I just want to say that the electric shower surely makes a nonsense out of the whole no electricity in the bathroom thing.
It does indeed. The I.E.E.'s continued "no sockets" stance is one I've never been able to understand given that they seem quite happy to allow 240 volts
inside the shower cubicle behind just a flimsy plastic cover!
The wiring rules in Ireland are similar, but just about every other European country allows outlets, as do the U.S. and Canada, of course. In my opinion it comes down to suitable positioning of the outlet and common sense in the way it's used. I mean, if you're silly enough to use a hair dryer while actually sitting in a tub full of water.......
Why do you have to switch off the plugs at all, is there a real fire hazard if you don't
No. So long as everything else is installed properly there's no hazard. If you have some device which doesn't have a built-in switch and you want to turn it off, you could do exactly what you do in America -- Pull the plug!
As I said, the switches are really only there by convention. They're found in other countries which were British-influenced (e.g. Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), but they're not normally used in Continental Europe or other parts of the world.
The convention quite possibly arose partly due to the fact that some supplies in the past were DC (Direct Current) instead of AC (Alternating Current), mostly in the older parts of cities which were wired for electricity in the very early days. The I.E.E. rules
did require integral or adjacent switches on outlets where DC was employed. Even though the rules never specified switches for AC power, the fact that DC-powered houses in some towns already had switched outlets probably contributed to the continued use of switches even where not required. That's my theory anyway.
(By the way, the argument over AC vs. DC power goes right back to Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse in the 19th century and is a soap opera in itself!)
Why are there never enough outlets in a room?
In the U.S. the NEC (National Electrical Code) requires an outlet within 6 ft. of a doorway and at least every 12 ft. around the outside of the room, the idea being that an appliance with a standard 6 ft. cord will reach wherever it's placed (and although the NEC is not law in itself, most state/county/city jurisdictions in the U.S. quote the NEC in their local building codes, thus making it mandatory).
The I.E.E. standard in Britain on the other hand, specifies
how things must be wired, but makes no requirement as to
what should be provided. Unfortunately, a lot of places were wired with economy rather than convenience in mind (and many still are, although it's improved somewhat over the years).
Skimping on outlets is really false economy in many ways. The cost of going back and adding an outlet later is manyfold greater than if it had been fitted during the installation in the first place.
