ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades When were socket outlets introduced?

I've seen pictures of sockets for round 4mm pins from the 1890ies, so I guess they've been around here for a looong time. Schuko didn't real´ly catch until the 1950ies, and where older stuff was upgraded the only Schuko sockets were installed in damp locations, most of all kitchens. TT with water pipe as a ground rod, individual ground wire to every socket, nothing like RCD.



1985-1920ies surface mount socket


The first Schuko socket on the site appears much later, 1940ies-50ies



Jordade vägguttag användes vid den här tiden nästan bara i köket i närheten av vasken, där man kunde ansluta kokplattor och andra köksapparater som var skyddsjordade.

CH, could you please translate? All I understand is that the grounded socket was intended for hooking up cookers.

BTW, CH posted the link long ago, http://home.swipnet.se/elsamling/ is an incredible site with loads of funky pictures.

A word by word translation:

"Earthed sockets were at this time almost exclusively used in the kitchen near the sink where you could connect hotplates and other kitchen appliances that were protective earthed."

Thanks C-H, that makes sense and applies for Austria as well. If you go into a 19th century apartment that has been lived in by an old lady/gentleman for the past decades you can be pretty sure the only Schuko sockets you can find (if there are any) are in the kitchen.

When we moved in, I found: Infrared room heater in the bathroom grounded to the water pipe, 2 Schuko sockets in the kitchen. One used to be grounded before some stupid plumber cut the ground wire next to the water pipe, the other one was never grounded at all. All other rooms only had ungrounded sockets. And that's the norm for buildings like that.
That style of grounding was called "Protective Earthing" (Schutzerdung), this term means local ground rod only, no RCD protection, only 10 or 16A fuse/breaker. Voltage operated ELCBs were barely ever used in domestic applications and GFIs didn't show up until the late 70ies.

BTW, the guy one floor above us doesn't have a single Schuko socket anywhere in his place. The last additions to his wiring were probably done just after the introduction of cables with the new color code (that means between 1967? and 1972), afterwards _nothing_ was done, maybe except for taping up some bare conductors that caused shorts.