Euro Electrics

I don't agree for one. More importantly neither does almost every electrical representative to the EU apart from the UK and Malta.

The view of a friend working for the EU directorate on this matter in the mid-90s was roughly as follows :

The UK plug/socket is dangerous and probably causes more electrical fires than any other piece of electrical equipment. In the 90s the rest of Europe worked on a harmonised version of the IEC plug/socket only for the UK to scupper it. Note that the UK plug was actually designed in Sweden and rejected as lethal, though we have since then added the shields to the L and N pins.

Similarly although the IEE have done well getting ring mains systems safe, it is felt they rely on diversity too much for a modern house where there may be large numbers of high current consumption devices often in separate rooms where the users do not realise they are using a common ring. Also the allowed practice of adding almost uncontrolled numbers of extra sockets to a ring makes this worse. It is accepted that UK house make far less use of electrical heaters than some other countries due to our cheap supply of gas but pointed out that this won't last indefinitely.

The proposed EU recommended wiring system consists of separate feeds to each room with a small CU in that room with a breaker for lights and one for each group of sockets/piece of equipment. The best CUs actually fit under the light switch by the door which hinges up. A simple look round the room will soon tell you if you are taking too much current (and the much more likely to be correctly rated trip in that room blows anyway - not taking out the whole house as in the UK). This is not to say that any particular country in the EU follows this approach to the letter today.

There was the intention in the EU to try for harmonisation again on this in

Others will strongly disagree with this of course so I'll put my flak hat on now :-)

I've had some exposure to french wiring (and italian but that was long enough ago I'm not sure I remember much of it), and a little exposure in various other EU countries.

I guess ring circuits are the biggest difference with rest of Europe. I rather like them, but I can't help thinking that if I came across them for the first time in some other EU country, I would probably think they were barmey. Chances are I wouldn't actually understand all the design work behind them which includes our 13A fused plugs for example. The ring circuit and

France has very much better meters than we do. You can step through all sorts of readings on the display just like on those plug-in power monitors; voltage, current, power, power factor, phase shift, peak current, peak power, and probably more things I don't remember. Oh, peak and off-peak energy used of course;-) No one ever calls to "read" the thing either -- it's done remotely.

I did a thread recently on South African wiring, where one 15A round pin socket per house was standard, and supplied the entire house. Total fuses in house: 1 RCDs: 0 Earths: 0 plugs and sockets on appliances: 0

Evidently he didnt understand our system too much.

NT

At least the house had a fuse and at least one socket. :-) I've seen them full of extension cables to each room, and all connected to a set of screw terminal connectors. One shack in Conchasa had bell wire to all the pinched sockets the man of the house obtained from a British run building site. He saw the guys running the two core bell wire to some sockets on the site, and he thought that's how they were connected. He didn't know the bell wire to the sockets was for transformers to door alarm systems. The shack had a fridge/freezer, a television and a microwave cooker that he'd also obtained on his travels. :-)

A nice little fire starter right in the middle of a shanty town, wouldn't you think? LOL

The wiring schemes used throughout Europe are pretty well standard now. We all use PVC insulated cabling for the installations. We all use the same sorts of safety protective systems. But it's all down to the use of the socket designs really. The British three pin version has become safer with the use of insulated pins, as Mike says, but the same also applied to the two pin plug tops used in other countries. These too have had half insulated pins fitted as standard, because they too had people touching the live pin as the plug was connected / disconnected from the socket, and a stray finger went round the face of the plug top.

All in all, the basic installation schemes are very similar now though. I find that the biggest differences are found when you travel further a field.

Explain how please ? Thats a very sweeping statement.

Dave

One design advantage of the 30A ring system was that two 15A radials could be linked (with extra sockets, and changing the existing sockets to 13A) and converted into a ring. I don't think this happened very often in practice though.

Owain

Poorly fitted *plugs* were certainly a major concern, but hasn't that been addressed by plugs fitted on appliances before sale?

From what I've seen of European plugs they're not very substantial either, those with cord outlets parallel to the pins are vulnerable to being pulled out of sockets by the flex, and they're not polarised, so their ES lampholders can have either contact live.

However the ring was never designed for supplying fixed heating, and if/when gas runs out we're going to be stuck for cheap electricity. For safety reasons, if the main gas supply network fails, the bulk consumers of gas (the electricity generators) are taken offline first, rather than disconnecting domestic consumers.

The growth in number of sockets required is mostly consumer electronics, which are low-current appliances. The ring was also never designed for the large number of high-current kitchen appliances we see, but that is being addressed by the provision of a separate circuit for the kitchen.

Which still means (if you have 20A circuits) that some combinations of 2 x 3kW heaters, in some or other sockets on the same or different circuits, will or won't work. The advantage of the ring circuit is the flexibility it gives for using appliances without worrying which socket they're plugged into. That's based on diversity, which is a sound engineering principle.

One of the main advantages of the ring circuit, designed for the post-war housing needs, was that it used less material than lots of separate radials. Presumably the "proposed EU recommended wiring system" is supported by European consumer unit and cable manufacturers, but I doubt if by anyone else.

Why would this arrangement have a "much more likely to be correctly rated trip"? And UK trips (do you mean MCB or RCD?) don't take out the whole house in a correctly designed installation. Whole-house RCDs are deprecated.

Owain

I think you're misinterpreting the meaning of the term "the best" here. Never mind all this quality of form and function how's-yer-father. :)

-- Regards, Mike Halmarack

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They have (ok had) *the* definitive article

Oh joy. That sounds (a) cheap and (b) pretty.

The fact remains that the UK electrical system is statistically extremely safe in comparison to the rest of the world.

Christian.

Are you saying that more people are killed or injured by electrical energy in the rest of the world than in the UK? The US penal system being a separate, special case..

-- Regards, Mike Halmarack

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Per capita, yes.

Christian.

Is that the result of a statistical survey?

-- Regards, Mike Halmarack

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Yes, but I can't remember the source.

Christian.

When in doubt, I always nominate Loyd Grossman. :)

-- Regards, Mike Halmarack

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It's very difficult to do, because no two countries collate any figures the same way. For example, categorising a fire into electrical installation, electrical appliance or non-electrical is likely rather hit and miss, and the accuracy of any such categorisation is likely to vary very widely. Some third world countries appear to have very good safety stats, until you realise most of the population have no access to electricity, nor any way or reason to report electrical fatalities.

When I was looking into this some ~6 years ago, there were a few attempts to produce unified stats. UK was somewhere around

Was your other statement about the 'whole house being taken out' the result of a statistical survey or just you making a sweeping statement.

Dave

I think you might be getting confused.

-- Regards, Mike Halmarack

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Apologies, wrong Mike, sorry about that.

Dave