ECN Electrical Forum
Discussion Forums for Electricians, Inspectors and Related Professionals

Following rules is quite right (in most cases I guess ) but rules have to be made by someone... however, common sense doesn't seem to be the strong side of lawyers and politicians in any country of the world (if they have it, they certainly don't like to apply it!).

TR, I think you've hot the nail on the head there.

No longer is the emphasis on 'making things work.' Rather, it is a desire to 'be beyond criticism,' or to have 'met requirements.' There's an overwhelming attitude that everything is interchangeable.

What fool would make, or buy, a $10 item when theres a $1 version available?

My answer? The same "fool" who buys a $50,000 BMW in preference to the $5000 Yugo.

Buy Rags you get Rags I was told when Young & Theres a lotta Truth to that statment.

The old, and indeed the current, British regulations are a bit fixated on the notion that appliances MUST be protected by quite low rated fuses to prevent fire due to spontaneous combustion of cables.

This led to a situation in the old BS546 system (the old round-pin British plugs) where small appliances, with thin cords e.g. radios, lamps etc had 2 or 5 amp plugs which were connected to socket outlets that were on 2 or 5 amp circuits and so on. Each plug was incompatible with every other socket, preventing someone from 'accidentally' plugging a 5amp appliance into a 15A circuit and so on.

The practice elsewhere was to assume that appliances could survive a 15 or 16Amp fault without major problems.

BS1363 basically allowed the rigid British over-current protection methodology to continue in an era where people needed more than one socket outlet per circuit.

i.e. each appliance is individually fused by the plug, and the fuse is rated appropriately for each situation i.e. 1 to 13amps

The reality however is that people tend to fit a 13amp fuse regardless. So, it's not a heck of a lot safer than a 16A radial system.

I do remember an ancient UK reel tape recorder with an insanely small flex, maybe something equivalent to 0.35mm2 or maybe even smaller. It looked like the wire commonly found inside radios connecting 9V batteries to the board.

The general idea is that the appliance limits the load, so overload doesn't need to be taken into consideration for appliance flex sizing, and short circuit protection can be much higher than overload protection. That's why most regs. allow you to run 0.75mm2 flex off a 16A circuit.

I'd really love to know what the wiring world might look like in 50 years.