The Electric Slide

I wrote earlier that I would have an electricity story and here it is.

The power down here is 220v. I couldn't tell you exactly what that means, but I'm sure a great many of you already know. My gut tells me it's stronger than the 110v we have at home. So, my brain tells me "don't mess around with this stuff!"

That said, you kind of end up "messing" with it whether you like it or not. Nothing here is grounded. The buildings are all made of brick, mortor and concrete so they're not going to burn if something bad happens. For this we are very THANKFUL!

Now, you need to know how our showers work. We do not have plumbed hot water, so if you turn the shower on, it will be cold. We do, however, have an electric shower...any red flags go off there??

Water...
Electricity...
Seems like a bad idea, but that is the norm and it doesn't kill the locals, so we should be able to figure this out.

There's a shower head with an inline heater. The water goes into the shower head, heats the water and then showers you, hopefully, with warm water. To turn on the heater part, you have to add in the electricity. You do this by flipping the circuit breaker located somewhere near the shower, above your head.

But, and this is key, you have to let the water run for a minute before you flip that switch so that you don't burn out the heater element. If you're thinking this through, you'll realize that you are about to flip a circuit breaker full of that good ol' 220v power...while there is water on the floor and most likely on your hands.

If you make it that far without getting a shock (I have so far), you might then want to adjust the water pressure because the more water you have running through that heater, the colder it is (there just isn't enough time to heat it well.) The way to do this is to turn the METAL knob. And that is where you will most likely get that oh-so-refreshing-wake-you-up-quick jolt of 220v. Remember how nothing is grounded? Well those electric wires and your metal plumbing are a little too close for comfort and YOU, being the wet, showering person make a fine ground for that power.

My solution to this is to adjust the knob with a bit of rubber tubing. So far so good, for me at least.

Still, none of these seemingly dangerous possibilities are what caused our scariest electrical moment so far.

A few Sundays ago, Adam was performing his morning rituals. We are all thankful, of course, that this includes a shower. Amid my own rituals of getting all the kids dressed and fed for church, I heard distressed yelling from our bathroom. Adam was hollering at me to flip the main circuit breaker. (Note to wives: You should know where this is for a moment like this!) After I do this, I go to see if he is okay.

He is.

The shower and circuit breaker are not:


Like I said, we are very thankful our house is not made of wood! Oh, and the picture doesn't show you all the lovely gray smoke pouring out of the circuit breaker. Our very gracious landlord had someone come and replace the breaker and our fried shower.