"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote
| Graham wrote:
| It just seems silly. Surely, the bathroom is one of the
| places where you would want an earth.

It's preferable to have plastic pipes and nothing earthy, if that can be
achieved.

| Electric razors, etc, are always double insulated with no
| practical possibility of the metal blades becoming live.
| But the principle behind an isolating transformer is that
| neither 'output' has any potential referred to earth. So
| assuming some strange fault on your razor made either wire
| short to the blades, you could shave while holding an
| earthed tap etc and not be in danger. The only way you can
| be in danger from an isolating transformer is by touching
| both output wires at once. And the design of the socket
| and plugs used makes this impossible too. The only
| obvious way would be with a badly damaged flex.

And as shock can occur only between the two outputs, which are usually close
together, whether in the flex, appliance or whatever, the shock path is
likely to be across one hand, which is comparatively safe, whereas a shock
to earth is likely to run hand-torso-feet or hand-torso-hand, in both cases
running close to the heart.

Owain