Group:
I'm putting a new plug on my wife's hairdryer. The old plug was unpolarized, and the cord doesn't give any indication of polarity - is there any way I should know other than testing with a meter which wire is hot and which neutral?.
Cheers
Den
Do you have an ohm meter? Take it apart and ohm out the cord. Should be self evident from there. Personally I would just go buy another one. Then again maybe ... naw I am not going there.
A new hair dryer probably doesn't cost much more than the replacement plug and will probably have a built in cut off if it is dropped in water.
I agree with ohming out the wires.
Often one of the sides of the cord will have grooves or writing on it. The neutral is normally identified by something, though I have had cords with no discernible difference. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG
polarity - is there
If you have a hair dryer old enough to not have a polarized plug, I would buy a new safer one. The old one is more likely to soon experience other problems as well.
It shouldn't make any difference. Both sides are insulated in the hair dryer. Attach the new plug and use it.
RB
Den wrote:
For a hairdryer, I think this is good advice. New hairdryers come with GFCI built-in (and you should have GFCI in your bathroom plugs now anyway).
Even if you say your wife knows how to handle herself around the sink (surely not the bathtub!), you may have children or relatives around at some point.
I wonder if an hair dryer old enough not to have a polarized plug would be. Of course then there is the question of what condition it is in and the fact that it does not have the additional safety features of modern hair dryers.
Most hair dryers are made as throw-a-ways and not really designed to be durable.
You take elecrtical appliances into the bathroom? Sheesh!
In the UK it is completely illegal to have a mains socket in a bathroom, (save for a small isolated shaver socket.)
sPoNiX
Ahh
Now this strikes a note! I'm a Brit living in California! My wife used to rant on about not being able to have a hairdryer in the bathroom in Berkshire ... but here she can!
Den
I guess no one across the pond ever heard of a GFI.
Oh they have (except they're pronounced RCD's ... residual current device)!. In the UK though, they tend not to be fitted to an appliance (like modern US hairdryers) but at the breaker board (UK fuse board), or sometimes in place of a outlet (UK socket).
Mind you UK wiring regs prohibit outlets in bathrooms, and switches must be pull switches. All you can have is shaver sockets powered by isolation transformers!
Den
"Den" wrote in news:8Okdc.2448$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:
Since the original plug could be inserted either way, it shouldn't make a difference.
Den:
D > I'm putting a new plug on my wife's hairdryer. The old plug was D > unpolarized, and the cord doesn't give any indication of polarity - is ther
D > any way I should know other than testing with a meter which wire is hot and D > which neutral?.
The wire going to the switch is the hot and goes to the narrow blade of the plug. Probably easier to use an ohm-meter to trace as the cord invariably has twisted.
Probably won't help as the original plug was not polarized but "wibbed iz white iz wide" ==> the ribbed conductor is the white lead and is the wide prong on the plug.
- ¯ barry.martinþATþthesafebbs.zeppole.com ®
Barry
That was the info I was after. I'm new to the US and so hadn't come across the "wibbed iz white iz wide" ... which I will remember!
I've borrowed a meter, and, with the switch in the off position, I get no continuity from the ribbed wire to the element, and continuity from the element to the non-ribbed wire. So I guess the cord was the wrong way round originally!
Cheers
Den
The latter are normal here for kitchen and bathroom installations. I would say that breaker board is found in new construction, outlet in remodeling, as a rule of thumb. Of course there are thousands of kitchens and bathrooms with non-GFCI/GFI/RCD outlets installed.
Only recently have hairdryers come with their own in-cord device.
Interesting. The rule here is no outlets or switches within X inches of a bathtub or shower (to discourage accidental mixing of electricity and water), but it's allowed to have outlets in the bathroom proper. In fact, I was just asking a friend whose bathroom is being redone why she left only the double socket by the sink instead of upping it to four.
Heck, in my parents' bathroom, there's a radio, a space heater, a water-pik, and a CO detector -- and that's not counting hair dryers and curlers that are plugged in temporarily.
That's why they make those cubes: so you can plug in more stuff...
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