This is genuinely the best plug ever and no one can convince me otherwise.
I've toured continental Europe (France, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy), the US, India, and ANZ, and all of their plugs are downgrades in comparison to the icon of engineering that is Type G/BS1363. The former somehow all tend to end up with loose contact, wiggling and sparking, degraded power/current, or a cable that sticks out perpendicular to the wall, or some other annoyance. People argue for the Schuko but it is as large as, if not larger than BS1363 plugs. The earthing setup is odd.
The BS1363 is so massive that it shrugs off power loads of multiple kilowatts—British kettles and toaster ovens run at up to 3 kW or more. One could possibly even charge their EV with BS1363 without needing any automotive cable standard[1].
The BS1363 has a satisfying 'thonk' that no other plug has. It feels like you're powering up some futuristic space craft, not your vacuum cleaner.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectricVehiclesUK/comments/1gta12f...
It is genuinely the worst IMHO:
1. Too large and heavy to carry around.
2. Requires grounding (third pin), even when devices don't need it. Other standards let devices decide.
3. Doesn't allow the cord to go straight out of the plug, it always go sideways which makes it even clunkier, harder to plug (e.g. behind a nightstand at a hotel), and more prone to cord damage from bending.
CEE 7/3 and CEE 7/5 (known as "French" and "German") are way better IMHO. I doubt they have problems with "wiggling and sparking" -- that wouldn't pass certification. And it's easy to make a plug to fit both of them, with or without grounding. CEE 7/5 can even be plugged upside down.
1. There is little size difference between your choices and BS1363 plugs/sockets. They are large, I concede, but that is in pursuit of the many safety features of the plug.
2. Better have it than not. Plus, it makes for a single uniform plug design and specification that is straightforwardly adhered to.
3. IMO this is a good thing as it allows furniture to be set up considerably closer to the walls.
Funny you mention hotels, because I was in one in France not two weeks ago and it had the worst sockets I've ever seen. My phones took forever to charge, half the sockets didn't even seem to have power, and they all had this unintuitive setup where there was a spring loaded panel in the socket that needed to be twisted to get the plug in.
Now, I've seen some odd BS1363 setups, but never one this strange.
> Funny you mention hotels, because I was in one in France not two weeks ago and it had the worst sockets I've ever seen.
My worst experience was in a hotel in the US, with the weight of my adapter and plug they just fell out of the socket. Luckily, for once Jesus saved me; the ubiquitous bible in the nightstand drawer was just the right size to prop up the adapter and I was able to charge my laptop!
Never had a problem with Schuko plugs falling out by themselves, FWIW, if anything the springs are often so tight you need two hands to pull it out so you don't wiggle the socket.
> there was a spring loaded panel in the socket that needed to be twisted to get the plug in.
Sounds like dust protection and/or "Kindersicherung"(Child safety/protection)
One can get them as an add on, to retrofit 'Schukos'.
That unintuitive setup is a common child safety measure. It's not part of the socket design, the construction is usually an inlay.
i really like Min-Kue Cho’s folding plug
https://www.dezeen.com/2012/02/20/folding-plug-by-min-kyu-ch...
1. Are we talking about the same plugs? Europlugs are significantly smaller and fit into both [1]. Grounded is larger but still way smaller than BS1363.
2. No, there's simply no point in having it for devices that don't need it.
3. My point is Europlugs give you choice, there are plugs that bend and ones that are not, your choice. BS1363 is always bent.
> My phones took forever to charge
Dude, that's not how chargers work. They either charge at full power your charger can, or do not charge at all. Well, unless your charger can supply 2000+ W to your phones, but I've yet to see a phone capable of more that 37 W. Which means one plug can charge _at least_ 50 phones at the same time, maybe even 100. Any plug is _way_ more powerful than USB can deliver.
On 2/ there is a safety point in having the grounding pin on all plugs, and it being longer than the live/neutral: in the socket side, the grounding pin opens up latches that block live/neutral, so kids can’t stick things into them..
I generally would agree it is the best plug standard for safety, but clunky and painful to step on..
My only issue with the plug is 3. sort of. I prefer the cable being perpendicular to the plug (prevents accidental removal), but I wish there was a standard dictating which way it should leave relative to the earth pin. Drives me mad when plugging in items to an extension lead and they all come off in different directions.
Agreed. If anything it's an icon of overengineering. The main advantage imo is that you dont need to worry about a kid sticking a fork into the wall socket. I grew up with it so i never really thought it strange that the plugs are 2 or 3 times bigger then necessary. It's an event every time you connect to the National Grid as the plug slots into the wall with a satisfying clunk, so there's that i guess.
Ironically the older BS546† had smaller plugs for lower powered appliances. But each different size of plug needed a different socket, because the fuse was in the socket. This system is still used in India, but I'm not sure how widespread it is.
BS546 is very uncommon now, but can still be found in some relatively modern british homes and businesses where the sockets are used to "code" for connected appliances. For example, the 5A socket may be wired up to a switched lighting circuit to connect lamps but prevent connecting higher power appliances. I've also seen the 15A sockets being placed in communal areas of flats to provide cleaning and maintenance staff power while discouraging tenants from using them.
