Silly Questiion?

[nosparks]

What purpose does sleeving the earth wire in 13A sockets serve - other than to comply with the regs.

[Tim+]

Well it helps to prevent it contacting the back of the live or neutral terminals of the socket. Sounds like a good idea to me!

Tim

[John Rumm]

Prevents accidental contact with other conductors when you fold it back into the socket back box.

You may have noticed it is quite easy for a wire to become folded tightly against another where it terminates in the terminals on the socket. If its unsleaved, and the insulation is stripped back even a fraction too far on the the other wire it will contact.

Contact with a line wire would obviously open the protective device, but with a neutral it could cause unpredictable nuisance trips of a RCD.

[Brian Gaff]

Well if there is a very shallow socket and a deep conector, one might, if you tried hard enough short the bare eart h to a live connection if the bend was just in the right place.. grin. Brian

[ARW]

It has no other purpose AFAIK.

[DerbyBorn]

"ARW" wrote in news:lophae$7g6$1@dont- email.me:

Just think about what happens when you push the socket into the box and tighten the screws then you might realise.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Didn't seem to be a significant problem for the 60 years before the sleeve was required.

[ARW]

Something I do thousand of times a year. Earth sleeving - although made from an insulating material is not strong enough to withstand any damage should it press against something when you fit the socket. Earth sleeving is for id purposes only and is not classed as an insulation.

[Tim Watts]

Given the identification in a T+E cable is trivial, I wonder why they bother...

[ARW]

It looks nice?

And the cpc cannot be used for any other purpose than as an earth in a T&E (or indeed a 3 core and earth or a single and earth cable)

Maybe it identifies it from the red or brown live cable to aid the colour blind.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But a totally blind person could identify a bare ECC by touch. ;-)

[Fredxxx]

I was told the brown/blue colours had been chosen for the colour blind, and the green/yellow sleeving is only striped again for the colour blind. Otherwise they would confuse green or yellow with brown or blue.

[Fredxxx]

I thought bare copper should not be visible.

Even when entering meters etc, the inner insulation should not now be visible, and live and neutral should be denoted by the appropriately coloured external sleeving.

Agreed, but such behaviour would indicate a faulty installation.

[The Medway Handyman]

AFAIK it was done because about 20% of men are red/green colour blind & couldn't tell the earth from the live.

[Tim Watts]

Now 70% of men are dumbed down and can't tell any of them apart.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

ISTR much more common with blue eyes, in males.

[Andy Burns]

Red, Black, Blue, Yellow and Green (all the old colours) appear on the set of colours easy to distinguish colours for colour blinds and non-colour blinds alike ...

Fair enough green/yellow stripes could become become orangey/beige or pinky/turquoise stripes, but stripes are stripes, and red could look like brown or a tinge a bit purple, but still be distinguishable --- OTOH brown/grey/black still feel wrong.

[John Rumm]

It should not - but should not is not the same as never is... especially when its been wiggled and bent about a bit.

Indeed - hence why sleeving helps mitigate against this particular fault.