I accidentally stuck my finger into a 240V socket when I was nine and I turned out just…
Oh, right.
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Hell even a common kitchen circuit is 120v with a 30 amp breaker. That can kill you no problem depending on how you’re grounded.
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Yeah. I knew a girl in school who’d stuck a fork into a power socket. Major burns and significant loss of mobility in her hand, but she lived.
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30 amps? Where do you live, an industrial bakery? I’ve never seen >20 amps in a residence, and even those are usually reserved for the major appliances.
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That one reminds me of when he was a bit younger and got some of my wasabi peas… He would not let me take them away cause well they sure look like tasty snack/candy to the kid. He had some and spit them out saying gukky. Then he reached in to try again. On the third try he gave up for good.
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I didn’t burn, probably because every muscle in my body violently contracting pulled my finger out of the empty lightbulb socket. That’s why you’re supposed to test a maybe-shorted fixture with the back of your hand – if it’s hot your hand will contract away from it instead of grabbing uncontrollably.
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I know quite often it can happen without permanent damage, I just always cringe when I read tales of people in the US using electric shocks from household mains as a teaching moment, and worry that someone in a location with 240 mains might think that’s an awesome idea.
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I’m more a “drive by” parent than a helicopter one – you know, unless it’s too quiet for too long or someone is screaming in real pain, a good drive-by usually suffices. I adore my kids (except when they are being assholes and shoving Legos down the toilet), but it’s critical to learn how to navigate pain, disappointment, boredom, and most importantly (at work in this video), bad ideas that seem good at the time.
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I shoved a key in a 240 outlet when I was a toddler. This was in Kuwait, and I’m not sure how I managed it, because my experience with type G 240 outlets later in life was mostly the frustration of opening the safety gates on hot and neutral by sticking a pen in the ground slot so I could stick in a type C plug. So how I managed to shove a key in there I’ll never know (unless the safety gates were added after the eighties.) Apparently I walked up to my parents going, “Light, light…” and pointing. They eventually followed me over to where there was a blackened key in the socket and the outlet area around the wall was also black. I have no memory of the incident, but apparently I managed to walk away both unharmed and without superpowers. To this day I don’t know how the key got hot without some kind of grounding, which couldn’t have been me… since I wasn’t harmed.
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I fail too see any problem here. The kid learned a lesson and the only hurt was to her pride. Kids need more of this.
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Well. My kitchen breakers are 25 amps. I end up noticing that stuff dad being an electrician and all that.
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Honestly, experience is the best teacher.
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When I was a kid I spent chunks of some summers in Mexico with relatives, some of that time at an beach house my great grandparents had built and handed down. It was not luxurious by any stretch. But it had electricity, running water, walls, and tiled floors. Also a fridge with a short. If you touched the metal handle instead of the flip flop that was wedged in there, you’d get the shock of your life. I did it a few times each visit but after the second one … Well two was enough. It was basically a form of cheap entertainment – watching young and old alike getting shocked. Man I wish we had video of this. For literally years after these visits I’d hesitate for a split second when going to open fridges, especially ones that weren’t mine.
I’m ok with the hose video.
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You reminded me of something I had not thought about in ages. Like so many, my first job was in fast food; there was a small freezer next to the fryer for bags of fries, etc. Not sure what the issue was, but if you touched the freezer and the fry hood at the same time (both clad in stainless steel), you’d feel a mild electric current. Not painful, but rather startling. It was kind of a rite of passage to get new people to do it. I wonder if they ever fixed it?
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That’s so much better than my hope that the kid belongs to a species that has some sort of immunity response to stimulus like bacteria. I mean, ideally she’d have both of these advantages going for her, but that would obviously be some sort of crazy dream world.
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Did your dad install them? The reason household breakers are typically 15 amps is because that’s the rating of a 14-gauge extension cord. Exceeding that (say, with a couple of triple taps so you can run your microwave and toaster oven and hair dryer simultaneously off the same outlet) becomes a fire hazard. I can’t think of a good reason to have 25 amp breakers for ordinary outlets that aren’t dedicated to HVAC or a clothes dryer or something.
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With that kind of built-in entertainment value? Very unlikely!
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It’s an old house. Dad didn’t wire it at all. I’m just reading the numbers on the breakers.
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Can’t be all that old with breakers instead of fuses. The house is probably trying to kill you. Does the wallpaper bleed? Voices whispering to you at night? Some kinda alternate universe in there or something?
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Just having a conversation about this tonight. The norm for all of human history is for extended family to live together. Young unmarried adults moving out of the family home and living by themselves? That’s a blink of an eye, historically speaking, and we seem to be moving back to the real norm.
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