Why do so many UK electrical sockets have an on/off switch next to them?
They're like that in this apartment we're renting and I keep seeing them elsewhere. I don't get it.
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They're like that in this apartment we're renting and I keep seeing them elsewhere. I don't get it.
the UK power grid is weird. mostly due to echoes of the war. used to be that, to save copper, the entire house and sometimes multiple houses on a street would be wired as one big loop of wire, no fuse box or anything. that's where the individually fused plugs and switched sockets come from. then, since it turned out to be quite a good idea for safety, they kept doing it.
This is the answer. When all sockets are connected to one big loop, there's fuses in each socket to prevent a device from screwing with the whole system.
This isn't strictly true. Most houses built between WWII and the '90s were built with sockets that didn't have switches on them. It was only later safety regulations / suggestions that made the switches preferable.
Where I live was built in the late '80s right before switched sockets became more common. All the original sockets have no switch. Some in the kitchen have switches, but it's clear these were added at a later date.
I'm not sure of the exact rulings and where and when a socket must have a switch, but you can still find switchless sockets for sale at the sorts of retailers who sell those sorts of things, so there are definitely places where those sockets are still allowed.
The old Ring Circuit
eastern block solution to copper shortages was to wire houses with aluminum instead of copper. this avoided all that bizarre bullshit that brits do, and in principle it's a good idea since aluminum is used for big time power distribution as well. this worked pretty well until it was noticed that under some conditions hot spots can form on connections over time, requiring replacement of connectors. it's still legal to use aluminum wires in some places, but copper is more common now
So that switch will trip like a breaker?
No - there's fuses in the plugs themselves, the switch is largely for convenience and safety - if you want to unplug something broken and potentially live, it's much safer to switch it off at the wall than risk a shock given the current limit is on the breaker is so high
Are folks able to replace the fuses without exposing live parts? I totally get the safety angle.
fuse is in plug and accessible only when plug is disconnected
it's also a very weird thing because fuses are supposed to protect what is downstream of them. so effectively fuse in plug protects cord and appliance only, not the wires in the wall. there's breaker box for this
Whoa. Thanks all!
It is safer for the fuse to be in the plug for those people who think they are electricians and end up causing house fires or bzzzt'ing themselves
i understand that it's remnant from times when fusebox wasn't a thing and it was an attempt at protecting ring circuit, that's all. it makes little sense
The screw to get to it is supposed to be on the side that would be facing the wall when plugged in so no
Where I live we would just turn off the breaker for that part of the house
When I bought the apartment I'm living in, the previous owner had refused all modernisation, even legal ones (he had mental problems), so the appartment had the original 1 hot wire going everywhere, you just "tapped" off power where you wanted to to ground. 1959 era.
Why are people saying this?
I've lived in multiple UK houses and never once seen a socket with a fuse. Are you saying this was change way way back in the day?
All houses have fuse boxes (which then got upgraded to circuit breakers). Not one fuses in sockets. Would be a fucking nightmare to take the socket off and change a fuse.
The fuse is actually in the UK plug (the big brick-like thing with the wire on it), not the socket. But yes, it's a thing, and most of the rest of the world considers it overkill. Also a lot of cheap junky equipment (ironically the stuff where you'd most want the fuse) omits the fuse in the plug, go figure.
Yea I know, I've wired a plug.
Never seen a fuse in a socket though. That comment is completely wrong and yet it's the most up voted reply.
Never seen a house without a fuse box either.
No fuses in the switch box though, it's a box of circuits breakers
Yea I know, I said that.
People still call them fuse boxes though.
I am not sure if I mispoke or misread. Apologies for implying ignorance, I just wanted to dump my mind
The used to be - I had a flat that used an old style fused breaker. Fun times trying to replace a fuse when it had blown...
Lol yeah can only imagine what playing 'hunt the bad device' would've been like back when those boxes had actual fuses on them. (That's the game where the main circuit breaker gets tripped and you have to figure out first what ring it's on, and then which specific item is tripping it)
Didn't the uk used to have appliances without plugs that you'd need to wire yourself If inrecalling that Tom Scott video correctly
Yes. I believe that's true but I've never done it myself.
sloppy wording, i meant "switched sockets and fused plugs".
Sorry but I'm going to need a source on that because there is no evidence of that being the reason UK plug sockets have switches
Other countries have switches on their sockets, Australia being one because I live here
Switches on sockets do make a ton on sense though for safety reasons for example if you need to quickly isolate electricity from the switch and the breaker hasn't done anything
Switches also prevent arcing when you pull out a plug if an appliance doesn't have an off switch and you can switch something off that you use commonly say a kettle but don't unplug because you use it commonly so theirs less chance of an electrical fault happening while no one is there and its also the same reason I'll demand an isolation switch be installed on electric stoves just incase the dail on the stove fails and the stove turns on
looking for a source is not hard. anyone can do it.
switches are not required by the bs1363 standard. the provision for them only arrived in the 1960s. there.
That's exactly what I do, because it's more convenient than unplugging everything.
I live in South Africa, where we had rolling blackouts (called loadshedding) for a few years. It's easier to switch everything back on when the power comes back than to plug it back into a socket without a switch, especially with my fucked up spine.
The electricity in the place I live was done poorly, so having something plugged in "live" risks a surge or something and then the appliance gets fucked and then everything smells like burnt plastic.
And that's the best case scenario. Others have had housefires.