If a device doesn't require grounding the third pin is often just made of plastic so it opens the shutters.
There are newer design with foldable pins. Other than size I dont see anything you mentioned as downsides. Especially Earth Pin.
You're completely right. People love the British plug because it has lots of features but they're mostly obsolete features or required by the equally obsolete ring wiring. So in the end, it's just a pile of useless inconveniences. Don't Britons have RCDs?
You forgot to add that when the fuse does go it can melt the plug and sometimes the wall socket.
Really? I haven't lived in UK so long to see it, but isn't the whole purpose of a fuse to prevent fires.
I've only seen this happen when the plug was fitted badly (pinched or damaged wires inside the plug) or someone use a nail in place of the fuse. People do stupid things like that all the time but it's not the fault of the standard, a fuse should blow if it's run over-current for too long.
Nobody else uses fuses.If someone does overload their circuit you have a fusebox for that exact reason.
It can happen if a high power device is used continually. This is against the regulations, but sometimes people do things like connect a 3kW weather heater with a 13A plug, or connect several devices adding up to that power through a power strip.
It can when you overload a socket, which i have done accidentally. And it just melts the socket it doesn't set it on fire.
As a North American, I'm very jealous of the BS1363. I know some people don't like the mandatory ground pin, but it actually serves a really handy purpose. Because the shutter is engaged by the slightly longer ground pin, the shutter just works with minimal resistance.
In the US and Canada, the electrical codes now require tamper resistant receptacles in most residential settings, to stop children from poking metal objects into them. Because the ground pin is optional on plugs that connect to the standard NEMA 5-15R receptacle, you can't use the ground pin as a keying feature like you can with the BS1363. Instead, there is a mechanism that is supposed to only allow a plug to be inserted when both hot and neutral pins are present. It is probably the worst thing ever designed. Sometimes it works fine, a bit of extra pressure and the plug goes right in. But most of the time, it stubbornly binds up and you're left trying to fiddle with the plug to find the perfect combination of pressure and angle that allows the shutter to open. It can be horrendously frustrating.
I found that there's a surprising difference in quality for what feels like it should be a commodity item. All the outlets in my newish build were tamper-resistant, and pretty much as you described -- at best they were unpleasantly stiff and awkward to use, and some specific outlets would require a worrying amount of force and wiggling to plug anything in.
After a couple of high-usage outlets got jammed to the point that nothing could be plugged in, I replaced them with ones from the hardware store, and they are a big improvement. The existing outlets are unbranded, and I guess were from a bulk box of the cheapest that the electrician could source.
In my experience, Leviton are OK (much better than what was originally fitted), but Eaton are great -- they require slightly more force than non-TR outlets, but they're consistent, reliable, and I've never had to try more than once to plug anything in.
Good to hear about the Eaton receptacles - next time I need to replace a few around the house I'll give those a shot.
> the shutter just works with minimal resistance
11 years living in the UK. I don't think even once I thought of it as _minimal resistance_. At best it requires a firm push. At worst, a couple of hammerings with the side of the fist.
Note that I don't mind the ground pin or having things grounded by default. Even if it wasn't more or less essential due to the mind blowing lack of safety of the ring circuit, it's still a nice and cheap enough extra bit of protection.
I live in UK so biased, but yeah, I mostly love British plugs and sockets.
They do take up too much space, and are painful to stand on if you leave one unplugged.
But they are still just really satisfying. Plugs just don't fall out of sockets. They are solid and feel reliable. The safety feature of the longer pin opening the socket for the live wires is good. Always found EU and US style plugs and sockets to be worryingly flimsy and the plugs sometimes dangle a bit out of the socket.
It also has a fuse in it that is completely useless in almost all world except UK. So no thanks, you can keep it. We prefer not to burn our houses down.
Yeah mate, lost count the of number of times I've burnt my house down using these plugs over the past 30 odd years.
Can you explain how an added safety feature of a fuse increases the risk of a house burning down?
That "added safety feature" is only because of ring circuits, which are a cute hack sure, but not only have real fun failure modes, they make it impossible to use correctly rated MCBs. Your breaker won't trip unless you exceed total ring capacity.
Everything I am reading says the fuse is there to protect the device, or more specifically the cable between the plug and the device.
https://www.workshopshed.com/2024/09/why-do-we-have-fuses-in...
> So this is why there is a need for a fuse, it is there to protect the cable running between the plug and the appliance. The alternative would be to have 32A tolerant cables on every device.
> they make it impossible to use correctly rated MCBs.
It looks like UK is 32A standard but US us 20 or 15A - is that a significant enough difference that the US is safer? 15/20A is still chunky.
The US is 15/20 at 120v.
UK is 32A @ 220v. A massive difference in wattage.
If anything that argues in the other direction since an equivalent US appliance at the same wattage will draw almost twice the current as a UK one. If we’re talking about the risk of overheating then current is the big factor.
