The last one broke and left us without a shower for a couple of days. Apparently these are cutoff switches not designed for frequent use. The old one was probably defective from the start but one time too many did it in.

@zip
That seems .. odd. If it was an emergency isolator, there'd be no need for it to be in the bathroom - places rewired in the last 25 years or so tend to have push switches high up on the wall just outside (or above the door.) To me a pull cord implies regular on/off operation - it's a cord because it's in the bathroom, and it's in there to be close to the thing it controls for regular use??

@srtcd424 @zip Nahh, the pull cord is just to make the wiring easier by keeping everything in the ceiling void. It's in the bathroom so you can see that it's switched off before sticking your fingers in the shower wiring.

And like everything else, it's engineered down to a price, with the assumption that isolator switches aren't operated frequently or under load. (The only reasons to switch them off are to isolate the appliance before maintenance; a poor understanding of the energy consumption of neon indicator lamps, or because you're one of those people who habitually turn everything off (thereby wearing out cheap isolator switches) out of some fear of electricity.)

@kim @zip in this house the pull cords are light switches, so sort of by definition they get used regularly :) Possibly those have higher operation count but lower current rating, though - maybe the higher current rating ones are indeed meant only as isolators? 1/