Also, the South African plugs aren't pleasant accidentally to step on. It won't pierce your foot, but it can still hurt like a motherfucker for a few seconds if you step on it in the wrong way.
Those UK plugs do look a lot more nasty to step on. I shudder at the thought.
I like the EU and US two prong cables ( 🔌?) where the prongs are parallel to the cable, but not the cables with the orthogonal prongs.
Non-grounded plugs aren't that great, though, and once you add the third prong the plug gets much less flat. Compare:
Maybe Italy and Chile have the best idea in terms of slim grounded plugs, although the lack of polarity might be a problem?
Also, IMO right-angle plugs are often better than straight ones because you can put furniture closer up against them and do so without stressing the cable.
Yeah that is definitely a huge bonus. I've taken it for granted.
We're slowly adopting three pronged Italian/Chilean-type plugs that will be "backwards-compatible" with the EU plugs. I have no clue about polarity or anything like that.
New sockets include em. The original three pronged socket is kind of a hazard. Kids can stick their fingers in there. Not sure how that got approved.
Wait until you step on with bare feet an upturned UK plug. Worse than stepping on Lego
why would the lack of polarity be a problem? the outlets only deliver AC, and everything plugged into them are made for AC.
I gotta admit I don't entirely understand it either, but people claim it matters. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/why-is-the-correct-polarity-important-with-ac.979324/
Thanks, I hate it.
Makes sense, American lie voltage (outlets) are 120V. 240V is considered high voltage and isn't typically fed into residential units. Plugging anything rated for 120V into a 240V outlet is gonna be a bad time, and is why the outlets for high voltage are shaped differently.
I was gonna guess that the switches were too negate so-called vampire power, which is when a truck's of electricity flows into appliances that are normally off. IMO that trickle is so negligible in a residence that is 6 effectively irrelevant, but that's just here in the US. I don't know anything about foreign electrical systems.
240 is used all the time for furnaces, driers, and increasingly EV outlet connections.
It's just all our "normal" stuff is 120.
I wish our electric kettle outlets were 240. I'm unreasonably jealous that other places in the world can boil water faster!
I think you can have it, but you'd need to spend a pretty penny.
All it would take is calling an electrician to run the appropriate wiring from the place you want the kettle plugged in to you breaker box, connect it to the breaker box with the appropriate breaker, cap off the other end with the appropriate plug (a 240V plug does exist in America), and then buy a kettle capable of receiving the rated voltage and current and splice on the appropriate plug (because I presume you won't find one sold with that plug).
An extremely expensive way to save maybe three minutes boiling water, but you can do it.
How many devices do you have that don't have a switch on the device itself?
So we can turn the power on and off.
Why else would you have a switch next to a power socket?
Most of the places in the world I have been to do without them, or at least did when I was there, so it confused me. But some people have given good explanations now.
Open one up. There's also a fuse connected to the live wire. The amperage is dependent on the normal draw of the appliance. Just added safety features. Also the live and neutral holes only open up if you put the earth in first (that's why it's longer). British plugs are arguably the safest.... Unless you leave them prongs up and step on it accidentally. That makes stepping on Lego feel like a shag carpet.
It seems a bit overengineered for little gain compared to good old schuko imo
You were down voted for whatever reason. These outlets are complete bullshit. You have your safeties in the electrical cabinet and then you make sure to wire your house according to certain standards. Schuko is leagues ahead of this crap. Modern Schuko sockets will only allow anything to enter, when both prongs are inserted at the same time. If you do happen to short anything, the FI switch (no idea what it's called in English) will cut the power before anything can happen.
for anyone reading: FI -> RCD
The real question is why did the UK decide that on the outlet itself is the best place for that switch, as opposed to e.g. in the US where outlets are sometimes wired to a switch located next to the door to the room?
Switches located next to the door are for lighting, as opposed to switches on the socket which mean you can fully turn off your rice cooker without unplugging it. We do sometimes have sockets in the UK with the switch at the door, but they are usually a different shape socket that is designed for a lower current and is only intended to be used for floor lamps.
The specific-plugs-for-lamps think is very rare these days. The reason for it is that it's not uncommon for our plugs to be on a high amperage circuit - sometimes 30A, occasionally higher - that can't be safely controlled with a light switch or similar, so the lamp-only circuit will be capped at, say, 3A with unusual plugs to avoid someone trying to connect a tumble dryer.
Do you have individual switches for each plug socket / outlet wired next to the door? That seems like it would take a lot of wiring, and need a lot of switches.
The room I'm currently in has six double sockets spread out around the room. They each have one switch per socket like in the post's image. If they were wired back to the door, they would need a lot more wiring, and one of the two entrance doors would have to be chosen. You'd then have to walk to that door every time you wanted to turn something off.
It seems like a lot more work for no real benefit.
No, the rooms I've seen wired with lamp circuits would typically have one switch next to the entrance with several outlets wired together to it in the same circuit, along with another circuit of several unswitched outlets. Flipping that one switch would turn all the lamps on at once.
(More rarely, there might be two lamp circuits in a room, with two switches controlling two groups of outlets. I think my parents' formal living room might be like that, but we barely used it and I haven't lived there for 20 years, so I can't quite remember.)
Nah, that's what three-way switches are for: you can have a switch at each entrance that controls the same group of outlets.
So you don't get confused which outlet the switch turns off.