In the UK we can put a fuse of e.g. 3A in the plug of a device that is suited for the devices expected draw, but if I understand correctly this could be 15A for the same device in the US?
It would need to be a 6A fuse in the US. Watts = Amps * Volts, or Watts / Volts == amps.
US (and really, everywhere except the UK/Singapore/Malaysia, and I think HK) doesn’t use plug fuses, preferring circuit level protection, because they typically have non-insane circuit power levels.
It does result in more branch circuit wiring (albeit thinner gauge) and breakers though, and saving on copper post WW2 was the primary motivation for UK style ring circuits anyway.
Many houses in the US were 50A/120V (for the whole panel/house!) until the 60’s, because that was a lot of power - 6kw. It wasn’t until electric appliances that it started to change, and the modern 200A split phase panels (typically 22/44kw)didn’t start to become the norm until whole house HVAC became normal. Think 80’s/90’s. A lot of houses still don’t have modern panels.
A single UK ring circuit at 32A@220v is 7kw, or more than enough to run a very beefy welder, and more than a whole house service in the US at the time.
A breaker on each of those ring circuits is essentially a ‘whole house breaker’, and would not trip on a whole host of ‘everything is melting’ situations.
So you need per-appliance fuses to protect the wiring for appliances and not burn the place down, or run 6 gauge wire everywhere in your appliances too, which would remove any cost savings in material.
> It would need to be a 6A fuse in the US. Watts = Amps * Volts, or Watts / Volts == amps.
My point was that the (up to) 3A UK device gets 3A fuse in the plug in the UK. In the US that device becomes a 6A device but (essentially) gets a 15A fuse in the breaker box, is that the case? Because that seems worse.
A fault in the device blows the plug fuse in the UK. The same fault needs to trip the 15A one in the US.
> A breaker on each of those ring circuits is essentially a ‘whole house breaker’, and would not trip on a whole host of ‘everything is melting’ situations.
I don’t know what this means. It will trip for currents greater than its rating. Nothing should be melting under its rating.
The rating on a UK ring circuit breaker is so high that you can literally melt significant quantities of steel without tripping the breaker, and certainly can turn typical appliance wiring incandescent, also without tripping the breaker.
The rule for electrical systems is that any downstream wiring/circuit that would catch on fire in the event of a fault, needs to have a breaker in the circuit before that point, that will interrupt the circuit before the point it would catch on fire.
In the US, every device is just constructed to be safe up to 15/20amps, which uses a bit more copper but is not really a major problem.
But the current is so much higher in the UK, and that is why the fuses on the plugs, because without the fuses providing a lower cut-off point, at a minimum the wires to a typical lamp or whatever, at least to the point it has a fuse or circuit breaker, would need to safely be able to carry the full 32A/220v load without catching on fire.
Which is a very thick cable. And quite a bit more expensive than the tiny bit of extra copper needed to get to 15/20A from 6A.
Does that make sense? The UK plugs essentially distribute the job of overcurrent protection to every single devices plug, where everywhere else it is more centralized at the (lower capacity) circuit level.
As to if this is better or worse is more a matter of opinion and specific local economics that have changed over time than a resolvable ‘fact’.
It all makes sense in that it confirms the crazy thing I couldn’t believe was true at the beginning - US appliances have the ability to sink a ton more current than they would ever need under normal operation, which seems like a safety issue. Would you want your electric toothbrush charger sinking 15A in some fault condition?
A UK device blows its own fuse under these circumstances. The wasted copper in every US appliance cord is just insult to injury.
> The rating on a UK ring circuit breaker is so high that you can literally melt significant quantities of steel without tripping the breaker
That’s fine, as long as everything is rated to that draw and doesn’t melt. If the wires couldn’t handle it then the breaker would be rated lower.
> certainly can turn typical appliance wiring incandescent, also without tripping the breaker.
And that’s where the fuse “shines”!
Seems like the UK method uses less copper and gives finer control in over current scenarios. I don’t see any benefits of the US style.
The US style also has much smaller and cheaper plugs, and the cords are all basically the same size anyway. I don’t recall any UK appliances being notably less bulky or anything either (though when running 220v, you can have electric kettles which aren’t lame, which is nice).
Notably, pretty much everywhere else in the world also uses similar branch circuit type designs and 220v and their plugs and appliances are also not notably more bulky either.
The difference in wire diameter between say 6amps and 15 amps isn’t that noticeable. 15 and 30 is.
A fuse? The plug accepts fuses rated from 1A to 13A. It can be tailored to the requirements of the appliance
> The BS1363 is so massive that it shrugs off power loads of multiple kilowatts
They do have a higher current rating than the French and German standards (30A vs. 16A) but even those do support up to 4 kW. Ovens also run at 3 kW or so in France and Germany.
Ovens in the UK are usually wired in. Plugs go up to 13A, suitable only for small (e.g. tabletop) ovens.
You usually do not plug an oven into a standard 230V socket in Germany. They are connected to 3 phase outlets with 400V and up to 16A, which is nothing to sneeze at.
