling in the bath (presumably using the weedy 110V mains over there?).

Basically they decided it was PROVED, different appliances gave different results, but an iron, a toaster, a hair drier, and a radio all would have been fatal, but curling tongs were below their fatal threshold, which was 6mA directly through the heart.

I sean that one.

They also put salt in.Then the curent was 1A.

This topic looks weird for people tell them how it work when it start charged. Water and electronic can kill you. :twisted:

Parallel Circuits ?

danielsmusic said:

what if i drop a desk lamp in to the bath while i am sitting in it. i have salt and minerals mixed with the water as well. would the current flow to me or through the fillerment

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For my two pence worth -
If the lamp filament were to survive despite the glass envelope being broken ?

Think of it this way - there is a live wire supplying 240v (or whatever) and a neutral wire, effectively connected to ground (A Dangerous Assumption!), this power supply is running a desk lamp, either submerged in your bath or on top of next-door's television, it makes no difference! the local substation will happily power this lamp AND run a couple of amps through the bathwater to the earthed pipework - in fact it won't notice the combined load !

In my mind water and electricity DONT mix - the water disappears as hydrogen and oxygen (electrolysis !)

I worked on clothes washers and dryers for about 3 years, and I got shocked a couple times a week the whole time. I had screwdrivers accidentally welded through because I touched them to the frame (grounded) while I was jumping switches and the like. But one day I went to a laundry room where a washer drain got plugged up, and there was water abot 1/2 inch deep over the entire floor. I fixed the drain, but the washer wouldn't turn on. So I checked it out, and ended up removing the rear panel from the machine to check the wiring. I got down on my knees to look into the machine, and I saw a tiny little wire had shaken off the motor, so of course I had to reach in and reattatch it-big mistake! I've been shocked hundreds of times, but never straight-up electrocuted. I heard, and felt, a loud whaaaaaghnt sound as 120 volts discharged to ground from my fingers to my feet. Aside from a few minutes of uncontrollable shaking, my only injuries were incurred during my reflexive rapid exit from the washing machine. My co-worker could't stop laughing and over the next couple weeks he kept demanding that I re-demonstrate it for him. Yeah,right.....

Lucky it was only a 'girly' 120V :lol:

sounds like something for mythbusters...

im an electrician
if you stick 2 live wires in a tank of water and stick your finger in there there is a 90% chance youll die from shock but with those GFCI cord products it is nearly impossable as mythbusters showed

electricity will seek the shortest path to ground so if you're touching a water faucet or something (which is grounded at the main) you will get a nasty shock

so realy the best place to sit in a bath its at the shallow end? if anything dropped in the electricity would pass to the plug. unless it dropped on you!

danielsmusic said:

so realy the best place to sit in a bath its at the shallow end? if anything dropped in the electricity would pass to the plug. unless it dropped on you!

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NO, you die regardless!.

But this can't possibly happen in the UK, legislation doesn't allow the fitting of power sockets in bathrooms, with the exception of a fully isolated shaver socket.

Only a complete moron would run an extension mains lead into a bathroom, and the gene pool would be better off without those sort of genes anyway 8)

I said no. After you put the wires into the bowl of water, they would rpobably short out and trip the circuit breaker. Breaker trips and no more electricity. Water is safe for hands.
I wouldn't try this myself though. lol
~Mike

Well i have a marine fish tank and the standd was high, so i had to use a chair to get up and feed the fish, i had to put my hand in the water to feed the inverts and all was fine until one day i got on the chair with bare feet and boom!!!

When i investigated the tank there had been an exposed 240v live wire in the tank on one of the pumps it had been there for months.


Lucky not to be dead i rekon...

Distilled water does not conduct electricity.

But human body is 70% water and it surely is not distilled. S0 water in the body might act as an electr0lite. And the act of dippin gyour finger in the bowl might add salts to it.