Yup - or two sides of the same phase if you prefer.
It means that you have a 220V potential difference available between the connections in one socket (of somewhat "cost reduced" construction typically).
The office tea point has 2 kettles running almost continuously at times, but from the length of time the take to boil they probably aren't 3 kW each. Or they are, but there's a hell of a volt drop on that circuit :-)
Owain
If you plugged an amplifier into one and a tuner into the other would this have any consequences? I assume not if both have PSU but I wondered?
It's a ring main. Plugging in two heavy current appliances anywhere on the ring has the same effect wherever they're plugged in.
Even sockets with nothing plugged in are then carrying the current.
No longer true.
Would you care to expand on that?
That is not true in the general sense, and also incorrect in the specific case of both being supplied by the same accessory.
The circuit wires share a terminal, so the socket and its wiping contact terminals, switchgear etc is not carrying the load, just acting as a terminal block.
Both kettles and toasters are short term loads. Using a couple of 3 Kw fan heaters full belt would be the real test.
I suspect the answer relies on an assumed wimpy 2990W rather than good old British 3120W
If nothing is plugged in, are the electrons just going round and round then ?. Dope.
And since the L,N and E ring connections are effectively crimped together, or even twisted together then the socket carries zero current.
The bungalow we occupied in Germany some years ago had 3 phases brought in via overhead wires. These went in to the attic where they ended up on three bottle fuses which couldn't be isolated and whose pads corroded as you watched. Cleaning them involved a plastic tube wrapped in wire wool and some exciting sparks.
The water heater was a 3 phase 50kW device which made all the lights in the village dim if you turned a hot water tap on. Sockets throughout rooms were connected to whatever phase happened to be handy at the time so the lounge had all three phases on differing sockets. Until I realised this the hum problems were interesting to say the least.
The cooker was fairly basic but again fed by 3 phases, one to the oven, one to 3 rings and the last to 1 rings plus a grill. Telling which phase fuse had terminally corroded was a matter of consulting the chart on the wall which showed which fuse controlled which rings. It did confuse visitors when you said "hang on a fuse is failing I'll just turn the oven on to see which one".
Several other houses nearby had a similar system so you got used to the lights dimming as the locals had a shower or bath. Quite useful if you were intending to call in on neighbours as you had to give them
15 min's to get dressed from the lights going bright again.
I guess we will have to wait for enlightenment ;-)
My understanding is that only the nominal voltage has changed, not the supply voltage. This is on the basis that the old British band is tighter and fits within the continental band. Something to do with
240 +6% being less than 230 +10% (more or less). .
My aunt used to say that if you left the switch on with nothing plugged in, the electricity would escape through the holes and increase the electricity bill. Is that not correct?
Absolutely. That's why you see those dummy plugs everywhere. To plug the leak.
But it would have to be in a big room.
Total failure last year when a wine sales open plan office had their boiler break down and it was decided that everyone should fetch in their own electric heater until the boiler was fixed.
Plenty of ring circuits were available. The main incoming fuse on L2 managed a whole 2 hours before it blew.
The daft sods also blew L3 fuse by moving the heaters to other working sockets after L2 had blown.
On a bigger scale in Luton some years ago... Gas main failure to a housing estate in the Winter. Gas supplier quickly drops off electric heaters to all the houses. This is followed an hour or two later with the substation transformer catching fire.
Tch. When I charge my electric car up only around 10% of the electricity is turned to heat in the car/garage.
And yes I do know the energy in the battery ultimately end up as heat in the great outdoors
You really are brain dead. It's a ring main. The current drawn from any socket passes through other sockets to get there. Even the socket closest to the meter.
See my reply.
Because charging electric cars is a significant additional load lasting for hours, manufacturers recommend installing an independent separate 13a socket on it's own for charging (ie not using an existing socket on the ring.) It disrupts the utilisation assumptions made for ring main load theories.
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