Someone I know has a bathroom that is not GFCI compliant, and I was wondering if it is possible to have a shower that’s humid enough to allow electricity to transfer, or would at that point would the air be inhospitable to breathe in.

  • Goddard Guryon
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    21 year ago

    I can think of a few things to point out here:

    • water itself does not conduct electricity, it’s the ions present in an aqeous solution that transfer charges. So humidity itself would be pointless in a case where the water droplets don’t have charged ions present inside them.
    • even if the droplets do have charged ions present, those ions would still need a way to transfer charges between those droplets through the air. That is only possible if either the air is too hot (basically plasma) or the charge density in the droplets is too high (essentially lightning, albeit a little different).
    • another possibility for something like this to happen would be droplets condensing on exposed circuitry. If there happens to be live wires getting exposed through the walls, under the switches, or in an appliance, any droplets that get condensed at those spots would start conducting electricity (dust often has enough salts to allow such contaminated droplets to conduct electricity, but don’t quote me on that). Do note that the atmosphere in the bathroom would still be safe, it’s only the wet regions of the bathroom, like the floor and walls, that may conduct electricity.