Replacing light - House that jack built!

conny · 1 Aug 2014

ban-all-sheds said:
conny said:

Why the hell we had to change just to suit Europe is beyond me

Click to expand...

That does not surprise me.

We are an independent island and should have told them to get stuffed.

Click to expand...

We are an island which is part of Europe. Look at a map or a globe and stop being so ignorant and pathetic.

Why does it not surprise you BAS?

And if you classify us as an island of Europe just what part of Europe do you think we belong to?
France? Belguim, The Netherlands? Norway maybe?

We are an island because we are separated from mainland(?) Europe. We speak a different language as our native tongue. We have different customs and traditions to other countries in Europe.

In my opinion that makes us independent of them.
You, of course, are also entitled to your opinion but get off your high horse and stop insulting people because their opinions differ from yours. You are no better than I and I am no better than you.

ban-all-sheds · 1 Aug 2014

Astra99 said:
Yes, BAS, I agree, we are a European island. But that is as far as it goes.

How much further does it need to go for it to make us European?

The European "standard", the German Schuko plug, can be inserted either way up. Is that "better" than the British BS1363?

It's different. Does that make it worse?

The only thing protecting the flex in Europe is the 15A fuse or 16A breaker. If the cable is 0.5mm² then it will get a "bit 'ot".

Under what circumstances?

The common BS1362 fuses are 3A, 5A and 13A. Which offers a greater degree of protection?

A 16A breaker offers better protection than a 13A fuse.

ban-all-sheds · 1 Aug 2014

conny said:
Why does it not surprise you BAS?

Because you are clearly not very bright.

For example:

And if you classify us as an island of Europe just what part of Europe do you think we belong to?
France?

No. Does France "belong" to Belgium, The Netherlands or Norway?

Belguim?

No. Does Belgium "belong" to France, The Netherlands or Norway?

The Netherlands?

No. Does The Netherlands "belong" to France, Belgium or Norway?

Norway maybe?

No. Does Norway "belong" to France, Belgium or The Netherlands?

We are an island because we are separated from mainland(?) Europe.

Indeed we are. That does not mean that we are not part of Europe.

We speak a different language as our native tongue.

Indeed we do. I think you'll find that may other countries in Europe have different native tongues to all the other countries in Europe.

We have different customs and traditions to other countries in Europe.

Indeed we do. I think you'll find that may other countries in Europe have different customs and traditions to countries other than them in Europe.

In my opinion that makes us independent of them.

I'm sure it does, but not one thing you have said makes us any more or less "independent" of "them" than it makes France independent of Italy, or Spain independent of Germany, or Belgium independent of Austria.

Your opinion is ill formed, and your attempted justification is just wild thrashing around with no intellectual merit whatsoever.

You, of course, are also entitled to your opinion but get off your high horse and stop insulting people because their opinions differ from yours.

Opinions are one thing. Utter tosh like your sub-Daily Mail ranting about us being an independent island who should have told CENELEC, of which we are a member, and in whose deliberations on harmonisong cable core colours we took an active role, to get stuffed are quite another.

You are no better than I and I am no better than you.

On the contrary - I am so much better than you in so many ways.

ban-all-sheds · 1 Aug 2014

JohnW2 said:
I have a lot of sympathy with that viewpoint but, apart from the fact that it's a fait accomplis, I suppose the large-scale international movement of people makes it desirable to have as much standardisation as possible.

I'm more concerned about the choice of brown ('by them') in the first place. Red is an almost universal (global) indicator of 'danger', whereas brown is quite the opposite, and 'orribly like the colour of 'the earth'!

I believe that in East Germany, red was used for earth.

But be that as it may, how come none of the people who whinge about the colour changes didn't start their whinging until it happened to fixed wiring, some 30 or more years after we changed the colours in flex?

conny · 2 Aug 2014

On the contrary - I am so much better than you in so many ways.[/quote]

Oh well, it must be true because you say so.

