Scientists please, can/could steam conduct electricity?

Whilst showering in a particularly steamy bathroom I glanced at the old fashioned light fitting and wondered about the above!!

only if it condenses and makes a a path from the electric to you, thats why ligts are supposed to be a set distance away from a bath, and the bath should be earthed.

No. Covalent molecules an a gaseous state no free moving CHARGED particles.

Oh and if it was steam then it’s a bloody hot shower. You mean condensation suspended in air.

iirc water needs impi=urities to conduct as salt is better than non salt water

It would be an arc taking the shortest route etc – think lightning
It is not really likely to happen but if you have enough electrical charge I assume it could. Your lights wont have enough to do this over any real distance IMHO. even a a welder would not do this over much distance [ some inches] and that is what it is designed to do

I do wonder sometimes why I tried to study chemistry at uni, all those words such as covalent came flooding back but meant nothing 🙄

takes about 18000V for a spark to jump 1 cm in normal air IIRC.

Aye, significantly less in moist air but still would require quite a close contact to worry you.

Earthing the bath isn’t necessarily a good thing, it makes it more likely that an electrical fault will use you as a bridge to ground. All metal services coming into bathrooms are now linked together (in new installations) with earth wire (called equipotential bonding or something) to prevent this happening. So all the water pipes are directly earthed to the light fittings/switches.

The regs (last time I looked, I’m not a sparkie) actually state that a kitchen sink should now not be earthed at all, due to the risk you will be touching the sink and a faulty kettle at the same time. You don’t want to be the easiest path to ground! So I ignored the sink instructions to connect it to earth 🙂

Aye, seems less likely you’ll get the sink to a high potential than something around the sink! Though I guess it’d be 50:50 if you had a waste disposal unit!

Pure liquid water does not conduct electricity. However water you’re showering with isn’t pure. But as pointed above you’ll be safe, as in the gas phase, water molecule are unlikely to make a direct path from you to the light. I would not worry about electric arc, as the voltage isn’t high enough.