Having a switch next to the door would be useful if you're using that socket for a lamp but not if you're using them for anything else. In my kitchen the sockets for my under counter oven and fridge are under the counter and the switches are above it so I can easily access them.
That is specifically what switched outlets in north America are intended to be used for.
Why can't you just unplug it? If you have to go to the socket anyway... maybe I don't understand because I've never lived with the convenience?
It's easier to flip the switch to turn it back on than to fumble with the plug. You can get a variant without the switches if you don't like, or simply leave the switch always on.
Lots of wall warts suck down 5w unused. I could see this being nice
Depends on the device.
Something like a vacuum, sure. You're probably going to move it around anyway.
But I used to have a Spectrum computer, and it had no power switch. If you plugged it in then it was just on. Much simpler to power off at the switch than unplug it and risk the plug falling down the back of the table into a rats nest of cables.
Plus I guess it's one more step a toddler needs to do to electrocute themselves...
Something I've learned talking to my bri'ish friends online over the years: this happens to you guys because you have those switches. I cannot think of anything I've bought in the US that didn't have its own power control for when it's plugged into the wall (unless it's something silly that I made or, for whatever fucking reason, Christmas lights and ONLY Christmas lights as every other decorative string light I own has a switch)
Nvidia Shield has no switch either. If it crashes (and Disney+ is the main culprit causing that, along with full 4K Blu-ray rips on Jellyfin) you have to pull the power cable on it.
Even if you unplug it, the socket is still live at more than 200 V.
Maybe this was meant to be a joke, but that's not how it works. If it were the switch would also not do anything, because what the switch does is exactly the same as unplugging the thing, i.e. cut a piece of the wire out.
Edit: unless you meant for safety reasons, in which case the shutter inside is a lot safer than the button.
A switch shuts the supply to the socket. Even after unplugging the socket does have electric supply, i.e. it is live. If any metallic object is inserted into the live socket it can give you a worse shock. Since the voltage supply in UK is 220V not 110V.
Shutter inside is much safer than button but is slightly costlier.
Big if true.
Massive if correct
Large if accurate
Wee if wrong
I remember when I was young and bending down all the time was a thing you could do painlessly. Ah, youth.
Have you tried using your toes?
You can use your toes for switches.
Not when there are no switches and you have to pull out the plug everytime you want to switch off the appliance.
To turn them on and off.
Fair enough
This is virtually standard in Australia
Depending on who built the house, it's the standard for a "good" house in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and I think Kenya.
It is standard in NZ
Americans don't have this???
We do have ground fault circuit interrupt (GFCI) outlets, which are required when a socket is within a certain distance of a water source but can be installed on all outlets if you want. They have a little breaker inside that trips automatically if it detects a problematic difference in current flow.
They're not on/off switches but you could press the "test" button on the outlet to break the circuit.
I've also seen some whole outlets that are switched on/off from a light switch elsewhere in the room. Those are super annoying because there's no required indication that they work that way so you get to find out for yourself.
In my little Eastern European shithole, GFCI relays are required for any apartment or house, installed to the incoming power main. Is that not a thing over there?
wikipedia says that not for a long time:
american electrical code has so much of weird shit that would be illegal out there, it's dazzling. you can't get three-phase power as a regular customer, but you can as an industrial, but only as 480V interphase. there are like 7 different mains voltages available. it would be illegal in europe to come up with something like "high-leg delta" but it's a thing out there
You can install GFCI breakers, but it's not code to require them for every circuit.
Not just Americans. You won't even commonly see them in mainland Europe
most places don't. it's a very british empire thing.
Not that I have ever seen.
We just don't unplug anything ever. We usually have an room that's on a wall switch near the lights.
Nope. We're also on 120v so that could be part of it.
Sometimes we have specific plugs that are wired to a wall switch that can be used to turn those specific outlets on and off. All the examples I know of are for standing lamps, so they can be turned on an off like ceiling lights.
I've only seen this a few times, including my current house.
It's been code for a long time that every room must have a switched lighting source, and before recessed lights became more common or if the original builder didn't put a ceiling light or wall sconce, you'd have a switched outlet for a lamp. Typically it's only half of one outlet though, unless your house was wired by a crackhead like mine.
Only half of one outlet? That sounds super frustrating. I think it would take me a while to discover that the random light switch that doesn't do anything is related to the power point where only one side charges my phone.
Yeah, it makes sense from a functional standpoint, being that often you'll only want to switch on lamp, while having full constant functionality of the other plug.
You basically break that tab between the two screws, then wire the constant power to one, and the switch leg to the other.
But yeah, it's not always consistent where that outlet is located within a room. Like I have the tools to figure it out pretty quick, but you basically just have to take a lamp and plug it into each outlet with the switch off until you find it.
Yeah, I like the idea of being able to switch floor lamps and what not from the doorway. No-one likes the big light, right?
Not sure if I like it enough to implement it in my dream home though. Possibly with some kind of different shaped plug, or a colour code that matches the switch?
My plan for when we build is to run flex conduit for everything, so that if a want to add or move a switched outlet, the option is there.
Not having a switched light source makes some sense as most of the rooms in my house had ceiling fans without lights installed, which we switched to fans with lights. There was an extra switch for the light in the ceiling fan that didn't do anything until we put it in. The switches did go to the lower plug on a couple of outlets, which was fun to figure out since we hadn't come across it before!
