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Do phones plugged into the secondary sockets ring properly? If so then they must have run-back the ringing wire (on pin 3) in which case you're fine. Sockets don't really go through the master socket - it provides the ring capacitor connected to pin 3 as I said, plus a gas-discharge tube to...

Or maybe Billy the Kid and his mates! :) How can someone be so lazy as to add on another 4-way Earth block instead of swapping in an 8-way one to make a neater job? Cheers, Howard

Or better still, in front of it! :D Cheers, Howard

Yes, but why buy something and do it yourself when BT should do it for you, free? Cheers, Howard

Even though the harmonisation at 230V happened ten years ago? Anyway, if so it's 31.25A - still OTT! Well perhaps - the cable leaving the terminal has been well heated but the strands poking out the bottom look fine - I know heat rises but that does seem a tad odd. Looking again, the top...

Andrew, Others have suspected the cable connection, but 7500W at 230V is 32A (and change) and I reckon this will cause the 30A fuse to run hot, and although it won't blow it will cause heat damage over time, resulting in loss of elasticity and thus grip of the plug-in blades, which will then...

BT, and the law! The strip box (and the Master socket they'd replace it with) belong to BT and you aren't allowed to mess about with them. This has been the case since BT was a government-owned monopoly, and hasn't changed. So they aren't even technically correct, let alone legally...

I haven't. I haven't got any friends at all, which is why I read this forum for company... :( Cheers, Howard

Hang on, though - that doesn't fit any of the allowed routings, does it? And if it's because plastic skirting counts as trunking, why doesn't wooden skirting with a groove routed in the back of it? Cheers, Howard

As a matter of interest, where are you going to put this, and do you expect to get Planning Permission for it? They're pretty ugly beasts, and I know what my neighbours would say if I plonked on in my garden! :) Cheers, Howard

Electrocution is "getting killed by electricity" - I think you're either exaggerating or understating! :) I think you got an electric shock... If you had a shock that bad you should really have gone to hospital. Electric shocks can cause damage to the heart which isn't immediately apparent...

I used to work in an office that was a converted section of factory - 20' ceiling and all. At one end was the fire alarm, a motor-driven siren which was designed to be heard over factory machinery, and it was so loud that people would leave the office and stand outside when they knew an alarm...

But presumably the heating is thermostatic - I wonder if one of the heating circuits cuts out due to the thermostat reaching its set point, and the imbalance caused by the sudden lightening of load causes the trip? The problem may not be in one or t'other, but an interaction between them...

I don't think there's much of a "don't like" aspect as much as efficiency and control - from the efficiency point of view, the engine needs a certain amount of power just to keep itself going, and that's pretty constant, so if you're taking only a light load the percentage of useful work to...

For an RCD to trip there must be current flowing, but you say it tripped with nothing plugged into the kitchen ring. The insulation tests should rule out leakage between conductors and Earth... Could there have been a borrowed Neutral somewhere? It would have been interesting to test...

That's a shame - under the Perpetual Motion Regulations, machines like this work only as long as you don't tell anyone about them. Now you've told us, you'll find it won't work any more. And you can't patent it now you've published it, either! :roll: Cheers, Howard

OK so the current requirements aren't excessive (check the service plate to make sure). As long as it needs less than 13A you can run a spur in 2.5mm² T&E subject to the usual rules of spurs to a Fused Connection Unit (FCU) in the other room, then flex (heat resitant would be good) to the...

I was going to ask that - I'm out of the country at the moment so haven't seen any news recently. What have I missed? (I know Mefeking was relieved, and Germany came 2nd in WWII - skip on a bit from there :-) Cheers, Howard

As a road fuel, I can see this because it's not taxed. But are you sure there are regulations about how you run stationary engines? Cheers, Howard

Petrol gennys are much cheaper than diesel ones of the same rating, diesel is rather noisier and much smellier. Most of the cost of petrol is tax. You can't get "agricultural petrol" the way you can with diesel, so if you're going to use it a lot, the cost of petrol will overtake the cost of...