Discuss Replacing a Socket the 4 Homes way in the UK Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net
eccept it wouldnt restrict the number of flexes Adam.....all it will do is encourage the use of those unfused boxes with 3 outlets on em.......and i think they should be banned from sale myself......Never mind the minor details of 'how to do it', I'm slightly concerned about WHY someone would use this information - changing a single socket for a double where the (presumably qualified) original designer of the installation has elected to install a single socket rather than a double.
This may have been to restrict the number of flexes coming from the socket, eg for only occasional use of a vacuum cleaner in a hallway rather than running flexes across or around doorways,
or to restrict the amount of current that can be drawn from one point, such as with a switched fused socket for a specific appliance, or even a 2A round pin lighting socket.
The single sockets are pretty common in houses wired in the 80's a before it. Another common single socket is Economy 7 storage heaters removed when central heating put in and the old electrical point changed for a single socket.Never mind the minor details of 'how to do it', I'm slightly concerned about WHY someone would use this information - changing a single socket for a double where the (presumably qualified) original designer of the installation has elected to install a single socket rather than a double.
This may have been to restrict the number of flexes coming from the socket, eg for only occasional use of a vacuum cleaner in a hallway rather than running flexes across or around doorways,
or to restrict the amount of current that can be drawn from one point, such as with a switched fused socket for a specific appliance, or even a 2A round pin lighting socket.
A few years ago I did a year as a volunteer with my local fire service,and was shocked to learn that most house fires are caused by 2 things,candles and double adapters I remember being told at the time that something like75% of domestic electrical fires were caused by using adapters,in the modern age they should be outlawed,I make a point of telling people about the fire risk associated with them and the fact that it,s not only the amount of plugs but also the strain placed on the contact tubes in the host socket,which weakens them and leads to arcing.eccept it wouldnt restrict the number of flexes Adam.....all it will do is encourage the use of those unfused boxes with 3 outlets on em.......and i think they should be banned from sale myself......
They seem to have removed the guide, at least I can't seem to access it. I did get an email response from channel4 saying they'd look into it.
If someone's got an adaptor why would they plug it into the hallway and run cables through doorways when they could use the adaptor closer to where they need it?eccept it wouldnt restrict the number of flexes Adam.....all it will do is encourage the use of those unfused boxes with 3 outlets on em.......and i think they should be banned from sale myself......
a situation i have come across at my mothers house....1.5mm T&E feeding a 2 gang outlet...no worries..its been done away with has that one..lol...If someone's got an adaptor why would they plug it into the hallway and run cables through doorways when they could use the adaptor closer to where they need it?
I was under the impression they had been banned, or at least no longer conform to British Standards, but that won't remove them all from circulation.
When I was a kid the danger of overloading sockets was fairly widely publicised with pictures of multi-way adaptors plugged into a single socket, but here we have channel 4 telling people to change single sockets for doubles with no mention of considering the cable supplying them. Remember changing 2 single sockets for a double allows the same additional current to be drawn as an unfused 3 way adaptor, the difference is the 3 way adaptors have been widely discouraged.
Also as I mentioned this could include someone changing the single 2A lighting sockets for double 13A sockets, or changing that 2 way light switch which they rarely used and 'converted' to a socket into a double socket.
Whichever way you look at it a single 13A socket is limited to 13A, whereas a double one is, well, doubled, to 26A.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with double sockets, but the circuit has to have been designed for them, which the channel 4 website doesn't mention.
a situation i have come across at my mothers house....1.5mm T&E feeding a 2 gang outlet...no worries..its been done away with has that one..lol...
nope....5A BS3036......and they were running a kettle off it....lol....Unless it was fed from a 13A FCU though? Daz
I've just been asked by a friend to replace 3 double sockets with the newfangled 3 socket thingies that fit in a 2 socket box. All in a kitchen ring wired back to a fusebox (I use the term advisedly). Is this safe?
Usually these sockets have a very "fisher price" build quality. I fitted some in a kitchen once, to convert singles to doubles without disturbing tiles. Within a few months 2 of the doubles were down to only one outlet working on each, and insertin/removing plugs had become very stiff and difficult.
Load of crap basically IMHO.
I'm guessing the unit is one of these or similar:Does it have an innline, on board 13A fuse?
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