We also have one switch that goes to an outlet about eight foot up on a wall that I assume was for some decoration to make it easier to turn on and off.
You, ceiling fan outlets count for that requirement, though it's entertaining when people install a fan without a light and wonder why their switch doesn't control a light lol. Any time I install a ceiling fan outlet, we always run a 3(+ground) wire cable, two switched power legs, for independent control of lights and fan.
I am so glad they wired it for a potential future light separate from the fan!
They sure skimped on a bunch of other stuff though, like a couple bathroom lights don't have proper mounting boxes because they didn't put a 2x4 in the right place and are just mounted to the drywall.
Yeah that happens sometimes, although there is a possibility that a previous owner added a switch after the fact, and had to install a larger box. Some guys will screw a nail-on box to the original mounting stud, but it's just as easy to add an old work box (the ones with the mounting wings) and call it a day.
I like them, personally. You don't have to use them but they are sometimes handy. I just spent 30 seconds feeling around a TV to turn it off only to discover it doesn't have buttons. Killed it at the wall.
It's not a deal breaker, in any case. The weird foreign convention I would like to shame is doors that require a key to open from the inside.
I usually see keyed from the inside locks when there is glass in/near the door to prevent someone from breaking the glass, reaching in and unlocking the door.
Can’t that be prevented by safety glass instead? Doors that need a key to open from the inside risk trapping people inside the building.
If a burger is gonna break the glass, a keyed lock isn't going to deter them. Unless it's like only a tiny glass window on the door.
If a burger is going to break the glass, it's either really bad glass or a really bad burger.
I stand by what I said.
Ugh. That annoys the shit out of me. Our dog chewed up the TV remote when she was a puppy, but only got to the power button. But since the TV had no physical buttons, we couldn't turn it on and off anymore until we got a new remote.
I have an old android phone I keep around because it has an IR LED on top and I loaded it with a few free universal remote apps. They all work offline and it's come in handy so many times.
Some new models also still include ir blasters. Good stuff
Huh. Where have you seen those? Seems dangerous.
We mostly just leave the key in them unless I'm going on holiday.
If somebody is going to steal my stuff while I'm away, I'm going to make them work for it.
They're used where there are windows close enough that, if broken by an intruder, the intruder would be able to operate the lock.
The better solution is, of course, to not use such doors.
You can't lock yourself out with those
But you can lock yourself in. During a house fire.
You can lock yourself in with the other type too.
No you can't. You can lock yourself out, but a typical residential house built to code in North America has a latch handle that always turns from the inside, even when locked, and usually unlocks by doing so to prevent accidental lock-outs. And likewise if the door has a deadbolt, it must have a deadbolt with a handle on the inside. Most other kinds of locks are also easily accessible and removed by hand from the inside. The point is that they can't require a key from the inside, because if you can't find the key then you are locked inside and in thick smoke and fire that the key may be impossible to reach. If any egress door requires a key to unlock from the inside it is considered a serious fire hazard and will never pass a code inspection. (Of course, foolish people can still add them later but you can't prevent stupid and it's still a fire hazard not to mention impractical)
These types of building code and fire code rules are typically written in blood. People have died because of this.
All house doors/egress doors in Brazil require keys to unlock. BUT (and it's a big but) most houses here are made of bricks, with ceramic roofs.
It does make sense to have easy-to-escape houses when they are built of flammable materials with an accelerant for a roof.
You can burn to death, though.
Safety, easier to switch things off without unplugging them. Why not have one if it's more convenient? Not all of them have switches though.
It made a lot more sense when things didn't have their own power switches but....what does that apply to anymore? How many devices do you own that are powered off exclusively by unplugging it? Why pay for the manufacturing time and material to add a switch if nothing uses it anymore?
There are still times where it's convenient. I have some display cases with integrated lighting and the inline switches are incoveniently between the case and the wall so its super handy to turn it on and off at the plug.
Being able to turn things off at the plug also reduces standby/phantom power when things are in sleep, which for some devices adds up more energy usage than you'd think.
Sometimes when people go on holiday for two weeks they like to disconnect the electrical items in their house for safety. With switched sockets you can just turn them off instead.
I'm sure I could live just fine without switched sockets, but it's convenient they are there.
Ah, now all of that makes sense! Thank you!
Fridge, washing machine, dishwasher, television, phone charger, robovac dock, lamps, computer monitor, aquarium pump... I could go on.
It's not strictly necessary, but it's a convenience.
Most of those have power buttons and, aside from the charger and vacuum, those things are supposed to stay on.
I meant more things like lamps that you actually turn on and off...And the majority lamps have switches nowadays, I'm not sure why you included it on your list
We're getting into the weeds a little bit here, but there's a lot of things that have power buttons that will put the thing into standby, not off. I've often done a 'hard reset' on my 'smart' tv when it starts acting up, just gotta cut the power.
It's a small convenience, but it's nice. I'll happily pay the extra three cents in manufacturing costs for something that lasts decades and may be occasionally mildly helpful.
Kind of off topic, but I've just gotta add that the safety shutters over the positive and negative terminals that only open when the ground pin (which is longer than the others on the plug) is inserted up top is brilliant, it basically makes short circuiting impossible. Electrical outlet design is one of the few things I'll concede the UK does better than the rest of the world.
I too am relatively envious of the UK's outlet design, I only hate how bulky and foot destroying they are.
Yeah, I can only tut and shake my head when non-Brits complain about stepping on Lego.
