American electrics

fuse?"

Err, how many appliances are you plugging into a single outlet ?...

circumstance

small

such

Err, most people would replace the fuse and try the appliance again anyway, exactly the same result.....

The not so good result is you try

appliance,

See above......

So protecting something at a 15 A rating is less safe than doing so at 30 A when someone replaces the fuse in a BS1364 plug with a bolt or what ever, as has happened ?....

So still have local protection if that really is going to be a problem.

easy,

before

Err, it became law in about 1990 IIRC, and as for sticking wires into sockets, the non fitment of any plug increased that risk !

But not 30A when some idiot uses a bolt to bridge the fuse....

Exceptions are old appliances with

solution

More by luck and good education than the safety of the system I suspect.

Think you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, Jerry.

Yes, and they could remove the 30 amp MCB and replace it with a larger one. And replace the company fuse with a nail. And weld the breaker together at the substation.

I'd have thought that a person who is aware of their colour blindness would have the common sense to use other means of discrimination of fuse ratings, viz the rated current marking on the fuse eg 3, 5, 7 or

leaving

larger one.

together at

Very unlikely, replacing a BS1363 plug fuse with something inappropriate is very likely.

You seem to have a bizzare fixation on one issue which is pretty much a non-sequitur, whilst still failing to understand the safety features designed into the system as a whole.

Bare in mind the BS1363 plugs and sockets and the ring circuit is the most recently designed power distribution system for portable appliances in the world (that I know of anyway), and sought to avoid all the problems the pre-existing systems had, and didn't compromise itself by trying to be backwards compatible with anything that came before (unlike most other power distribution systems in use today). Its safety speaks for itself when compared to other systems in the world. I won't pretend it has no issues or it could not be improved -- there have been a number of improvements through its nearly 60 year life. However, if you think you are seeing some major safety issue compared with other power distribution systems, most likely you are misunderstanding the design or you are basing this on some faulty premise (such as any widespread bypassing of BS1362 fuses, which just isn't the case).

By all means look for ways of improving it further, but you won't get very far if you keep concentrating on things which aren't safety problems -- actually you are much more likely to reduce safety by changing such things.

Or climb up a pylon with an extension lead and some crocodile clips.

I suppose pumping 33kV into the consumer unit would be one way of getting hot water out of an electric shower.

Owain

As I said in the last couple of lines of the message you replied to, I suspect the above is more to do with education than any safety aspects the distribution system has by design, most of which can be rendered useless by those without clue or knowledge without even needing to think.

That wasn't the point. The point was that there are multiple outlets on a single circuit. Even with your 120V 15A radial design you might have half a dozen or more appliances protected only by the common fuse at the distribution board. When that fuse pops, how do you know which one of the appliances has caused the problem?

With our 240V 30/32A rings, 30/32A, 20A and 16A radials we are allowed, effectively, an unlimited number of sockets. My house has (ignoring the kitchen) 24 double sockets. Because it is relatively small, these could have been (though they aren't) supplied by a single ring or even a single 30/32A radial. If the circuit fuse pops, that's a lot of appliances to check.

If, on the other hand, a 13A fuse manages to correctly discriminate with the 32A MCB (unfortunately it won't always) then the job's a lot easier.

Well, I'm sure it *has* happened, but personally I've not come across it ever, and I do get to see a few plugs. It was slightly easier to do in the days of wire-it-yourself plugs, but in these days of moulded plugs it is difficult to get anything other than a BS1361 1" fuse to fit into the fuseholder.

Your point being? We already do have "local protection". It would require a major redesign of the US system. One further step we *could* take would be to make all socket outlets RCDs, but this would be incredibly expensive and rather ugly. RCDs are secondary protection anyway, and the fuse/MCB is the primary (other than earth faults in TT systems of course).

It is darned nearly impossible to stick bare wires into a BS1364 shuttered socket outlet without at least two pairs of hands. But that wasn't the problem, the problem was that if the moulded-on plug is unsuitable it needs to be cut off. It *could* then be inserted into a socket, leaving live wires exposed to the touch.

Of course, having a removeable fuse in the plug helps even here, as most appliance instructions I have read include a phrase along the lines of "if you need to remove the moulded plug, cut it off, remove the fuse and dispose of with your household waste."

Any responsible person cutting off a moulded plug can remove the fuse, remove the fuse holder and (if they're feeling particularly paranoid), bend the fuse carrier with pliers so that even if some neighbour child digs it out of your wheelie bin from under last Friday's donner kebabs, it would be nearly impossible for him to electrocute himself.