JohnW2 · 2 Aug 2014

ban-all-sheds said:
[... how come none of the people who whinge about the colour changes didn't start their whinging until it happened to fixed wiring, some 30 or more years after we changed the colours in flex?

Maybe they did. As you say, the flex colours changed (IIRC) around 1975, and few of us here will have then been old/experienced/interested enough (if born!!) to notice any such whinging. I certainly had much more interesting things to think about in 1975 than such matters!

When the flex colours changed, were we still in the era of virtually all electrical equipment being sold without attached plugs (I suspect we were)? If so, that was a time when a high proportion of members of the general public had to routinely attach plugs to flex, so I would have expected a good few whingers amongst them!

Kind Regards, John

securespark · 2 Aug 2014

If I remember rightly (and this is very sad), I can recall reading a leaflet of my Gran's advising of the flex colour change and it was dated 1970 but I don't think it began its implementation until 1971 (in London at least, if that made any difference).

But I do remember an ancient (but obviously new-fangled back then!) hairdrier of hers had the new core colours. AND, it was double insulated!

AndyPRK · 2 Aug 2014

It's probably the brown grey black 3c+e
And 3 phase colour changes which annoys people most.

mfarrow · 2 Aug 2014

securespark said:
AND, it was double insulated!

Indeed, power tools were advertised as having such 'Double Insulation' as a 'feature'.

Being able to produce, say, drill casings, plus the chuck, isolated sufficiently from live parts so as not to have to rely on an earth connection was rather revolutionary. One day, all appliances, and thence the fixed wiring, will get there too.

JohnW2 · 2 Aug 2014

securespark said:
If I remember rightly (and this is very sad), I can recall reading a leaflet of my Gran's advising of the flex colour change and it was dated 1970 but I don't think it began its implementation until 1971 (in London at least, if that made any difference).

Yes, I recall the leaflets, too, but couldn't have told you exactly when they appeared. I must have taken some notice since, from my early teens (early 60s) onwards, I'd been the member of the household charged with putting plugs on newly acquired electric items! Mind you, it was only when I 'finally left home' in the latter part of the 70s that I first 'met', and has to wire, a BS1361 plug!

Kind Regards, John

JohnW2 · 2 Aug 2014

AndyPRK said:
It's probably the brown grey black 3c+e And 3 phase colour changes which annoys people most.

Yes, I suppose that's probably the least intuitive. I suppose that the problem will largely have gone in a generations' time, but it's difficult for us oldies to dissociate black from neutral!

Kind Regards, John

JohnW2 · 2 Aug 2014

mfarrow said:
securespark said:

AND, it was double insulated!

Click to expand...

Indeed, power tools were advertised as having such 'Double Insulation' as a 'feature'.

Probably quite a valuable feature, given that there was a lot of earth-rod TT about (the 'water pipe TT' probably wasn't too bad!), most of which installations didn't have even a VO-ELCB, hence essentially no 'fault protection'.

mfarrow said:
Being able to produce, say, drill casings, plus the chuck, isolated sufficiently from live parts so as not to have to rely on an earth connection was rather revolutionary. One day, all appliances, and thence the fixed wiring, will get there too.

An interesting speculation, but I'm not sure how practicable it would be. If it could be achieved, and if we could rid ourselves of extraneous-c-ps (we're getting there with water supplies), I suppose the 'earth-free home' might be somewhere over a few horizons!

Kind Regards, John

AndyPRK · 2 Aug 2014

Thought you would like this

I note there is no mention of plug tops!

JohnW2 · 2 Aug 2014

AndyPRK said:
Thought you would like this

Thanks. I'd like to say that it 'looks familiar',but that would be a lie - even though I must have seen it at the time. So, it seems that the change was a year or so earlier than we had thought

AndyPRK said:
I note there is no mention of plug tops!

That doesn't surprise me

I think it was long after 1969/70 that I first saw/heard that extraordinary term being used!

Kind Regards, John

AndyPRK · 2 Aug 2014

I can only assume part of Europe was using yellow as earth and part using green
Which is why we ended up with 2 colours for earth?

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Replacing light - House that jack built!

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