Internal wiring of USA v UK mains plug

240-volt, single-phase plugin window-mount a/c units are very common in the US south, in older homes. They are nearly essential to survival.

John

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Dunno... Just kind of lost track of the thread, I guess.

I've been in this house for about 14 years with zero electrical problems. The British stuff is no doubt more reliable, but both are plenty good enough; the US stuff works and is a tiny overall hazard to life compared to other things.

John

All three pins on the other end of an IEC power cord are flat blades.

John

My previous house, a Victorian built in 1892, had gas pipes leading to all the lighting fixtures, capped off, and exposed knob-and-tube wiring in the attic. Junctions were twisted and taped, hanging in mid-air. I assume the original wiring was intended for lighting, and over the years, as more loads were added, it became less suited. I had a few joints open up, and eventually rewired it with Romex, with all joints inside proper metal junction boxes. There's still a lot of ancient fabric-insulated, twisted-junction knob-and-tube stuff around.

It's common to see a fuse box, designed for 5 or 10-amp screw-in fuses, to be full of 30's.

Around here, knob-and-tube was succeded by mandatory rigid steel conduit and later, roughly 1960 maybe, Romex. Commercial buildings must still use conduit, rigid metal pipe or the flexible MX stuff. There is no requirement that old construction be upgraded, unless a major remodel is done.

John

In addition, there are at least a couple of different 240v outlets used for clothes dryers. In fact that's one appliance commonly supplied 'minus' a cord...the appropriate one being fitted at time of installation.

jak

of

design

Physically, perhaps, but inasmuch as the IEC connector is a temporary connection (and user replaceable), and the Edison is supposed to be permanent...not the same at all.

Electrocution rarely if ever results from a faulty connection, although the Edison plug design is prone to tampering and accidental shock hazard by children. It's possible to partially insert the plug and little fingers to get on the exposed--but energized--prongs.

Perhaps you're referring back to an earlier part of the thread, but there is nothing in this post about electrocution. Rereading the above, it is about the propensity of the common Edison socket to wear out and cause intermittent connections.

FIRE hazard, not electrocution.....

Those hazards are being addressed. What does the above have to do with the shortcomings of American Edison sockets?

jak

Are you really saying no-one ever unplugs things withoutout turning them off first? I really doubt it.

NT

snipped-for-privacy@care2.com wrote in news:1183330881.790940.287160 @n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

Some equipment simply has no off switch..

Who cares? I unplug and plug in items that are turned on all the time, worst case you get a little spark, it doesn't cause any problems. It's not hot enough to pit the plug prongs or contacts.

I really can't recall reading about anybody being electrocuted inside a house. I do recall a case involving a swimming pool. Typically, someone manages to get across a 2.4 KV line; there one of three things that will happens: 1 - you get bad burns and live, 2 - you fall off the ladder and die of the fall, 3 - you die of the electrocution. Probably the worst case is somebody holding on to an aluminum ladder with both hands that comes in contact with an electric wire. Your chances of being electrocuted due to casual contact with a 120 line are pretty much nil.

Tam

of

design

That might generate a tickle. The geometry is very unlikely to be lethal. Chewing on cords, especially by pets, is a more serious hazard, and 240 is a lot worse than 120 there.

I don't have access to the statistics, but I really doubt that the American plug/socket combo is a significant source of fires.

John

All European countries want to, with the quite influential exception of Germany. I seem to remember having read that Germany was the world's biggest cigarette exporter. That and some EUR 14b annual tobacco tax income say progress is going to be slow, but there is some.

robert

may not seem so at first, but this will damage the contacts and lead to the formation of carbonised areas. And more noticeable stateside what with the limited 'actual' contact area between the US plugs and sockets - I would avoid plugging in or removing plugs of live equipment for reliability reasons.

-B

Its well known that repeated small sparks make a total mess of the contact surface. This was one of the problems of our olf round pin system half a century ago.

NT

Dont think I've ever seen pet chewed cords here, maybe different checmicals get used in the plastic or something.

120 0r 240 would kill either way.

NT

My cats love our Apple products, which have soft vinyl cords. They won't touch my Intel-based systems. Smart cats, no?

240 is much more likely to kill.

It's not clear that the paper is relevant, and I'm not going to buy it to find out. Having designed equipment with, likely, a few million

1-amp-and-up connections, and no meltdowns much less fires so far, I'm skeptical. And a US electrical plug is hardly "a current-carrying loose copper wire connection."

John

You'd have to explain that. Most of the old round pin sockets were switched - unswitched was a short lived fashion with 13 amp stuff. At least in my experience.

The old round pin sockets were far more likely to be overloaded, though.

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*How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost? *

    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
                  To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Yes it is, and I'm perfectly aware of the fact. OTOH, replacing with original equipment is far more responsible than doing what most people do: replacing with a three prong outlet and either leaving the ground to float...or worse yet, bonding ground to neutral.

Eventually, all those two-blade outlets will be rewired properly, with new circuits added. I've done about 25% of the house so far, but it's slow going....

jak

jak