dunno if it's been asked here or not......

but a general consensus would need come from this forum here.

what do members here think is the most over-all, all-inclusive electricaly safe country?

???

The member's home country.

Ooooohhhhh, boy.....

How are we going to set about "measuring" safety? By the number of reported electrocutions and electric-related fires? The statistics for the former are probably quite reliable, but for fires it's been mentioned here before that statistics are somewhat dubious, in view of different approaches in various juridictions and the tendency to blame as electrical any fire whose cause cannot otherwise be determined.

C-H has certainly hit the nail squarely on the head as far as many Brits are concerned. I'd say that the majority of people in the U.K. class the British system as "the best in the world," although personally I would challenge that.

Another point is whether we're going to examine the safety angle from a fully code-compliant installation in each country, or whether we're going to take a typical system, which is often quite different.

All developed countries are safe if you follow their respective codes.

There are various differences but fundementally they all aim toward safety.

The only places i've really been scared by fittings/wiring were India, South Africa (rural) and Mexico (hot wires!) That was down to non-inforcement of regulations though.

Never a good idea to second guess codes in a country you're not used to either! don't go fitting schuko wallplates in England for example.

as for the british system. The irish system is quite similar and it's not the best in the world.

I would mainly fault it like this:

Ring circuits (slightly unnecessary)
Poor cable management (cables crisscrossing attic spaces) a few cable trays in domestic installations wouldn't be a bad idea.

Conduits not used behind walls leaving a risk of someone hammering a nail thru a 230V 32AMP ring circuit cable!

From an end users perspective it's safer than most though.

admittedly, it's a tough call.

there are systems out there that would probably be great, if enforced, and likewise systems that are of lesser safety quality to begin with.

i am unaware of any stat's, nor would they be easy to assume an eqitable point given all the variables.....

what would you say if asked to produce the safest hybird crossmix of systems?

Hybrid of them all:

For asthetic reasons totally flush boxes.. not even the usual uk/US slightly raised ones.. socket/switch should fit into the box and fit totally flush to the wall.

I'd use UK plugs and sockets but specify slightly deeper boxes in the walls. Make sure that most appliences had a moulded-on plug and key the fuses so they're not interchangable. A 3amp in a 3amp only etc.. More asthetic wall fittings than schuko polarised and safer.

German distribution on 16Amp radial circuits max.

Add good quality RCDs

Light fittings.. something totally different neither BC or EC.. plug in bulbs of some type two prongs slip into a holder or something.
Switches: Something a bit more stylish than the normal UK ones prefer something flush and flat.

US style conduits in walls.. Good quality metal conduits used to prevent problems. Extra work but they could be installed by a builder day one and the electricians life would be EASY..

I dont know which I'd use for heavy appliences (cookers etc)

European 3-phase has good and bad points
UK MASSIVELY heavy cooker cable has good and bad points ..

hard to know

Well, regulars won't be surprised to hear that I agree with our Irish friend about the unnecessary use of ring circuits in Britain. There's certainly room for a bad connection to open a ring and result in the overloading of part of the cable. They are also subject to being completely botched with DIY attempts (if we are to include DIY and "normal use" factors rather than just fully code-compliant installations).

The cable angle is also a big safety issue. Far too many times here cables are just loosely draped across attics, unsecured and unprotected. I've seen too many cases where a cable has been damaged by being crushed, caught and pulled etc.

Certainly the whole issue of device boxes here needs to be addressed. As DJK mentioned, they are generally far too shallow, which often results in pinched and damaged wires (the prevalance of masonry walls doesn't encourage the fitting of deeper boxes, of course!). American practice is far superior in this regard. The U.S. also uses those nice Romex connectors to securely clamp the cable where it enters the box. British boxes have no such facility, and a sharp pull on a cable can easily result in strained/broken connections.

The range (cooker) issue raises the question of what the highest available voltage should be in a residential system. I think North America probably has the best compromise here with using 240V to keep the cable sizes reasonable for heavy loads while still having only 120V to ground.

It's nice to see the NEC changed to require 4-wire range/dryer hookups though. This is the one aspect of U.S. practice that I've never felt comfortable with.

I'll bet that New Zeland is the Safest in the world! Really tough rules and I believe they are enforced! The enforcement issue is the Key!!

I've seen a lot of 1960s and 70s homes in Ireland where boxes arn't really used. The wall plates are mounted onto plasterboard (drywall) usually a fairly substantial cavity and they just use like 3 inch or more long screws to hold it in place there are cable grips on the back of the plates though and they're usually carried in plastic conduit to the fitting. Boxes are absolutely required now, not sure if they were then too but there certainly are lots of them done that way!

