can a water damaged device damage a socket?

[dandt]

Hello
this evening I allowed a mate to plug in his laptop in my house. It didnt work. He then revealed he had spilled water over his laptop earlier! (in his house).
My socket was slightly 'crackly' sounding when using socket switch. I have replaced it. On dismantling the old socket (for interests sake), I notice the metal tab (part of switch) is discoloured/burnt?
Of course my socket crackling and his earlier water accident may be entirely coincidental. The question is - could his damaged laptop/power pack have caused a problem in my socket? By the way at no point did my socket trip and it worked with other devices.
I have replaced it in any case, so this question is for interest sake/future knowledge.
many thanks

 

[ericmark]

In general the 13A socket relies on the fuse in the plug to protect it from overload so faulty or doctored equipment can cause an overload.

However assuming the power supply had the correct fuse likely a 3A then it is very unlikely to have damaged a socket.

The British 13A plug does have very exact dimensions and some imports don't follow the set system. With the finger guard introduced so only tips of the live pins are metal the resultant flexible movement of the pins can cause bad connections where heavy currents are used. Likely a sub standard plug on a high powered item has started the problem. And once a socket has over heated once it loses the designed grip of the pins so gradually gets worse.

Although designed for 13A with the extra safety introduced really they are only suitable for intermittent use at 13A. So kettle which takes just 12 minutes to boil is OK as not enough time for anything to heat up.

But a 3kW fire (And as originate they were designed for electric fires) is today really too much load. Even back in the 1950's when they first came out immersion heaters still used the old 15A plug and socket to allow a plumber to change the heater without needing an electrician as well. Today demarcation is not such a problem and we use fused connection units (FCU) to power fixed equipment over 2kW.