Hot wall surrounding shaver plug socket

[Guest Karen Rudd]

The wall and shaver/tooth brush unit in my bathroom has got very hot suddenly this morning. Is this a fire risk. I rent this property and my land lord hasn’t replied yet

[AnthonyB]

It doesn't sound healthy! I'd want that checked by an electrician.

[green-foam]

I would have to ask which symbol does it have on it, symbol-1 or symbol-2 ?

[green-foam]

In the absence of a reply, I will explain my reasoning.

A lot of folk will plug their toothbrush charger into the shaver socket and leave it and seem to assume "The plug fits, so it must be ok"  This is actually NOT always true. The first shaver sockets were just for electric shavers and will only be used once a day for 5 minutes at most. (When the shaver socket was invented, there was no such thing as an electric toothbrush.)

Unlike a shaver that is on for 5 minutes at most, a tooth brush takes close to 24 hours to fully charge, a tooth brush uses more current and is on for a considerably longer time than a shaver, this in turn causes the shaver socket to get hot, eventually the shaver socket will fail if it doesn't catch fire first. To combat this the shaver/toothbrush socket was invented, this socket can easily cope with the current demand and duration that a toothbrush puts on it, so to differentiate between shaver only and shaver/toothbrush socket a logo of an electric toothbrush has been added to sockets that can charge a toothbrush or a shaver. (See Symbol 2) the downside is most folk either do not look for "Symbol 2" or as I first said assume that if the plug fits it must be OK

[Guest Sue]

Thank you so much green foam !! I had no idea, and was plugging my toothbrush into a shaver only socket.  I came on here looking to see why the socket was always warm. 

Unplugged immediately!!! Thank you!!