Not continuously, no, but for short-term overloads...

...

Hmmm... I'm off to do something less stressful.

Hwyl!

M.

And most adaptors were multistandard, giving 2 or 3 different plug type outlets in one. On a radial with 5&15 sockets you would therefore get

and heaters, with bare live element. Would take the chill off the room before getting into bed. Typically 1kW. In practice it wouldnt take the lighting citcuit much over 5A because lighting use was a lot more spartan than today.

In some cases those would be bowl heaters, probably some of the most dangerous electric heaters ever made.

Whats to stop it, apart from the non-existence of the plugs eh? Oh, and those 2 more safety barriers you mention! too funny.

True by the standards of the day, if not by modern standards. The problems were:

- flex draped across hot lightbulb (2 way bulb adaptors were usually used)

- people often burnt themselves plugging in and unplugging, resulting in falls, back injuries etc

- people tended to get caught up in the draped flex and apply fairly large pull forces.

- there were typically no cord grips on either the appliance flex, the bulb holder or the rose, so things had a habit of getting pulled apart out when Joey stepped on the flex. So as he tripped on the flex, yanking the hot iron towards himself, the one and only light went out. Dont forget it would be set to cotton, not synthetics.

Attitudes were a bit different then. There was no periodic domestic testing, no PAT tests, and things were not run until they showed signs of wear, or until the live wires became exposed above the bulb holders, things were run until they went bang. Things getting hot or sparking were often not seen as the no-no they are today. Bare live wires above the bulb holders was a common problem on old installs, and owners routinely did nothing about it. If something sparked, you kicked it.

NT

eventually

outlets on

Who is talking about 110v supply, all the supplies I ever had have been 240v 50Hz....

allowed,

Exactly, if one appliance caused the circuit protection to trip you take the whole lot down, with a radial circuit you only take one or two down - there is nothing to stop local appliance protection being used at the plug - belt and braces without the huge step from 3 A to

across it

Anything the size of a BS1361 1" fuse will fit though...

This is some interesting definition of "radial" I've not heard before. Even US-style radials are likely to have (as I understand it) several outlets per circuit. Popping the circuit protection *is* going to take out a lot of appliances. Popping a plug fuse in our system is going to take out *one* appliance, or possibly a few if the fuse which pops is in a multiple-outlet adapter.

The alternative is to have radials which feed just one or two sockets each. That is one heck of a big distribution board in most modern houses, and a darned expensive one to boot. *And* it will *still* take out several appliances in one go.

I think we're all getting a bit tangled up now though. I replied to you thinking you were defending US-style 15A or 20A radial circuits, but I discover that you're (probably) not. If you were, I'd also take you to task for saying "there's nothing to stop local appliance protection being used at the plug" because I don't know, apart from GFCI outlets, how this would be done in the US. And even GFCI outlets are (usually) wired to protect all outlets downstream...

Hwyl!

M.

Perhaps you could stick to prattling on about dual combi's and crappy Toyota's - more your area of inexpertise

Talk about dim you're a 5 watter.

stop

crappy

You total moron....

You brain dead idiot

You trolling 'boy of self abuse', answer the question.

(ignoring

these

every

before.

You are confusing what is with what (IMO) should be, yes, the ring final circuit is far safer than what we had before but it has many flaws - some of which can make the whole thing less safe than what came before....

Anyway, all the radials I've ever come across have only one or two outlets per circuit, and certainly didn't cross room or floor boundaries.

several

Yes, and so would any radial circuit with local plug protection, you are failing to see that I'm not at all convinced that an unlimited number of sockets can be protected by one fuse, especially when that final protection is at twice the maximum rating allows for anything plugged into the socket.

sockets

No it won't, it will only take out those that are on that circuit, not ones in another room or even another floor - as is possible with (domestic) ring circuit.

outlets,

(usually)

Very much a GMT chap, and even if I was a EDT chap there would not be anything to stop the adoption of fused plugs.

Fair response for being confused with Evil. ;-)

Getting better.

Ah. Now there's the problem.

Oh, I do like to see the children play. No doubt a idiot will also respond to this too.

Could that be because peoiple didn't have many electrical appliances? Less than 30 years ago when we moved to our present house we were considered quite odd for wanting more than one single socket in each of the bedrooms; in planning a new (small) room I'm likely to include three double sockets whilst the (ex) garage will require 30!

;-)