Staying in a hotel recently - pulling a plug out was in danger of pulling the socket out of the wall. Are they all poor in this respect or are our adaptors perhaps a bit tight?
- posted
9 years ago
Continental Sockets
Loading thread data ...
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
The problem sounds to be either your adapter or the socket. Or a combo.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
Happened to me years ago. A two pin shaver socket into which my adapter plug was a rather a tight fit. Socket came clean away from the wall. I extracted my adapter, pushed the socket back into the wall, went down for breakfast and checked out. It was only a one night stop anyway.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
The Swiss sockets quite often have holes for thin pins. OTOH the French sockets have larger holes. As far as possible I like to use cables etc with two pin plugs that I can use with either type of socket.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
Michael Chare wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:
Why are there 2 pin sizes? I hve an adaptor with the thin pins - but had started to assume it was for plugging into shaver adaptors.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
Many of them just rely on gripping the sides of a large cylindical hole, and that does often fail as the masonary wears with use of the socket.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
Why do you think there are only 2 pin sizes?
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
from 10 years experience of living on the continent
happens all the time, they are cheap crap
tim
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
It has been my limited experience that the installation of most continental wiring is at best rubbish, and at worst downright dangerous. There are, I am given to understand still many places where there are non fused plugs, with no shrouded pins or shuttered sockets and no earth, Spain being particularly mentioned.
Brian
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
En el artículo , DerbyBorn escribió:
One's 6A, the other is 16A. You can insert 6A plugs into 16A sockets, but not vice versa.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
ISTR there are two incompatible "standard" sizes for these things and if you have them one way round it is a rattling good fit that falls out every time you breathe on it and the other way round can be forced in but will almost certainly damage one or both components on removal.
Never had any real bother with European plugs and adapters bought and used over there so I think it is something a bit dodgy about UK ones. There are some dodgy electrical installations in European hotels and in places the (badly maintained) gas water heaters are potentially lethal.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
En el artículo , tim..... escribió:
It's Woddles.
1) he's a troll 2) he's in Aussie, so knows f*ck all about European electrics 3) actually, he knows f*ck all about anything.Just killfile him.
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
its ok to use the fuseboard fuses to protect the appliance as well as the fixed wiring. I prefer plug fuses for a couple of reasons but its very minor
of little real value with narrow pins
again of minimal real safety value. Look at the death figures.
aren't 2 pin systems outdated historic things now?
NT
- Vote on answer
- posted
9 years ago
When I had a house in France, I had to re-fix several sockets. It seemed to be a combination of weak wall construction and poor fixing design. Just this morning in an hotel, also in France, I noticed that one of the sockets in the corridor was mounted on a thick piece of timber that had been screwed firmly to the wall with several screws. Presumably that had, at some time, also come away from the original fixing.