I'd like to think Australia has a nice middle ground design to their sockets/plugs without the foot destroying bulk. Still get the shutter variants for bathrooms too.
I like the Australian 90 degree plugs, too. Much slimmer than the UK ones.
Tom Scott has a video all about the UK power outlet plug and socket and it's an engineering marvel. The switch is just one feature.
The switch isn't really a a feature of the UK plug, rather just something they seem to have started doing with their sockets.
Well, the design of the plug also implies the design of the socket. I was born in the eighties, and I've never seen an electrical socket without a switch, except for the appliance socket used for the cooker, which is behind where you install the appliance - the switch is higher up, above the countertop where it is accessible.
Basic extension trailing sockets don't, most of the time unless you buy a snazzy one. But it's by no means a recent development.
Plug and socket obviously go together but I just mean that you could have the switches for any plug, it's not tied to the plug but just rather what socket plate (or what's the term) design is adopted. Schuko could have those switches, I think Yanks have them in newer plug plates and so on. It's just that the UK has adopted (in a standard or just commonly for some other reason) the switches.
Maybe, but with the switches on the sockets, I hardly ever unplug anything at all unless I'm moving it. Why would I?
So pretty much every time something's unplugged, it's in my hand or away in a cupboard, never lying on the floor.
The US is catching up in that regard, at least, with tamper-resistant (TR) outlets being mandated by the NEC since 2008.
It's balanced by light switches being outside of the bathroom, which I absolutely hate.
You can have a pull cord in the bathroom or a switch outside, as I understand it
You can't have standard switch inside?
I'm currently renting an Airbnb where the bathroom fan switch is in the living room, two rooms over
Good for announcing guests that you're going to take a shit and they'd better shuffle off
I present to you my favorite YouTube person:
The GFCI/RCD, a simple but life saving protector:
https://youtu.be/ILBjnZq0n8s?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFU62mIGZNag5vQ0a6tDGBpO
In defense of the Switched Outlet:
https://youtu.be/2DGqVbTHX-k
Electrical topics playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFU62mIGZNag5vQ0a6tDGBpO
I could just watch this guy all day lol
I expected Technology Connections or ElectroBOOM, was not disappointed.
One teaches what to do, the other teaches what not to do.
ElectroBOOM keeps me alive sometimes, and Technology Connections told me how to properly use a dishwasher.
A fellow human of great and distinguished taste I see
Great for turning off a device or several devices without having to unplug (e.g. if the sockets are behind a bookcase, this is much more convenient). Not a super common need but when it saves moving furniture it helps. Given that UK switches are tougher to plug in and unplug than most (due to safety features), I prefer using a switch. Also, the switches are cheap and give more options, so may as well!
I rely on one for a light where the switch broke and wasn't easily replaceable, so being able to fall back on the mains switch meant I can keep using the light.
It’s not about having a switch it’s about having the switch right next to the plug instead of next to the doorway (where it usually is in the US)
You have a switch for your electrical sockets by your door? What a weird place to put them all.
We have our light switches by the door. Much more useful.
It's common in the U.S., especially in apartments, to have rooms with no light fixtures. Instead, there will be one outlet that is wired to a switch by the door. That outlet is sometimes upside down to distinguish it from the other outlets. That gives you the option to connect a lamp to the switch to get the same result as having a light fixture. I would generally prefer that every room has a light fixture on the ceiling, but this is marginally better than having to walk across a dark room to turn on a lamp.
Huh, TIL.
Here in Australia every house I've been in that has an electrical connection has had a light of some form mounted on the ceiling of each room of the main structure.
It just shows how any assumptions we might make will be proved wrong at a global scale.
I mean there can be either outlets or light fixtures connected to them, generally the switched outlets have lamps plugged in though.
And we have that too.
We are talking about standard sockets, they all have off switches on the socket.
As I understand it (thanks technology connections), the sockets linked to light switches are made that way in case you want to have like a floor or desk lamp and turn it on when you enter the room
UK household electricity is pretty spicy compared to many other places - it has more safety features as a result. (3 pinned fused plug, socket switches etc)
Isn't it just 230v 50 Hz like most of the world?
Apparently around 65-70 % of the world population (with access to electricity) has 230v 50 Hz.
How is it more "spicy" than anywhere else in Europe?
A lot of dodgey wiring.
Do they have the wiring on the outside of the houses so it's easier to repair?
I've heard in UK they tend to do such things.
No, it's usually buried in the wall behind the plasterboard. Although it is possible to use surface trunking. It's quicker and therefore cheaper to use trunking with less making good afterwards
It was a joke on UK putting water pipes on the outside of their houses.
Making them sometimes freeze and burst in the winter, but it's easier to repair. 😋
Well duh, they freeze and burst in winter so they obviously need to be outside for easier repair! Think of the mess they would make if they were inside the walls.
Absolutely, it's not the UK that are crazy, it's everybody else.
Hmm the only water pipes I’ve ever seen outside are for the garden hose 🤔
In our defence, most of that is legacy from the post war rebuild (copper shortages etc). The modern regs are comparable or better than a lot of places.
There's enough of the dodgy stuff around that it needs to be accounted for, but it's being phased out as new stuff it built or renovated.
The many other places is the US
And Japan, and Canada, and Mexico, and the majority of South America, and a handful of countries in Africa and the Middle East.
