Continental plugs don't have fuses, so why does UK?

[JohnW2]

I am 100% convinced that there would not be an electrician in the land who would agree with you.

Oh, I wouldn't say that - there is "always one" (or more)

Otherwise, I totally agree with you.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

One risk lies in trying to make policies or promote ideas based on data which comes from Fire Services who do not like (cannot?) to put "unknown" as cause of fire, and therefore put down "electrical" when it's actually unknown.

Indeed.

...and also that 'electrical' is often a scapegoat used to describe the cause of a fire when no other cause can be identified

Kind Regards, John

 

[kai]

The edison screw lampholder is less safe, but seems more widely used nowadays - is it because it is cheaper to make than the traditional bayonet lampholder?

In Hong Kong, they also use 13amp fused British Type Plugs and sockets, often supplied off a Ring Final Circuit on a 32amp breaker, or a 16-20amp radial circuit for smaller demands or areas.

 

[RF Lighting]

The edison screw lampholder is less safe, but seems more widely used nowadays - is it because it is cheaper to make than the traditional bayonet lampholder?

Because it's the standard fitting in europe, and the UK market is flooded with cheap tat from china.

 

[JohnW2]

In Hong Kong, they also use 13amp fused British Type Plugs and sockets, often supplied off a Ring Final Circuit on a 32amp breaker...

Yes, the UK is not totally alone. I believe that some remants of, or previous parts of, 'the Empire' and a few other anglophile territories adopted the post-war UK practices.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

One risk lies in trying to make policies or promote ideas based on data which comes from Fire Services who do not like (cannot?) to put "unknown" as cause of fire, and therefore put down "electrical" when it's actually unknown.

It's actually getting worse ... looking around, it appears that 'electric cooking appliances', tumble dryers and electric heaters are, between them, responsible for a high proportion of 'electric fires' - and that in a high proportion of these cases, the fire is really nothing to do with the electricity - but, rather, the heat (often combined with misuse) intentionally generated by those appliances, and ...

Even the suspect data you've been banging on about shows that the vast majority of incidents are nothing to do with fixed wiring, ....

Even the ESC, whose data I am generally not very impressed with, say that only 11% of 'electrical fires' are anything to do with the electrical installation or misuse thereof, the other 89% being due to appliances (and/or misue of appliances).

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

Imagine if we had never had ring finals, and in 2013 you put forward the idea that we could have circuits wired in cable too small for the OPD, and that as long as it was in a ring, and as long as we told people to ensure that the loads were fairly well balanced, and as long as we told people not to have unfused branches of more than one socket, and as long as we introduced fused plugs and as long as we told people to not use the wrong fuse rating in them, it would all be perfectly safe, safer, in fact than 15/16A radials.

There are many systems today which only exist because of history. Live rails on railways and gas stoves I am sure would not be permitted. But if we take for example the gas stove in early days the electric stove was a length of coiled wire stretched around a porcelain former which was slow and dangerous when the element failed it would often make the pan live so compared with that gas was both faster and safer. However today with induction hobs gas is slower than electric and far more dangerous.

There have been a number of changes to the UK ring circuit.
1) We changed from imperial to metric cable so went to thinner wire.
2A) We changed from 30A fuse to 32A MCB which had a number of impacts the main being there is now a very well defined point where the magnetic part fails leaving just the thermal part.
2B) The type 1, 2, 3, 4 MCB's were replaced with B, C, and D which resulted in X3 for magnetic being replaced with X5.
3) The brass used for the pins of the 13A plug was reduced to stop people touching pins when inserting and withdrawing and a sleeve was fitted which in turn reduced the ability of the plug to dissipate the heat generated by the fuse.
4) We changed from a butyl rubber to thermal plastic for insulation so the temperature the cable could be run at was reduced.
5) We removed the outer lead covering for the cable and replaced it with grey plastic.
6) We started to bury cable in the walls.

So if we look at the original design likely the cable could well stand the full 30A and my Mothers house built 1952 has far more sockets than my Granddads house built 1939 going from 2 x 15A sockets one in hall and one on landing to 7 x 13A sockets one in every room. Even if the ring was lost the chance of overloading to cause damage was very slim.

There have been improvements as well of course with the ELCB-v then the ELCB-c and also switched sockets.

Be it an un-manned rail level crossing or a domestic ring main to be safe some common sense and training is required. This also means instructions which can be read. Here in Wales both English and Welsh is used but cross the boarder and Welsh is dropped and although nearly all the Welsh can speak English reading is another matter. With the Polish I suppose you could say unless they can speak a UK language they should not come here but I went to Spain and could not understand Spanish and was very near to getting run over by a reversing wagon where instead of going beep beep beep is said "Beware I am reversing" in Spanish. I was looking for who was speaking not looking at Wagon.

