system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why does an outdoor extension cord not short out when it rains?
gpt
The cord is covered in layers of rubber and the plugs on the ends are water tight plastic with rubber seals. There is no way for water to get inside the cord itself. There are of course some weak points in this system in the plugs themselves as they need to expose some bare metal so you can plug them inn. To reduce the amount of water here they tend to have covers on them when not in use and be a very tight fit using rubber or soft plastic for when they are in use. That makes it hard for water to get into the contacts themselves. However they do not rely on this by itself. The design of the plug is so that the contacts are far enough apart that even when fully submerged in water they are too far apart for the electricity to short circuit over that distance. And if they short circuit they short circuit to ground as this is a shorter distance. So any ground fault interrupter will trigger.