I was mainly referring to almost all of the American continent(s), lots of Africa, China and a few other places too. I didn’t think I’d mentioned Europe.
The rest of Europe has 220V as well and they don't have switches on their outlets.
I have been with 110v plenty of times used to wire houses in my youth. Been hit once with 220v knocked me on my ass for 3 days. I stopped being so cavalier after that I wish they had those outlets vs the midevil outlets the US has.
I like the integration of the switch, should be standard. I use many switch plug-ins just to avoid stand-by consumption (it really adds up over the year) and to avoid high pitch humming on some devices.
YSK: there's also remote controls for these switches, very handy
I'm not an electrician, but wouldn't remote control imply that something still remains on standby? So that it can receive a wake-up signal, if nothing else.
Indeed so but the power draw is very miniscule.
As any cautious parent could tell you, these are helpful when the toddler starts sticking things in places where they don't belong. Such as metal cutlery. In the power sockets.
Don't toddlers start pressing buttons even earlier? Not sure this alone could protect them
True, but this is at least a little safer
The shutters inside the socket are more effective at preventing Anthony from being stuck in.
I think you meant to write "anything", but I have to laugh anf think this could be another internet moment like what started "Karen" or "Chad" or "Stan".
Er... I stand by what I said...
This isn't the reason.
The switch is more likely to attract a toddlers attention. Some have little red lights even. It would be false sense of security at best. You can get those plastic blank plugs to stop your kid putting a fork in there.
The switch is so, if you kid is being electrocuted by putting their fork in the toaster, you can turn it off at the wall without having to touch the electrified kid.
"so many"?
isn't it all of them?
No not all of them.
Source, I was born here.
i live in malta, we inherited your plugs and sockets. Never seen one without a switch over here. Til
All of them in the UK.
Being a uk person its cause they can & its also in to building / electric code. Its just a switch that breaks the live leg, stops sparking when plugging in stuff.
Your sockets spark when you plug something in?
I've definitely had that happen to me, sort of at random, in the U.S.
But it doesn't seem to have any effect. It's not like a gigantic spark and it's pretty contained.
Oh I've never seen that in the US, maybe I just didn't notice
Laptop power bricks is probably where I see it most. Or if you plug in something with a motor already switched on. Listen for a soft popping noise if you plug in a big power brick.
You're right, now that I think about it. Laptop power does it more than anything else.
Many, many big power-smoothing capacitors inside those jumping from 0 to 120V in a microsecond, that's why. The better-smoothed the power supply, the more capacitors and the bigger the sparks tend to be, although some really high quality ones put most of them behind inrush-current limiters to reduce the sparking, but that can also marginally reduce efficiency. High power electronics are always a bit of a tradeoff. The problem is that capacitors charge and discharge almost instantly in most cases, and when empty they act like a short circuit until they're filled, so they can create some pretty big sparks, even though the actual energy going in is minuscule by any reasonable measurement. It's almost like a static shock, huge spark, tiny energy.
Some motors will also spark badly when disconnected, but the reason is slightly different. They have a huge electromagnetic field which suddenly fills or collapses and that inductance in the coils can draw a lot of amps on startup and generate some pretty high voltages, more than enough to spark across the gap. Like the capacitors, they are very nearly a short circuit until they start moving.
Ah, this is fantastic. I learned some stuff, thank you.
Home electricity in North America has roughly half the voltage as elsewhere in the world, and double the voltage is double the arcing potential, so that figures.
No, unless something is very wrong. I don't know if that was maybe a bigger problem with older devices though. I remember being taught to turn the socket off before plugging things in or taking them out when I was a kid
All will if there is a load. Doesn't matter ac of dc or even load. Plug an ethernet cable in and there will be a spark.
Most of the time the spark is tiny and you need a good lab to measure it though.
Everything you'd want to know about British wiring and my introduction to Tom Scott:
https://youtu.be/UEfP1OKKz_Q
No one seemed to mention the important fact that UK and I think most Europe is a higher voltage than the US. Tom Scott as well as Technology Connections have some good videos on the whys and differences it causes.
As on the Wikipedia map, you see it's essentially North and Central America, Japan, Taiwan and some Pacific islands plus some countries where there is a mix of standards.
It's also kind of misleading. This map labels North America as 115-120V like everyone always does, when in fact it's ALSO a 240V system, it's just that the "common" plug and the "typical" circuit don't use it, they only use half of a center-tapped 240V line. So that's the "standard" they choose to use to label the whole system.
But it's kind of unfair. It's 240V coming into the house just like everywhere else in the world, except you also get the choice for it to be 120V. Being split-phase makes it easy to run multiple 120V circuits with a minimum of wire and still allows 240V for high-wattage appliances on their own dedicated circuits. It's actually a very clever system and basically every house is effectively supplied with both voltages. It's often poorly utilized, yes, with a few practical limitations and a lot of limitations due to historical conventions, but as a technical design it's really kind of the best of both worlds, and it could be utilized a lot more effectively than it is.
If I was allowed to have an outlet with two 120V sockets, and one 240V European-style socket, there's no technical reason I could not safely do that in a single outlet box. I could choose to plug in whatever I want at either voltage as long as it wasn't more than 15 amps. Of course code would never allow that, because we consider the higher voltage "more dangerous" but it's always right there, across two opposite phase 120V lines. We're just not allowed to use it, except for large electrical appliances like air conditioners and clothes dryers. It's frustrating.