3 phase for ovens? That seems totally overkill to me.
In France even though they're not usually plugged into a standard socket, all the ovens I've used ran on standard single phase current. Houses are almost never wired for 3 phase anyway.
Parent was talking about toaster ovens though, and those are (as far as I know) always plugged to normal sockets.
Isn't this the common thing in (most of?) Europe? At least here up north it seems to be the standard.
I think Swiss plugs (type C) might be better. They have a pretty good thonk.
I think your complaint with them is that they stick out perpendicularly from the wall but IMO this is a good tradeoff.
It means you can fit more plugs in the same wall space, so Swiss wall sockets typically come in groups of 3 instead of 2, and extension strips can fit many plugs without being very large.
Conversely if you need the cable to lie close to the wall you can get hinge adapters to make this work, they are convenient and reliable.
Since I lived in Switzerland I have not had a fuse blow, I don't know how that works. Having the fuses in a standard place in the British plugs is very nice.
Having lived in both countries for a while, I find the Swiss plugs nowhere near as satisfying, and the flat (non-recessed) wall outlets are also prone to plugs becoming loosened due to weight, similar to the US/CAN/JP plug.
I do quite like the compactness and aesthetic of the three-prong plug with three plugs in a typical wall fixture, and the compatibility with the two-prong Europlug is convenient. However, using even one adapter with a foreign plug often obstructs the other two plugs in a three-plug fixture, particularly as the adapter usually isn’t reversible if grounded, which is quite annoying if that’s the only socket in a room.
I guess the UK plug being large enough to subsume most foreign plug adapters is one silver lining of its size.
It could be a little smaller, but compared to the USA plug and socket it's pure perfection.
USA plugs have prongs that are so thin they bend. The prongs act as a hinge that lets the plug pivot away from the wall to expose the live prongs! And most USA sockets don't have ground on top to block anything resting over those exposed live prongs.
> British kettles and toaster ovens run at up to 3 kW or more
Not "or more" if it's using a BS1363. The absolute max at 230V with a 13 amp fuse is 3kW. The Schuko spec actually goes a bit higher (16amps) though in practice appliances >3kW are rare.
Surprised you've been to ANZ and didn't find their sockets best. Breakdown of things Type-I has:
1. small form factor – BS1363/EU no, US yes
2. grounding not required – BS1363 no, EU/US yes
3. good contact / not much wiggle (in type-I due to angling) – BS1363 yes, US/EU no
4. cable can either be parallel or perpendicular to the wall. You claim this is a failing but having options is good. Having a cable perpendicular to the wall is never an option with BS1363 and not having options is clearly worse (like with grounding) – BS1363/EU no, US yes
5. no risk of plugging in upside down – EU/BS1363 yes (BS because of required grounding), US no (need one pin to be larger which is error prone)
6. wall/female side can be flush – US/BS1363 yes, EU no
There is literally no downside to ANZ plugs imo. You say having required grounding is good but eh, many things don't need it. Even if we do think grounding is necessary, then the best option would still be type-I (because it is smaller then BS1363 and has the parallel/perpendicular options).
Schuko is terrible because needing a cavity in the wall in order to have good contact is a poor design and makes the plugs larger than necessary and I think that is the most important requirement.
The ANZ plug is pretty good but when China adopted it they found a way to improve it - they put it upside down so the ground is at the top for slightly improved safety.
That feature where less powerful plugs can be inserted into higher rated sockets but not vice versa is very cool.
We have the same plugs in Singapore.
Apple made a very elegant USB charger with foldable pins. It’s like a fidget spinner, impossible to stop playing with.
Agree with comments below, am observing that the British (commonwealth etc) plug standard is a good common denominator (and a perfect calthrop. grin!).
Living in North America where the 110 V is standard...
the GBR plug/socket is a lovely standard, my brother-in-law gifted us a UK power bar for travel a few years ago, worked great. [[1]]. Since then, it's become common that wallwarts handle 100-240, so recently I just use physical adapters, and if need be wallwarts with multiple charging ports and/or feed-through mains sockets.
[[1]] use whatever physical adapter to power it -- we know that it's ok for 240 V. Then use whatever adapters to charge. I did have a bagful of physical adapters.
I lived for 16 years in a house with all three: the older round pin in two sizes for different current draw, and the newer square pin.
A lot of the round pin wiring was rubber/fabric insulated. The fuzeboard was scary. Tar insulated mains cables.
It's amazing what you find in buildings old enough to have seen all generations of electrical standards.
The oldest part of my sister-in-law's place dates to the 1790's (I know: in America 100 years is a long time; in England 100 miles is a long way) and it has receptacles that are a never-standardized bastard union of NEMA 1-15 and 2-15, which means you can't be quite certain if you've got an ungrounded hot and a neutral for 120v or two hots for 240v. God only knows why they were ever manufactured. I've never looked at their panel, but I assume it's a horror show.
