My house doesn't seem to have enough power sockets. Where my home entertainment unit is I've plugged 4 power boards with 4 sockets each into each other. Can this cause problems? Is this dangerous? If so what are the alternatives. Should I get more sockets installed?
It's not dangerous, if you draw too much power the circuit breaker will trip. The wiring is rated to a higher current than the circuit breaker so you shouldn't have any problems.
As the other poster said, it's not dangerous in itself. If you have the correct wiring and overload protection you have nothing to really worry about. Even the $3 Bunnings power boards have overload protection. If you need lots of outlets though you are best off getting an 8 outlet board and changing your power point to a dual. So you can get 16 outlets without stacking boards.
We officially aren't allowed to use ANY power boards at work, but of course we do otherwise we wouldn't be able to power up our computer let along get any work done. It used to be a few years back that we were allowed to use power boards but *not* stack them, but in the last few years the OH&S drones have told us no power boards at all.
My house doesn't seem to have enough power sockets.
** Very common problem.
** Not really - but using a 6 or 8 way board makes more sense.
** Last time I asked a sparkie - the max number of power outlets permitted on a single 15 amp rated circuit was 20 ( doubles count as 2).
If you have a 15 amp rated circuit then all of your outlets would have to be rated at 15 amps or more, for example, pulling 15 amps through a
10 amp outlet would burn out the outlet. 15 amp outlets aren't very common and 15 amp plugs even less so. I think you'll find the rules now say you can have as many outlets as you like as long as it's protected by a circuit breaker that limits the maximum current to whatever the rest of the circuit is rated to.
** Domestic appliances cannot be approved if they can draw greater than 10 amps rms (continuously) via a standard 3 pin plug - so a 10 amp 3 pin power plug and outlet are not overloaded.
The breaker in the fuse box protects the *cable* inside the wall - 15, 16 or 20 amp ( thermal /magnetic) breakers are seen on most domestic power circuits.
Modern multi-way power boards have 10 amp *thermal breakers* fitted to them SO their cable and 3 pin plugs are protected.
The limit on the number of installed power outlets on a single circuit in a domestic situation has varied over time and from state to state. The "sparkie" I asked was in NSW.
You obviously haven't worked in the companies I've work for! ;-)
Conflicting rules and standards are simply a way of life. Common sense and reason do not exist when everyone serves more than one master. If you sit there and refuse to do anything until they fix something, they won't fix it, they will simply order you to bend the rules. Or they invent a formal process to allow you to bend the rules in this instance etc, but then it all just changes at the next restructure anyway... It's even more complex in multi-national organisations were rules can come down from overseas HQ that don't make any sense here, but that's the way it is.
OH&S will have a rule like this power board thing, and they might report to someone overseas and 3 levels and several divisions removed from your boss. You complain to your boss about it, and literally nothing can be done because of the signal-to-noise ratio that exists between your boss and the OH&S department head. It's all fundamentally impossible to fix.
So you have the option to a) Quit, b) Go insane, or c) Simply ignore the rule.
Oh, and you have to learn that everything is your fault anyway! :->
Well that sparkie got it wrong! The old rules (1991) specified 8 or 15 for a 16A circuit if protected by a HRC fuse or circuit breaker, depending on the number of circuits, and doubles only counted as one.
The 2001 rules don't have an arbitrary limit on the number of socket outlets per circuit.
"rob" wrote in news:44b0dd7c$0$14073$5a62ac22@per- qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au:
Of course, if no-one has left the company for a while, responsibilty for all such things reverts to Some Cnut!
"Ahhh, Some Cnut stole me pliers!"
"Some Cnut's made a right royal balls-up of this!"
I reckon that once we track down Some Cnut, his mate "What Bastard", and that woman in China who gives birth to a baby every four seconds, and deal with them, the world will be a much nicer place!
GB
--
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the
entrails of the last priest." (Diderot, paraphrasing Meslier)
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