By that logic, Europe should be labeled with 400 V, as this is the voltage between any two of the three 230 V phases connected to each household.
It is commonly used to power ovens or instant-on water heaters (Durchlauferhitzer, not kettles). Crafts, industry and even some households have IEC 60309 5-pin connectors for movable heavy gear.
UK kettles use the standard 240V mains and it's excellent. Under 2 minutes to boil 3 US Pints with a 3000 Watt kettle.
France used to have 110v too, it started to be phased out and replaced by the 220v in the 1950s.
Not related but another surprising thing about our shared standards is that Sweden used to drive on the left until 1967. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
Safety and convenience versus the cost of including them, I expect.
The Wikipedia page for BS 1363 says they're optional and weren't added to the standard until 1967. I can't recall having seen a domestic socket without one.
But it seems the only legal way to read the actual standard is to pay for it, and even the HSE website isn't much help.
So basically, this concept was invented by a committee.
Yes, but what's your point here? "Oh no, someone preserve us from... *checks notes* a group of subject matter experts!"?
If that annoys you for some reason, you'd best not learn how the overwhelming majority of products and services see the light of day. Rage aplenty awaits.
I didn't have a point, I had a question. And it doesn't annoy me, I just didn't know why.
Why are people giving me shit for asking a stupid question in the stupid questions community? Is there a supremely stupid questions community I should have asked instead?
Your original question was answered by numerous people in the spirit of the community, so you have got best answers it can provide at the moment, but your follow-up comments suggest that you don't think so.
But I may have misjudged your intent, as looking further I can see you've been replying to comments individually. My initial impression was that you were masquerading statements as questions. If I have that wrong, then my apologies.
I was genuinely trying to understand.
Yes. Welcome to the UK. You will need to adjust to small aggravations such as this. Good luck.
To turn shit on or off
Having grown up with it I missed those tbh. Makes saving power easier lol
Does it? Can't you just turn off the device instead?
yes.
Im from the states and live in Ireland. Here, people unplug lamps when they leave for the weekend. Dozens of times, I've had to plug lamps back in when coming into the office over a weekend or things like Christmas break.
I've also had to explain to at least 5-6 people that something that does not draw power by being plugged in, such as a toaster, electric kettle or light fixture (unlike a computerized device that has a stand-by mode) is not "wasting power" unless you unplug it or turn the outlet switch off.
I had a person at a party tell me their father was an electrician and taught her to turn the switches that lead to anything such as lamps OFF when they're not being used because it costs electricity to "keep the wire charged". True story.
Mainly they exist because there weren't central fuse boxes for a while due to wartime copper shortages.
Lol what a donkey. For anyone that's unaware, your meter spins when current is flowing, when a device is actively using power. If there's no current flowing, the meter isn't spinning. Just because a wire has potential doesn't mean it's actively drawing current, it only means it's ready to do something, and any device that has the main feeder going through a physical switch (ie no standby like a computer or tv) has zero current path when the switch is open/off. Even devices in standby are drawing such a negligible amount of power that it doesn't matter.
My mom used to unplug everything all the time, and it took years to convince her that's not how that works. She only finally got it when I became an electrician.
You can test this theory yourself if you have a multimeter. Select ohms/continuity, and put the leads across the two prongs. If there is a resistance value present, it will draw current. If it says OL or 0 ohms, that means open line and it won't draw anything.
the only thing that would make a shred of sense would be reactive power from plugged but unused transformers and the like, and for this reason you should disconnect these when not in use. but the only loads of this type that matter are welders and such
Someone elsewhere in the thread pointed out that the Wikipedia page for BS 1363 says they’re optional and weren’t added to the standard until 1967.
huh! shit. thanks
A lot of devices can be turned off, but they still use power. So you can waste electricity even though the devices are "off".
Things like normal table lamps aren't the problem, it is stuff like TVs, computers, stereos, etc.
I thought that's building code, literally never seen any other outlets in the UK, as well as in Malaysia where they adopted the system. Though why it is or became code, I've no idea.
also small child/baby protection.
But who will protect the big babies?
How does the switch protect children?
if it is a small child it is assumed that the joint probability of both turning on the switch and inserting a fork through the holes is roughly the product of probabilities of each (therefore lower than each individually), i.e both events are independent.
Have you tried to stick anything metal into one of these plugs? It is fairly todler proof. I think a 7 year old has the dexterity to defeat it but certainly not a baby.
Manufacturers sell the wall sockets in both switched and unswitched versions so I would say the switch is just there for convenience of the user.
It seems that maybe in the 60s having a switch on the wall was very useful because most electrical devices would have been designed to be switched on or off from its mains power connection (like lamps, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, electric whisk, etc). I assume the standard was to have a switch as this gave a little extra functionality. Today however many electrical devices have digital electronics that don't expect to be power cycled and so a switch is not really a feature but an inconvenience (think smart bulb, or Apple TV).
No, hold on a second, let me try and come back.
Joking aside, I agree something like what you explained was probably the original reason. But I have seen some parents praising the switch mechanism for this reason as well but perhaps because they are more used to old European type plugs which does not have the internal security feature of UK plugs
Agreed, most people I have asked also think the switch is an additional safety feature. I can see that it is helpful to isolate a device and so can make using all manner of devices safer, but it requires that you know what the switch does and when and why you would switch it so this kind of excludes babies and toddlers.
