British Gas

I've just seen a British Gas advert on TV, they appear to be advocating having a 13A plug as a power feed i.e. live pins. Is this really a responsible way to behave?

It's the one where they power up a house from a wind farm.

Reply to
Bill
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Ah but they are only used to gas ;-)

Gio

Reply to
Gio

Feel free to complain to the ASA if you feel it's important

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sure you include the phrase "they appear to be advocating xwy" in the complaint - just so they know how much you are concerned by the advert.

You'll be pleased to know you're not the only one who is concerned.

Reply to
OG

they've got a bilboard advert up near where i live,

wind farm planet plugged into the house plannet, and around the 13 amp plug are 2 brats looking as if they are about to pull the plug out,

oh noes, think of the chiiiiildreeeeen,

Reply to
gazz

forgot, i can't complain my self, as i have and use a widow maker lead occasionaly (length of flex with a 13 amp plug at each end) only used to power the house in a power cut,

I turn the main breaker off at the box, plug the widow maker lead into a socket in the garage, other end into the generators socket, or if more power is needed, i plug it into the outlet socket on my motorhome and run the house from the inverter (genny is one of those cheapo 900 watt 2 stroke jobbies, inverter in the motorhome is a 1500 watt pure sine wave jobbie, running from 500 AH's of batteries, with 350 watts of solar to charge them, as well as a 12 volt onboard genny and the mains charger for when plugged into a power pole)

i know i 'could' put in a transfer switch and proper power inlet plug on the wall... like the one for putting power into the motorhome, but power cuts are a once every few year thing, so the widow maker lead does me.

Reply to
gazz

In message , gazz writes

I've done something similar, bl**dy dangerous it was too. OK if you are on your own and realise what you have done, but if any one else came into contact it could be fatal. I've better things to do with my time than go to a coroners court and give evidence.

Sounds good, I have one that runs off 48V dc, ex telephone exchange, good sine wave, pity about the 48V though.

Buy a transfer switch, you know it makes sence :-)

I use one of these,

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not bought at that price! Shown for illustration only!

Reply to
Bill

It happens that gazz formulated :

The risk is not only that the plug pins are live, but that if you forget to turn your main switch off, you could potentially back feed onto the mains. Some poor engineer working on the fault up a pole or at the bottom of a wet hole in the ground, assumes the supply is dead and isolated at their end, suddenly discovers you are feeding the cable from your end.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Pay attention at the back :-)

Have a look at the thread 'Gritish Bas & Electrical Safety'.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Fair point, due to the spelling I'd deleted it.

Attention will be paid in future! :-)

Reply to
Bill

i know full well the possible dangers of doing this, tho i guess some others may not, so unless your prepared to take the consequences if you dont understand what your messing with, dont ever, ever make up a widow maker lead and do what i mentioned, they are called widow maker leads for a reason after all.

But mine is for a specific purpous... actually truth be told i dont actually keep one made up ready to use, we have power cuts so infrequently i have always used the plugs on something else by the time i want to use it again, so have to make another lead up when ever we get a power cut and the time it's going to last is over an hour (i gather people know to phone the lecky boards power cut number and they'll tell you what the fault is and how long it's expected to take to fix)

Anyhoo, i have a set procedure for using my widow maker lead, first thing i do is turn the main breaker off, i'm in the breaker box anyway turning off the imersion heater and kitchen sockets, the genny only puts out 900 watts max, so if i dont turn big loads off at the breakers it wont even produce any power, it's internal breaker trips if the engine manages to get over idle and exite the coils to start with.

once the main breaker is off, i then connect the lead, start the genny, and apply the power to the house, as this is a bi-anual occurance i'm not going to get complaciant with the procedure,

Reply to
gazz

Bill presented the following explanation :

Can't say I have seen it, I wonder if anyone has placed it on the Internet?

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I have a house full of items that have a 13A plug fitted. Not many of them pass the full 13A.

Reply to
James R

Great, that will stop the pensioners driving about in their cars at 20mph in rush hour - or forming a queue outside ALDI and LIDL in the morning and then wondering why they are there when the door opens.

Reply to
James R

Pay attention at the back again!

:-)

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the OP about Gritish Bas.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Fair enough - you don't have to sit on the naughty chair :-)

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

In message , James R writes

But how many of them have live pins when unplugged?

Reply to
Bill

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bill saying something like:

Media people - doncha luv'em.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Bill saying something like:

Bingo. When I was a lad, the house my folks bought had an attic light powered by a wrong-ended plug and socket just up inside the hatch. You had to fish around in the dark for the live end of the plug and it was by pure luck that I picked up the plug correctly the first time I used it.

Even at fourteen, I was utterly amazed at the wanton stupidity of of the previous occupant/owner who'd wired that abortion up.

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

How do you know the pins are live? - to me it looks like the wind farm is producing the power to the socket, not the plug.

Reply to
Phil L

Sounds like you've watched a different advert to everyone else then.

Reply to
Andy Burns

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