I've seen live cloth-insulated wire in older homes I've lived in, and found a mystery fuse box in a triple-decker in Boston. As far as I know, I've never lived anywhere with live knob and tube, but I've definitely had it abandoned-in-place.
My all-time favorite was the house I had with a five-gang box populated with switches. I don't need to add that the multi-location circuit wired through that box was wired wrong.
I don’t get the patriotism people from the UK exhibit over their plug. I’ve lived and worked in total 1 year in the UK, two years in Dubai. I’m originally from Sweden were we use Schuko. Now I live in Switzerland.
The UK plug is easily the worst. It’s three times the size of the Swiss plug. You can literally connect three Swiss appliances in the same place you can connect one UK.
It’s absolutely ridiculous to require a single phase AC plug to be plugged in with one particular polarity. The device doesn’t know or care if its power is 180° out of phase or not, you’re just making the user experience worse for absolutely no reason.
Except the live wire is the one that’s switched. So if you plug it in backwards, the neutral is the one that’s switched. And if they aren’t careful with how the wiring is done, you potentially have live voltage on the outside of your metal cased device.
For another example, your standard e26 bulb can have part of the thread exposed. If the neutral and live are swapped, that threaded bit is hooked to live, instead of the proper neutral.
Neither one of this are issues. Devices need to be manufactured so that you cannot touch potentially live connections if they are connected to sockets.
You think all the knock off overseas manufacturers are adhering to this religiously? Belt and braces works fine for me in this case.
I also saw British plugs from China that had no fuse in it (just a plug adapter that was attached to the charger).
It’s better to just assume neither conductor can be touched.
There is no use case touching neutral conductors or neutral connected metal cases. No functionality is lost by having devices be double insulated, and in practice most if not all devices on the UK market are made to also be marketable in countries with non-polar connectors.
Irrelevant. If neutral gets disconnected, your hypotetical device will have hot case anyway. That is why devices without grounding have to be double insulated
British style sockets/plugs are the best. I find that two pin plugs are always falling out of the sockets.
I just had my house in Vietnam fitted out with universal sockets that will accept all plugs tyoes. Life changing decision.
I used to live in the UK (also lived in the US and Europe), and I HATE the UK plugs. They are too large and too complex (fuse in every plug, this silly shutter, etc).
European plugs (especially German style) are far superior, and European two pin plugs never fall off sockets. That is only a problem with US plugs.
The shutter prevents someone (including children) shoving something metal into the live/hot. I have never heard of it failing. Newer US outlets (TR/tamper resistant) are way more finicky because of the optional ground pin. Sticking the little plastic covers over the outlet is a workaround.
The reason for a fuse is because of the high current capacity of ring circuits vs branch/radial. The fuse protects the power cable of appliances catching fire as they can’t handle the current available on the circuit .
Ring circuits are a thing due to minimizing copper usage when rebuilding after ww2.
TR: I know why they did it, but I'm not a fan of the tradeoff. I don't think making all the sockets worse is the solution, people with kids can just baby proof their place (I have a toddler, and we baby proofed our house).
Fuse: I'm not familiar with ring circuits and everything you mentioned, though I was aware it's for fires. Other places (and the UK as well in most apartments I had) have centralized fuse boxes. Is this still needed?
Either way, these are reasons for why things were done the way they were done, but reasons aside, the usability is inferior.
They still have a centralised box but each connection goes in a ring from the box and back to it again. This way you can use thinner wire for the same total capacity.
Sadly it carried on for far too long, my house built in the nineties has it.
UK central fuse boxes don't have a fuse/RCD per socket. For example, mine has common ones for the kitchen, downstairs sockets, upstairs sockets, and all lighting -separate ones only for the boiler and cooker.
The wiring system was designed during world war II when there was a copper shortage and someone calculated that it used less to use larger conductors to several sockets than to run smaller individual ones to each socket.
TR in the US makes sockets harder to use, but I have never heard anyone complain about TR in the UK, as the earth/ground pin is always present, and is physically longer than the live and neutral, so mechanically it is reliable and unnoticeable.
“Just baby proof” means remembering to keep those little plastic covers in place in every outlet. That doesn’t seem like superior usability.
> The shutter prevents someone (including children) shoving something metal into the live/hot.
Child protected schuko sockets exist and work just fine. We have them installed in our place and I never had an issue with them. Neither do things fall out, nor can you poke at them with a screwdriver.
Not only do they fall out, they also like to slide out part way, exposing the hot part of the plug while still being hot. In EU and these British ones, once it slides out a bit, it will lose contact before you can touch the metal.
Yeah, both UK and EU ones have the plastic coating on the base of the hot prongs to prevent this from happening. I really wish US plugs had this plastic coating.
I'd choose UK plugs over US plugs any day of the week, but I still think EU plugs are 10x better than UK.
Modern ANZ ones also have the plastic coating as well. It seems to be a more recent introduction though so there are still plenty of non-plastic-coated ones. Is this also the case for the UK/EU ones?
I, at least, try and dispose of any non-plastic-coated plugs though.