In the USA our final ring circuit design is banned as being dangerous however they have higher currents to us having adopted a 110 volt system.

But if we were designing a ring today I am sure we would have 16A sockets and to supply those likely we would use 4mm sq cable. But likely still use the 32A MCB which would bring us back to the original design where the ring did reduce volt drop and reduce the loop impedance but losing the ring would only overheat cable where it ran through insulation so it was unlikely to be a problem. We would also have 16A FCU so ovens could be fused the same way as in Europe.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It's actually getting worse ... looking around, it appears that 'electric cooking appliances', tumble dryers and electric heaters are, between them, responsible for a high proportion of 'electric fires' - and that in a high proportion of these cases, the fire is really nothing to do with the electricity - but, rather, the heat (often combined with misuse) intentionally generated by those appliances,

Which? once gave a microwave oven poor marks for safety.

Reason? It allowed people to set longer times than any of the others, and if you left a potato in there on full power for a couple of hours it would catch fire.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Because it's the standard fitting in europe, and the UK market is flooded with cheap tat from china.

It can often be a better design. I have some wall lights - glass quarter spheres quite high up on the wall - which would be a complete mare to relamp if they were bayonets, given the angle your hand would have to achieve, and the pressure you'd need to apply.

 

[JohnW2]

Which? once gave a microwave oven poor marks for safety. Reason? It allowed people to set longer times than any of the others, and if you left a potato in there on full power for a couple of hours it would catch fire.

Yep, and the ESC (maybe aided and abetted by the Fire Service) would probably classify that as an 'electrical fire' if it extended beyond the potato.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Monkeh]

I would expect the transformer in the microwave to catch fire if run for that long..

 

[JohnW2]

I would expect the transformer in the microwave to catch fire if run for that long..

Maybe, but if it comes with a timer which can make it run for long enough for that to happen, it really would be a dangerous appliance, well deserving of failing a Which? test.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Astra99]

I firmly believe the German Schuko is "misguided" as it is not polarised. This means that all the circuit breakers in the dis-board must be double-pole, and, to pick up on an earlier point, can allow the thread of an ES lampholder to be "live". Furthermore, there seems to be no consistency over which pin is phase, and which is neutral if my property in Spain is anything to go by! Some sockets are wired phase on the right (pin), others phase on the left. Although it grieves me to say it, the French/Belgian system with the male earth pin is far better, as it allows for polarisation. Before anyone mentions shutters, all the new sockets (and adapters) in Spain (at least) are shuttered.

 

[SimonH2]

I firmly believe the German Schuko is "misguided" as it is not polarised. This means that all the circuit breakers in the dis-board must be double-pole ...

Err no. The DB breaker can be single pole - it disconnects the line (live) and leaves only the neutral (near earth voltage) connected. That is no different to our system.
But, any appliance with a switch should have double pole switching for the reason already given that having an SP switch means a 50% chance of switching the neutral inside the appliance. Of course, any switch (eg a switched socket on an extension) shoudl also have DP switching for the same reason.
But at the main DB, there is no problem as the opportunity for polarity reversal has not yet happened (barring installation errors).

 

[jabuzzard]

Imagine if we had never had ring finals, and in 2013 you put forward the idea that we could have circuits wired in cable too small for the OPD, and that as long as it was in a ring, and as long as we told people to ensure that the loads were fairly well balanced, and as long as we told people not to have unfused branches of more than one socket, and as long as we introduced fused plugs and as long as we told people to not use the wrong fuse rating in them, it would all be perfectly safe, safer, in fact than 15/16A radials.

Now imagine that we had 15/16A radial circuits with fused plugs, and shutters and all the other features of BS1363, and someone said let's remove the fuses from the plugs, remove the shutters and switch to unpolarised plugs.

It is my opinion that fused plugs and shuttered/polarized sockets are safer than unfused plugs and unshuttered/unpolarized sockets because they eliminate potentially dangerous situations. The British plug/socket system is inherently safer than just about any other system out there. It is certainly safer than Schuko and the USA system.

The reason I believe that ring mains are better than radials is that they require less copper. This is important because world copper reserves are less than required to give everyone a western lifestyle, and that is assuming that all plumbing converts to plastic and all data networking converts to fibre optic. Consequently for the long term using less copper is a good thing™ and as rings use less than copper we should stick to rings.