DIY Legality

[Lieutenant Scott]

Why not? They are very meticulous about finding the cause of a fire.

[Lieutenant Scott]

Indeed. They are 13A sockets and I would suggest 99% of people (that's any people who live in houses and use 13A sockets, I'm not talking about just electricians) will assume that two 13s are 26. Most will also know that the limit on the whole rung main is 30/32A, or assume the fuse/CB will blow if required. They will not expect 20A to be a limit.

[Lieutenant Scott]

It depends how poor they are. If they are not poor and they have two heaters to hand, and the house is very cold or they are ill, they will use both. It's quite likely that there is only one convenient socket, and it's a double outlet.

[Lieutenant Scott]

And anyway, they could easily run non-stop for quite some time if the old person came back from a holiday or a visit to a friend for a few days and the house needed warming up from 5 or 10C to 25C.

[Lieutenant Scott]

They're called disk brakes. If you inhabit uk.rec.driving you'll know I drive like a lunatic, and I've never had brakes not stop me as well as they did the first time from 100mph.

I'm not asking for OVER engineering, just meeting the expected numbers. Changing 20A to 26A is not a significant increase in cost. And if they then sold them as 26A max load when nobody else was, they'd corner the market.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Older turbos had a problem in that the oil to lube them stopped when the engine did and if the turbo was still doing its x thousand RPM, it did it no good at all.

I am fairly sure that better bearings oils and ways of delivering it have solved that problem.

[whisky-dave]

osts a couple of quid, surely they can add another 50p and make it 26A! =A0= Or even better 30A, as the fuse on the circuit is labelled. =A0Everything s= hould always be able to take the fuse rating continuously!

It's also the wiring in the walls under the floors or wherever it is that also limits the total current provided by the ring main Then there's the wiring that comes into the house, that is fused at the CU.

I heard that the LHC takes 11,000 amps just to keep the magnets close to absolute zero, so how may twin sockets would you need for that ?

An intresting thing we have here is that I have brought about 50 of those IEC plugs that have 2 IEC connectors in a Y shape to a 13 amp plug.

admin don't like them as they don;t understand such things as they have come out with, what if someone tries to connect two kettles at the same time. I had to inform them that in my teaching lab we DO NOT supply kettles to students and these leads are for use with a PC and monitor setup, so they then said well what if they take them home......

[whisky-dave]

I thought they all did, none of them have just one heat setting either, via a diall of some sort with numbers on it. Even my so called E7 storage heaters which are on for 7 hours have two dials each.

[whisky-dave]

In formula 1 they warm their types up because the performance of tehm is better when warm, which means they are probbaly below the requred spec when first put on in the cold, that's why they do those funny left right movenments on the practice laps, they don;'t do it to show of their streering ability

[Terry Casey]

I trust that you educated them about 'hot-condition' connectors ...

It always annoyed me that some ex BT people I worked with always insisted on describing IEC cables as 'kettle leads' when the only thing they wouldn't fit was ...

... a kettle

:-)

[whisky-dave]

age

ls us that this is wrong. =A0The British Standard is also wrong, but that's= no excuse for not using common sense when designing a product.

I thought the british standard regarding fuses was that the fuse is there to protect the cable NOT the equipment. As you say any fool can put a nail/paper clip whatever where the fuse can go, that's why they only make fuese up to 13A to go in the standard plugs. but how many amps can they draw before something goes badly wrong ? Well that depends on the cable, few cables of more than 13 amps can be put into one plug.

read the instructions, don't panic: Get a bigger hammer!

[whisky-dave]

eaters to hand, and the house is very cold or they are ill, they will use b= oth.

If they are poor I doubt they'd be using two heaters they'd rarely use one, that's what being poor is.

And of course nothing else in the house would need a socket, the old don;t have TVs or old radios or stand alone lamps or anything else that runs from a plug.

[Lieutenant Scott]

Maybe they just plug in stuff that they were using anyway?

You could stick a plastic bag over that.

And very hot to the touch is ok for plasterboard and wallpaper is it?

Tucked away under a worktop with bits of greasy food and other flammable materials.

There's plenty 3kW appliances, which is 12A.

[dennis]

You won't win, doing the job properly costs too much (about £1). Its the users fault anyway for using both the sockets. Just hope its not an old spur with 22A cable feeding it with the cable behind dry lined PB on thermal blocks with PVC capping.

[ARWadsworth]

Imagine what could happen if a retard was let loose with an induction hob.

[John Rumm]

Plasterboard, yup no problem. Paper as the famous title tells us, need

451 Fahrenheit to burn ;-)

Amazing we reach adulthood isn't it...

12A is 2.76kW

[ARWadsworth]

Considering all the hot air that dennis generates I suspect that he lives in an asbestos house.

[ARWadsworth]

The lab has solar panels.

[Jules Richardson]

Solar panels on a dog? Madness. :-)

[John Rumm]

We are not all tightwads like you dennis...

Why?

You could do with getting a handle on this concept we call "design". You make an assessment of the typical load, look at the installation conditions, and then specify an appropriate installation.

What might be appropriate for a socket behind a TV is very different for one in a utility room where you expect a washing machine and tumble drier to be installed.