You can still find old lamps and stuff that don't have coated prongs, but I don't remember seeing a consumer electronic that's uncoated for at least a decade.
I can't imagine any 2 pin plug being as mechanically stable as a 3 pin. Certainly here in Asia I am regularly being driven bonkers by 2 pin plugs dropping out of sockets the moment a butterfly shakes its wings on the other side of the planet.
One common complaint I get from my newly arrived expat colleagues is that their PC gives them slight electric shocks when they use it. IANAE (I am not an electrician), but I assume that this is because of some capacitor voodoo in the PC's power supply. The problem is cured by grounding the assembly.
The British plug/socket embodies the British ethos: nanny state, 'cannot be too careful' etc. In British parlance it is 'belt and braces'. But yes I agree it may be overkill.
> I can't imagine any 2 pin plug being as mechanically stable as a 3 pin.
In absolute terms, yes. But in 30 years I have never seen a 2-pins europlug fall from a socket on its own. I still prefer the French plugs with the Earth pin (and I quite like the British one as well), but europlugs are fine and really not comparable to American plugs.
I can see it happening on some very old and very used ungrounded sockets. But with modern recessed sockets yeah not going to be issue. Which actually is an other great design of those plugs.
Yes, the schuko seems to be a nice in-between of the compactness of the US plug and the mechanical robustness of the British plug and the bonus is that it can still take the Europlug. They definitely could have made it a bit smaller but it's good enough.
I find the British plug tends to end up feeling more compact in the wall over US plugs because it's perpendicular on the wall by default, making it easier to hide sockets behind appliances etc.
Very true, I do dislike the way that US plugs stick out. I've been buying these 1ft extension cables that have a flat plug that only sticks out maybe 0.5in at most, perfect for outlets that are right behind furniture or appliances.
British plugs are however the worst to step on.
Have you actually ever stepped on one?
If you have, then why was it unplugged? A plug should be plugged in (in which case it is safe) or it is superfluous.
I've managed to struggle through to the age of 54 without treading on one of our thrusting tri-pronged plugs. It is surprisingly easy to avoid stepping on them.
British-born here. Standing on a plug is somewhat a rite of passage that each kid goes through at least once. It's a meme in the UK.
The flat back of most plugs increased the risk of standing on this type of plug. It's similar to the experience of standing on Lego, except it will dig much deeper into your foot, and falling over is better than putting all of your weight on it.
It can be a common occurrence, because using an extension cord or an appliance you don't always need to have plugged in can just be laying around. And kids aren't known for being tidy. If you managed to get past being a clumsy kid and had the self awareness to avoid it, props to you.
Maybe I’m just clumsy but I did it multiple times as a kid. There were never enough sockets (I helped my dad install a bunch when that was still legal in the 80s and 90s) and sometimes you move an appliance from room to room, like a hoover.
You can't legally do your own electrical work? Shiver...
It's not actually illegal to do your own electrical work, though you'll need to get some types of work inspected. HOWEVER, your insurance company will absolutely seize on it as an excuse not to pay if your house burns down (most insurance policies will require that anything but the most basic work is done by qualified people).
At least it’s not as bad as in the US. As I understand it you only need to get it inspected and signed off by a licensed electrician if you DIY, no need for permits from the local council.
You can if you're a qualified electrician. Or if not do it yourself and get a qualified electrician to approve it afterwards.
Depends. You can certainly replace broken or worn socket/switch faceplates.
We were running spurs from the ring main and adding new outlets which is definitely not allowed without inspection now.
It’s really not that complicated and I’d feel completely comfortable doing it myself today but I understand how that may not be true for everyone so the requirement is probably reasonable.
Spurs have been re-legalised: the Part P changes have now been rolled back to whole new circuits, and spurs and new outlets are back as non-notifiable along with new faceplates etc.
That said, you're theoretically supposed to do a full set of earth resistance measurements etc. on the new wiring, which is hard if not impossible unless you've got proper electrician's test equipment. But in reality no one does that when DIYing it.
I never understood this. Just don't ever unplug a device. That's why BS1363 sockets come with switches.
Indeed, although even if it is unplugged only a careless moron would step on a plug. Rather like stepping on Lego - yes it would hurt but it's easily avoided!
The "old" british standard is even cooler: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/OldBritish1.html
You can still get similar to those today. 5A sockets, for plug in lighting.
Yeah, those are the same standard - they're still legal. The large ones were used in theatre lighting until recently (wiring is radial and you don't want a fuse to blow 5m above the stage in any case).
I think India still uses them, too.
If only the Europlug or Type F had a fuse they would obsolete this terrible plug; worse to step on than a Lego brick ;-) (sarcasm; I prefer the euro style over these bulky ones. Fuses should not have to be necessary. The us/china blade plugs are terrible; easy to fall out of a socket)
Why would you need a fuse in the plug? What purpose would it serve?
(edit) as correctly pointed out in the reply, fuse in brittish plug is because of peculiar way brittish homes are wired. Putting fuse in type F sounds weird.
