13A Socket outlets - SP or DP?

True, but surely this would aid in finding a fault? Brian

I think you mean "may not" rather than "cannot", since my boiler's been plugged into a switched socket for 21 years to my knowledge, and it works just fine.

me? culp?, me? culp?, me? maxim? culp?

Owain

You can. Whether you should or not is a different matter!

I have just found having an old 1960s installation plugged into a 13A socket is very useful.

The oil fired boiler feeds an induction coil in the hot water tank and the radiators. The only form of control is the room thermostat, no timer or zoning valves fitted. The electric immersion heater is used in the summer for hot water and oil in the winter.

I need to leave the house unattended for some time and fit a timer to keep the chill off the house. This was very simple, I plugged one of the simple peg timers in series with the 13A plug, job done.

Ego te absolvo.

There's no such thing as a "Better Idiot". A "more inventive one", yes but 'better'?, definitely not. :-)

The choice of the person buying the sockets and nothing else.

That means you can just unplug your boiler from the socket for electrical isolation and you do not have to give a give a f*ck about the socket having single or double pole switching.

FWIW I don't think I ever use a socket switch to turn something off for any purpose, never mind maintenance where safety might be involved.

I'd wager that in this house, every switched socket is either switched on with a plug inserted, or switched off with no plug inserted.

Perhaps that's just me. But I suspect not.

Quite. I'd rather have a boiler fed via a plug and socket - single or DP switched - than an FCU, since you can unplug it. A definite air gap is more confidence building than any switch.

No problem, everyone on here has been slightly misinformed at some time.

Thank you, gentlemen: there obviously wasn't any great subtlety of rules or practice which had escaped me: I'll continue to buy SP sockets when available, but stick to DP flex outlets.

__

Kevin

I use the switches a lot - to not leave stuff unnecessarily powered.

I'm not worried about a few 10's of watts - but my view is, he proliferation of little PSUs these days and appliances - if they are left powered that's a little more probability of one going bang and starting a fire.

When I was a kid, we had perhaps 6-7 things receiving power all the time (excepting table lamps that had their own proper switches):

TV Video (later) Microwave Cooker Boiler Washing machine Tumble drier

In fact the last two items had proper mechanical switches built in so turning them off was nearly as good as unplugging.

These days:

Chargers - 5 Computers (except laptops) - 3 Network gear - 4 Phone bases - 2 TV - 1 Media player - 1 Cooking appliances with electronics and soft switches - 4

Just turning off those 5 chargers and appliances halves the probability of bad things happening.

But it's nice to not have to actually unplug stuff and have chargers and cables lying around.

You sound like my father. The TV had to be switched off on the set first, then the socket, and finally unplugged. Yet he built crystal sets when younger and radio was new.

OCD hadn't been invented then.

I'm not your father. At least I don't think so.

Are you focussing on the fact that all three had to be done, or that they had to be done in that particular order?

FWIW our telly is plugged in to a switched-on socket all the time, but switched OFF at the set most of the time.

The MK Logic Plus sockets quote a DP 3mm air gap - the same as a shower pull-switch. I've used them where I want to switch off but unplugging would be awkward.

I had some friends who asked me to help because their video recorder wouldn't record. They turned it off every night at the wall, so it never remememeber the clock time. They didn't like my suggestion that it be left switched on 24/7.

I'm not at all familiar with the world of video recorders but it doesn't seem beyond the wit of man to design one that could keep time when switched off.

Unfortunately plenty of freezers have an on/off button on the front top edge that can easily be switched off by someone leaning on the unit!

The "too warm" alarm doesn't sound when the power is off either.