Fault Protection Serbia
Perhaps this is just a feature of new apartments in Serbia, but right from the start, there seemed to be a big scare about water and electricity. I had wanted two plugs next to our sink in the bathroom and was told that could not happen because of the chances of water getting on the plug. With separate covers over the plugs, I could never figure out the issue, but what was I to do at that point.
This issue came home yesterday on Sunday when while the maid was cleaning the balcony all the power in the house went out. We thought it went out in all the building or at least part as that has been a monthly issue. Fortunately, the garage door and the elevator, which are on a different circuits were not affected. My wife called and knocked on doors, pushed fuse buttons went up and down stairs several times trying to figure it out.
Every week the maid in her dusting pulls the optical connection cord from the TV to the soundbar so, at some point, I started to wonder if she has unplugged something or switched something off. There are switches by the light switches for the bathrooms and kitchen that turn on and off the power to the water heaters and the appliances. It is common for the older population to keep the switches off goes right up there with the Serbian tale not letting you open a window even on the steamy hot bus, ”the draft is going to kill you.” So I wondered if there might be a switch for the whole house as my mother-in-law goes through the house to turn off all the others.
Not sure if it was the builder or someone in the building that suggested one of the plugs could be wet, as we were the only apartment affected by the outage. Sure enough, the maid was mopping the balcony and the covers had been broken over the plugs recently by some of the workers. The plug got wet and set the fault protection off for the entire apartment.
Took us a while to figure it out and we had to dry out the plug before the power would come back on. My wife did an excellent job as I was not much help with my broken ankle.
There you go a lesson learned in Serbia.