It's a theoretical benefit even with radial wiring, I think, for some smaller devices. A lamp that's designed to draw an amp will have a small, low-current flex which will fail before the main circuit breaker trips (while a 3A fuse would have protected it).
In reality I don't think it matters, and even on a ring main the MCBs often trip before the device fuses blow these days.
You could always include those inside the devices. No need to have them in plug. Probably would be even better. Replacing such fuse would also lead to checking what was wrong with the device.
If you have the fuse inside the device, then damage to the cable could cause a short circuit and potentially start a fire. Having the fuse in the plug means that a short circuiting cable will just blow the fuse in the plug instead.
That's why the other end has MCB/RCBO/AFDD.
Harder to catch is overheating due to overload or degraded contacts or wires (soviet aluminum wires, oh yeah).
In case of brittish ring circuit, there is added fun case of ring disconnecting in the middle, effectively halving cable cross section
In the UK (and some former colonies) houses were wired differently to save on copper making fuses in plus necessary.
> The reduced diameter conductors in the flexible cords connecting an appliance to the plug intended for use with sockets on a ring circuit are individually protected by a fuse in the plug
It sounds like the appliance cord is the driving factor for the fuse.
It was for the odd ring topology they have. The fuse in type F was sarcasm, as this is unnecessary. Although some plugs in China, used for boilers and aircos, do come with one or a resetable fuse.
God these things are horrible. They're huge, they can't fold away, and they require fuses. And the receptacles all must have switches, and must be exactly the same.
Leave it to the British to shoot themselves in the foot for no reason. Why not Schuko / Europlug? Because we have to have our own standard that's worse, that's why.
Switches are not compulsory, they're just conventional. MK, for example, will happily sell you unswitched sockets (and without the "not to standard in the UK" warning for some of their other products).
Also not sure what you mean by "exactly the same". You can get single/double/triple in a variety of designs and colours. It's a socket - how much variation do you need?
I did not know switches weren't compulsory!
"A variety of designs and colors" I only see a very few actually available, even via the internet (when I've looked). But you're probably right. I lived in the U.S. for a while, where variety in receptacles is easily obtainable.
>Why not Schuko / Europlug?
Probably because the Brits had electrical appliances before the continent did.
That and because UK uses a ring circuit, which was seen as a solve for a copper shortage at the time.
Ring circuits generally way higher in power - and a lot more than a single appliance needs or could handle. Hence the need for a fused plug.
The upside is each socket can take a 13A plug (circa 3kW), whereas a standard US socket maxes out closer to 1.8kW.
Maybe true, but BS 1363 dates to the late 40s and the Schuko illustration below is from the early 30s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SCHUKO-Patent.svg
Rather, I think the British decided to iterate (for better and for worse) on their earlier design that looks a lot like BS 1363.
Personally, having lived for an extensive amount of time in places with Schuko ("Europe"), NEMA ("US"), and BS 1363 ("British") plugs/sockets, I will take Schuko any day over the other two. Schuko stays in place, is grounded when it needs to be, is flexible when it comes to how it leads the cord out of the plug/socket, and so on. For all the touting of safety, "no sparks", etc. that we hear about BS 1363, I have never seen it out of a Schuko (NEMAs on the other hand...). Yes, BS 1363 improves upon NEMA, but that is a very low bar.
I find those Schuko / Europlugs terrible, they never fit correctly (wildly different manufacturing tolerances between countries) and break easily.
Is there any data about how many people die in electricity related accidents? 230 V sounds like a dangerous voltage to touch. On the other hand I read a long time ago 120 V causes way more home fires because of higher currents.
North/Central America is kind of the outlier running on 100-ish volts. Most of the rest of the world runs on 200-ish[0]. Electricity-related deaths aren't exactly common worldwide. And yes, I can see 100ish causing more fires — given dissipated power scales with current squared, my 2kW tea kettle can't possibly be safe in the US.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country
To be fair, pages like the one you link only talk about the official standards, which mean very, very little in most of the world.
I wouldn't assume anything about voltage in much of South America / Africa / Asia. You're going to get a frankenstein NEMA-Schuko-Chinese power outlet that will give you some amount of power for some amount of hours in the day, for a definition of 'some' that no one will be able to specify for you with any great precision and that will vary from town to town.
Anecdotally, 230V is safer than 120. 120V will put you into fibrillation, whereas 230V will stop it.
Fires are generally caused by loose connections with higher resistance getting hot and catching something nearby on fire. The British connection in OP is much less likely to have a loose connection.
In my first aid class in a 230V country we were taught: Someone who got an electric shock always needs to visit the emergency room, even if they seem to be fine. Reason: fibrillation has to be ruled out or stopped.
So 230V stops it does not sound right. Whether there is any difference in probability I have no clue.
This is the first time I hear this and I doubt it’s true.
Typically the distinction is made between 50 and 60 Hertz, where 60Hz is typically considered safer(though I’m not sure if this is even true).
I am an electrician hence why I am curious.