My wife is from North America and common knowledge there is that wall sockets are just incredibly dangerous at all times. The UK style plug is quite different.
Children love playing with the switch, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to protect them.
That's to make up for how incredibly dangerous they are. /joke
in America many houses have the on off switches with the lights on the other side of the room for lamps etc
Not positive but those could be GFI outlets.
All modern wiring in the UK has every socket in the building connected via RCD (the more common name for GFCI outside America), but they're usually in the main fusebox/consumer unit rather than individually per socket. These are just normal on/off switches for the convenience of being able to turn things on and off.
That's a convenience we could all use, pretty crafty!
Saw a video of how the Japanese wire their panel's and thought it was pretty genius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqClY6PDCW0
Is it similar across the pond? Or is it like here where you can GFCI the panel through a breaker?
That's what I thought at first, but it's literally every socket in this building both inside the apartment and outside in the hallways, and I keep seeing it in other buildings too.
Yup, they are the standard.
Would be fun to see some stories about you discovering things in the UK and how they are so different than in the US!
I am doing that, but I'm sort of putting them in appropriate threads. Otherwise I'd be writing a novel. Or I suppose creating a Flying Squid in Britain community. Maybe if I get less exhausted at some point I'll post something long.
All plug points in India also have (regular sized, not these tiny ones) switches to control them
Huh, it's interesting- Here the power switches are a similar size to the UK, so when I searched up a picture of the Indian switches I thought they were ridiculously giant, not like regular sized UK/Australian ones
I guess it's just whatever you're used to is the 'regular'.
Are light switches the same? What happens when you have a lot of switches together, like six or eight? Do you just have really wide banks of switches?
Yeah there are cases where you have to take a sharpie or a label to know which ones are which when there are too many switches all setup together
They usually look like this though
The one closest to the plug point controls it
For safety I guess?
I don't get how that makes it safer.
So when the dumb person tries to insert a fork in the plug, they don't die electrocuted.
Have you seen the list of safety features on UK plugs and sockets? The sockets have shutters in them that prevents anything being inserted into the live or neutral sockets unless the (longer) earth pin of a matching plug is inserted first.
Having said that, I agree: seems to be a belt-and-braces approach. No downsides.
And it allows you to cut power to an appliance without having to remove the plug.
In my work, I've learned that when you see a safety measure that looks overkill and that "no one can't be that stupid" to do what the measure keeps you from doing is because, in fact, someone was that stupid.
Warning signs and safety regulations are written in blood. I call the certificates of Darwin awards.
Sockets with flaps are code in the us too and have been for a while.
Isn’t the USA 2 pin for many outlets, though. So there is no earthing. The uk socket requires the earth connection to be made by the longer earth pin on the plug before the flaps will open.
yes but you have to open both shutters at the same time. The ground doesn't have a shutter.
No, because the ground carries no voltage. It's literally connected to the ground to route any electricity away from the appliance in case a person touches it.
There are already slats so the only hole you can get a fork into is the earth, unless you've already got something convincingly shaped like an earth pin in the earth hole to open the slats over the live and neutral. If you're going to that much effort to zap yourself, the switch isn't going to be much of a hurdle.
I'd suspect that it's largely because it's more convenient to have a switch than to unplug things and plug them back in again, especially as our plugs are a nightmare to step on to the point that Americans complaining about stepping on lego seems comical to anyone who's stepped on lego and a plug.
Some of our sockets now have interlock type slats. Not only do you need to insert the earth pin first, but you also have to insert the live and neutral together. Now, even if you wedge the earth open, you still can't insert a fork into the live.
at least in part it's an end result of decades of crud and tech debt, so to speak, accumulating in british power grid and home wiring. they do it this way because otherwise it won't be safe. continental euro home wiring usually has thicker wires, residual-current circuit breakers and no ring circuits so we get away without fuzes and switches, and with smaller plugs that don't become caltrops. sometimes we do have ring circuits kind of thing, but not in house wiring, instead it's in medium voltage distribution grid, and it's sized so that it can serve most of loads after single failure.
::: spoiler explanation in normal state, medium voltage line (like 15kV, 20kV) might branch out in rural terrain from substation to two or more places. in case of single failure, mildly common after storms, everything downstream would be down. instead, to increase reliability, every few km there's a radio-controlled switch and some of the far ends have line between them that is usually disconnected. in case of single failure, damaged segment is cut off, and the far end of the loop switch gets closed. this way power is delivered the long way around the loop, allowing for repairs of the damaged sector in the meantime. this also specifically avoids some of problems of ring circuits especially in situation when some lines might be damaged. :::
We got wm in Australia as well.
when any electricity leaks out (for example through your body) it switches off. the eu also has the same system, but its one switch for your entire house. the us also has this but only in bathrooms.
These aren't automatic switches, but other people explained the reasoning.
oh, according to electroboom they were gfci.
They're connected to an RCD, as modern UK wiring has all sockets connected via an overall RCD in the fusebox, but the switches on the socket are just basic on/off switches.
GFCI circuits are required by code around sinks and the like. Bathrooms, kitchens, utility wet rooms, etc.
You can relatively easily install them anywhere you want though.
Edit: The usage and benefits are the most obvious ones that you would imagine
If they were obvious to me, I wouldn't have asked about it in No Stupid Questions.
I apologize for being stupid if that's what you were wanting.
You're good my friend. I'm sorry for seeming judgemental!