Don't think this has been covered elsewhere....... If the plug is rewirable, strongly recommend that you cut the flex back approx 50mm and totally remake all wiring into the plug. The amount of heat required to cause the blackening is likely also to have "baked" the connecting wire and its insulation. If you remove the plug and try to flex the individual conductors you will probably find that all the insulation will simply flake off and the wire ends may well break easily. Also, if you replace the socket, then check out the ends of the mains wiring also (I had a similar fault leading to the issues noted above).
Funny thing memory. You have just nudged back into my head that silicone is a major problem for domestic electrical equipment. Seems excessive use of Pledge (and similar) ends up with silicone spreading everywhere - and effectively insulating components. One drop can spread out to cover a square metre? So it causes failure of many televisions in there wood-effect cases that were proudly polished.
However, my memory might be playing tricks. Or the original info. mght have been duff. I await comments by others who *know* the answers.
A poor quality plug, a poor quality socket, poor terminations or a combination of all of these combined with it working at close to its full working load.
Fit a new socket, a new plug and make sure everything is good, tight and the copper wire is not discoloured.
You may find that the screws which bite onto the copper wire are no longer tight, so the connection gets hot. Probably if it's hot enough to char the plastic you will need to have the plug and socket changed.
It may or may not. As regards the sockets the actual area of contact is governed by the profile of the contacts after they've been pressed into the required shape and concealed within the plastic assy. Of course the quality of the metal contact material is also significant.
Plenty sold on market stalls and in pound shops are counterfeit.
Sometimes stuff is claimed to be made to a BS spec (so that's all right) but in fact has never been tested by an independant test house, you've only *Their* word for it that it complies. Sometimes stuff is type tested and passed but then the production methods are not sufficient to ensure consistency of the product over the years of production. For instance a colleague once went to China to install a Swiss metal casting machine and found the "factory" had four walls and a roof but just an earth floor. His precision casting machine weighed
3 tons. A famous local manufacturer of electric motors moved production to Poland and found the rate of warranty failures and customer complaints suddenly went through the roof. They sent somebody over and found the "factory" was unheated and the operatives were assembling motors in the Polish winter wearing overcoats and gloves.
Imagine how much of a mess a back street sweat shop in Bangalore could make of a 13A socket.
I find the 'modern' plugs with the 'half plastic' pins seem to get a lot hotter when used on higher power items like fan heaters and other things with elements in, like your washing machine. I suppose it isn't possible to get the old, all brass items any more though.
If you don't have RCD protection, you may find that you have an earth leak in the machine itself if the element is on the way out (RCD would trip out when you switched on the machine if there was such a leak.)
I've seen 13A 3 pin plugs supplied with computer equipment that were barely any bigger than the old triangular round-pin plugs. They had no space for a fuse, and fingers could very easily touch the pins while being plugged in! They basically looked like this
Report them to trading standards and they will be done for supplying illegal equipment. They can't even supply one without the insulated pins these days (I suppose that technically they could just fit a six+ inch wide shield all around the plug).
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