Our hotel room in Paris had these gorgeous bathroom doors. Each door is made of one large plate of thick translucent glass in a wood frame. Bronze crossbars float above the glass without touching it, and there’s a little bronze ball of a handle on the inside. The doors are eight feet tall.
But what’s that little wire on the back of the door? It comes out of nowhere, emerging from the wall, loops a little, and connects to the door. I had to stand on the tub and stretch to take a photo of the top surface of the door. I thought I’d find a sensor for the lights, or trailing wires, or some clue. Nothing.
Still curious at checkout time, I asked the front desk staff who, of course, didn’t know. But they didn’t leave it there. They found a manager who explained.
Care to guess?
5 Comments
Thanks Douglas2. But… show me any bathroom without exposed metal! UK bathrooms must be a web of green and yellow wires, but I’ve never noticed them. Perhaps they’re inside the walls.
Earth bonding. It’s a religious ritual enforced by building-control. You see, if there is any exposed metal in a bathroom, then it might somehow become live with mains voltage, and should you then touch both it and something grounded, the current would run through you.
So especially in the UK, everything metal is interconnected with copper-wire, sheathed in greeen and yellow jacket.
Craig—I’m glad I’m not the only one wondering. Could it be just because the doors are metal and the bathroom is a place of water? A sort of CYA precaution?
YELM—The little wire was not very noticeable, but the doors were gorgeous!
They obviously were not concerned with esthetics.
I see the upside-down answer and I’m still not sure I get it. There is no electricity on the door, so does that mean this is the other end of the grounding wire in the electrical sockets? Why is it out in the room and not buried below the hotel’s foundation? (I’m no electrician, btw.)