put a euro socket in a uk house

[Rod]

I preferred magnesium ribbon. Wonderful flash!

[Kevin]

not as big as a biro spring :-) (been there got the t-shirt)

[Mike the unimaginative]

Bruce wrote in news: [e-mail]:

They are available from UK suppliers on-line, cheaper is to buy them from a mainland supplier - eg

or who I know will ship to the UK (but they are not the cheapest). Better still ask someone who's off the mainland to bring back a couple. Then as the above poster suggests cut off the plug and put a fused 13A UK plug on (preferably with a lower than 13A fuse in). You might consider asking if an electrician will fit (and part P certify) a genuine Schuko socket onto a switched fused spur, my tentative enquiries on this were that once they understood that you weren't mad they would - I never did (cost). Equally a genuine Schuko socket as a single radial back to the fuse box is apparently OK too with Part P, according to the sparks I've spoken to.

[Mike the unimaginative]

"gazz" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I tend to agree with you although I'd say 'Give me a modern 'schuko' style intallation anyday' You and I are sailing against the tide of opinion here - I've read the arguments and remain unconvinced that either side is *technically* better (ie the mainlanders are not being electrocuted in their thousands!), so it comes down to blinkered predjudice - and my predjudice is for the non-UK system.

[Peter Parry]

Not in their thousands, but about 10 times as many people die from electric shock (proportional to population) in the Schuko countries as in the BS1363 ones. France adds another order of magnitude but that's simply the French who don't really understand electricity.

[Rod]

Are those deaths actually related to Schukos themselves, the related aspects of the wiring, or other things altogether. For example, I imagine that some of the countries might not have the best standards of protection (RCDs, etc.). But this is my imagination and this is genuinely questioning, not dismissing your post.

[Peter Parry]

It isn't stated (or at least not in the data I had). The Schuko plug and the radial wiring associated with it are of course linked as a system in much the same way as the BS1363 plug is inextricably associated with ring wiring. It is also true to say that in both cases the number of deaths by electrocution attributable to faults in fixed wiring is really quite small, a few every year in the UK and

20-30 in the Schuko area for the equivalent population. Fires caused by electrical faults kill far more.

Older Schuko installations are frequently overloaded (too few sockets and difficult to add more) and the use of multiple socket extension leads with high current appliances is commonplace. Leads pulled out of plugs are also common and kill a few each year. The use of "earthed" Schuko plugs in non-earthed sockets is a major issue. In one house we had in Germany the washing machine and tumble drier were in the (damp and frequently flooding) cellar plugged into an extension lead plugged into a wall socket. The wall socket was an earthed socket - those on the extension lead were not. You got quite a healthy tingle if you touched the washing machine case and water pipes at the same time. (In true German style the landlord told us this was all quite legal as the washing machine had an earthed plug and the wall socket was earthed and the rules said nothing about bits in between.)

In my experience there is also a much greater range of quality between the best and worst Schuko plugs and the best and worst BS1363 ones.

One of the great advantages of the BS1363 system is its resilience to mistreatment. It was a "clean sheet of paper" design done very well by competent engineers and as a system works well. The Schuko system isn't anything like as resilient with more single points of failure and a much greater susceptibility to fires caused by high currents.

As well as deaths by electrocution there are many more fires attributed to fixed wiring on the continent than there are in the UK (again excluding the French as their figures simply eclipse everyone else's put together).

[geoff]

In message , Peter Parry writes

Isn't that what Darwinism was invented for ?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember [e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) saying something like:

Many people wire them up at random when they're replacing plugs, possibly in the mistaken notion that, like a BC, it makes no real difference either way. I've come across many with live outers.

[Martin Crossley]

Since Schuko is short for Schutzcontact (protective contact), it wasn't really one, but the predecessor...

[gazz]

no probs, would use a DP switch anyway,

the particular shuko plug on the pinball machine is one of those right hangled ones, so as long as i put the phase wire to the right hand socket contact, neuteral to the right, it'll be plugged in with the polarity the same,

can be plugged in reversed of course, but the plug will be upside down and easy to spot.

the cable goes into the machine then straight upto a double pole isolator switch which is the main switch for the machine (operated by reaching under the right hand side of the cabinet) just before the switch is the non earthed bakelite flat fronted inspection lamp socket,

the idea being you can use the lamp to see what your poking around at in the cabinet, but the machine is powered off by the front switch,

the transformer is right at the back of the machine anyway, so with the playfield lifted up on it's prop (like a car bonnet) you'd have to be very slim and have long arms to reach it's mains connections,

the machine has 28 - 32 volts DC (depends on the flipper strength setting),

28 volts AC and 7 volts AC on it's contacts, bulbs and solenoids, so whilst they might give you a little tingle, they shouldent hurt you (unlike my 1960's EM one armed bandit that has 48 volts AC on it's contacts, not wise to operate them by hand i found out :)

[chunkyoldcortina]

The most dangerous thing about the BS1363 plug is physical. If a plug is left lying on the floor of the US or Schuko design, it's hard for it to lie pins-up. BS1363 plugs always seem to land pins up and hurt like hell if you tread on one with bare feet :o)

[chunkyoldcortina]

The way hotels tend to do it is to fit the EU & US style sockets to an item such as a desk (complete with transformer for the US sockets), then that is connected back via flex to a 13A fused spur with flex outlet. I guess this technically makes these sockets an "appliance" rather than part of the installation?

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:43:36 -0600 someone who may be Mike the unimaginative wrote this:-

Such a socket doesn't comply with the Wiring Regs. However, the paperwork the IET/IEE (IEE is a brand name they use for wiring matters) offer for use provides a space for exceptions to the Regs (and have done so for at least 20 years). That space is to allow such exceptions to be noted.

The IET/IEE state that they are in favour of "novel methods", provided they have been properly thought through. The unimaginative "it doesn't comply, so can't be done" approach is not what the IET/IEE encourage, but it is an attitude adopted by many. I'm glad to see that those you approached had the right attitude.

[tim.....]

probably something to do with the fact that most people's experiences of these type of fittings will be from table lamps with a Euro (unearthed) plug on the end, which they will have realised can be plugged in either way.

Thus, if they do ever have to wire in a fixed one, they will "wire it in either way"

tim