I was told by the supervisor of my high voltage lab as part of the "one hand in your pocket" speech. It's also not hard to find similar statements via Google. Neither are definitive sources.
Ok, well it’s wrong. 230V is more dangerous than 110V, all else being equal.
It's not wrong. 110V is more likely to cause fibrillation. Fibrillation isn't the only way AC can kill you so which is more dangerous is more debatable.
The problem is that the risk of death is so low for both that people's perceptions are skewed. Everybody has been shocked by their household voltage a bunch of times, so they think it's no big deal. Until it isn't.
> On the other hand I read a long time ago 120 V causes way more home fires because of higher currents.
[citation needed]
All domestic mains plugs found in typical residential circuits all over the planet are ≤20A:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Com...
The vast majority of 120V plugs are 15A; if you want 20A it's actually a special case:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector#Nomenclature
So there are no "higher currents" used. If you need more power then a higher-voltage NEMA 6 plug, or a two-phase NEMA 14, socket is typically used.
For a 1kw appliance, with 220v it should be 48 ohms, but for 110v it needs to be only 12 ohms. So if you have a bad wire or connector, which has say 5ohms resistance, more of the voltage will drop across it. At 220v it will have 21v across it and be heated by 88W but at 110 it will actually have 32v across it and be heated at 204W. That could easily be the difference between a fire starting and not.
Americans have to worry about chaining power strips, or overloading them with the Christmas lights.
That's much less of a concern in 230V countries.
I do remember reading somewhere that for all the vaunted safety features of the plugs, etc, more people do in fact die in Europe and the UK than in the US from contact with the mains, precisely because of the 240V potential. (Definitely anecdata, would be curious about the hard numbers too!)
Of course, the trade off is much faster kettles. How many lives is faster tea worth? For the British, clearly the answer is 'yes'. :P
In the UK we use both 240V and 110V (nominal). Our supply is at 240V. Our appliances are pretty safe out of the box - several standards.
We also utilise 110V devices but that requires a step down transformer. I have one. My big hammer drill runs on 110V.
Fire is not caused by electric current. Fire requires a source of ignition and that's not EMF.
More details please.
> Fire is not caused by electric current. Fire requires a source of ignition and that's not EMF.
All electrical cable/wire is rated for so many amps and a certain temperature: if you mismatch the breaker and the cable ratings then you could allow too much current through, and because of I^2 resistance, a fire could happen.
Do a search for "Ampacity Chart".
If you're claiming the UK uses 110V, then you must also include that it uses 415V.
Both of these are only used outside domestic settings. (Until recently, 415V for a car charger is becoming more common)
110V is regularly used via transformers, generally for safety - 110V doesn't kick you as much as 240V. Perhaps I didn't emphasise that 110V is not grid delivered here.
I have a 110V transformer and a 110V rated SDS hammer drill. The idea is that if I manage to hit an electrical cable then I will probably not die, with luck.
We also have three phase which I think is normal in the US, for example and is why ethernet over power line is a bit fraught.
Big plug plus the little switch means that when stuck in London without an adapter I can just just loop some paperclips into my laptop's US type-a plug then jam them in a socket with confidence.
Just don't let go of a BS1363 lead; they hurt.
Treading on the upturned plug also isn't the nicest
It's pretty much impossible for a US plug to lie with the prongs facing upwards because there's no flat back
"Treading on the upturned plug also isn't the nicest"
No Brit ever used your turn of phrase or trod on an upturned plug. I've managed 54 years without doing it.
US plugs have a habit of working loose ...
Well I'm British and I've stood on one at least twice in my life.
Funny you think no Brit has ever stood on one when I've heard it joked about a bunch during my 40 odd years.
Its a meme and not "truth". "Everyone" knows that our plugs have three large prongs and if you step on one then it will hurt. However, incidents of actual treading are very rare.
Our plugs do have a shape that means they can lie with prongs up due to the flat shape of the plug. Other plugs tend to be cylindrical and hence will always lie horizontally out of habit.
However, look at the size of the things! A US (for example) plug has two thin prongs. A UK plug has three thick prongs with one (earth) longer than the other two. If you actually leave one lying on the floor and it happens to be facing upwards and you step on it then what happens.
Our feet are phenomenally sensitive. We are easily capable of stepping on something nasty and detecting it and reacting by lifting up before any damage is done. That assumes normal walking and not say jumping onto an upturned plug, or being pissed or whatever might impair your senses.
Funny you should use an idiom like "a bunch" and describe yourself as a 40 years old Brit and have a new account. Your accent implies Casterbridge.
We have slim plugs here in the US that fit nicely when you have furniture up right against the wall but still need to reach the plug. They have a flat back that definitely allows you to step on it.
It does double up as emergency mace if you happen to get into some medieval combat while at the office.
Someone should tell Trump that US plugs are weak and wimpy. He'll order the country to convert to 220V. No, 240V! Every transformer has to be re-tapped.
Obligatory Tom Scott video on the topic:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
Bonus: "Why Britain Uses Separate Hot and Cold Taps":
