ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Plug most likely to be encountered in Greek hotel

I remember impressing sparks from our old ungrounded receptacles (mostly trailing sockets and 3way adaptors), I've had 10cm long sparks in some instances when unplugging a small transformer or similar stuff. Plugging something into them can also result in impressing sparks, especially when the socket is dusty.
Anyway, nothing of that is near that spectacular our old gas heater was. A real fancy thing with ceramic tile all around, butt ugly and horrendously expensive, basically capale of heating a single room but taking as much gas as a combi boiler for an entire apartment.It had electronic ignition with thermostat and all. Sometimes it wouldn't ignite correctly, and when it eventually ignited a _huge_ flame would shoot out of the bottom front of the heater (I guess near a meter wide and half a meter high) with a loud thump. Scary!

There were still a few of those big old gas "geysers" in service in Britain in the early 1970s, so I know exactly what you mean! When the things finally decided to ignite, the resounding KER-THUMP-WOOSH! was pretty scary to the little kid I was at the time.

On the sparking plugs, it's possible to draw hefty sparks from any connector if there's a heavy load on it. I think the reason it doesn't seem so obvious with BS1363, Schuko, etc. is just the design which makes it harder to see them. The burn marks from repeated withdrawals under heavy load will certainly make their presence known over time, however, and I've seen BS1363 connectors pretty badly burned, especially the cheap "no name" brands.