Solid walls usually have conduit burried into the sub-plaster work (usually plastic)

In some houses dating from the 1930's & 40's where Schuko fittings were originally used the quality of wiring and workmanship is FAR higher than today.

All cables including in the attic space are carried in sealed black round metal grounded conduits fixed very neatly to the joists. You see no cables at all it looks like very neat plumbing.

No rings,10A, 12A or 16A circuits lots of Diazed fuses usually a very large black distribution board. or in some cases the fuses are in each room mounted over the door on a small black plate with a cover.

What ever specs they were following they were very high!

The sockets tended to be flush fitted into the skirting boards or onto wooden panneling (round fittings) all grounded, have never seen an ungrounded one. Very neat round flat usually dark coloured recessed socket. Where they're on a wall they're usually mounted in a circular carved wooden backing plate like an old lightswitch.

Switches were simple or ornate round brass tumblers mounted on round carved wooden plates (many of these still in use just rewired to remove old cabling)

Many of these installations were updated simply by replacing the cables in the conduits and fitting BS1363 outlets (much larger and uglier) and adding a modern distribution board and RCDs... All on radial circuits though.

I suspect that these installations were actually either done or certainly approved by the ESB (Electricity Supply Board) itself as the standard of workmanship is way beyond anything done in later periods or earlier.

Where BS546 was used in the 50's and early 60s the wiring is much less "organised".

Eventually all the above was replaced by BS1363 13Amp sockets & ring circuits.

Joe,
No way,the MEN(Multiple-Earthed Neutral)system we use over here, by it's virtue encourages very high Fault currents to flow, not only in the installation where there is a fault, but also, next door as well, if the installation Earthing in the faulty one is damaged, this often goes un-noticed, until the Neutral-Earth busbars are seperated for testing purposes.

Not that I want to stick up for my country, but in my eyes, after having read your stories, I really feel more and more that Belgium has the safest standard and better way of working. (no ring circuits, nice deep boxes in the walls, RCD's and MCB's, wires always in conduits, etc...)

Well, concerning codes there's not that much difference between Belgium and Austria. Unsupported cables are unknown (at least for electricians), even in attic spaces cables are always secured. 2nd: Nobody runs 1st or 2nd floor wires in the attic above! High quality work has a ring shaped conduit running around the room in the top 30cm of the walls, with j-boxes above the horizontal runs, light fixture wires are run in the concrete ceiling/ between the joists (conduit resting on the lathes, only secured by the fact it's embedded in plaster on both ends)/above drywall, ect. Really poor wiring (sometimes called "modern") has just cable trays in the ceiling, with 1 or 2 j-boxes per room accessible through trap doors. I really hate that, makes it hard to trace runs, and grants for lots of fishing, luckily I never saw that used in residential work). Any surface runs are always stapled (with plastic staples). Any new work has to be grounded and is usually RCD-protected (One for the whole house/appartment, but split arrangements are easier to do as there's no neutral bus, all neutrals are fused on 1ph systems). Grounding a receptacle by a jumper from the neutral to the ground terminal as not allowed here (but is in Germany for old work).
Old panels were usually Diazed fuses mounted on a metal frame, which was screwed on porcelaine distance blocks. Meter screwed to a wooden board. Smaller systems had the neutrals on top and the hots at the bottom of a 2-fuse row, larger systems had all phases to the left and all neutrals to the right. Surface mount light switches were mounted on flush wooden pattresses (instead of anchors), and were on an asbestos base if mounted on wood. This anchoring method was used well into the 60ies, sometimes it is still used for very soft and weak walls where you can't drill a decent hole. Wires are usually in conduit, sometimes just buried in plaster. Today NM is commonly buried in plaster (caught in the 50ies, back then a flat, zip-cord like NM, much later round style).

I would just like to point out that the type of cabling used in UK and Ireland is particularly tough stuff. I've seen French domestic cabling and it's a lot less heavily sheilded. I think perhaps this explains the lack of conduits.

It's a very heavy grey colour cable usually.

On the point of the MEN system (also known as PME in Britain/Ireland, and otherwsie identified as TN-C-S), what are everybody's feelings on the relative safety merits of each earthing arrangement?

In the U.K. we have a mixture of TN-S, TN-C-S, and TT systems. Although TN-C-S and TT are both used in Europe, it does seem as though many countries there have a definite liking for TT.

By contrast, TT isn't used at all in America (and in fact TT would be prohibited by the NEC).

Judging by the posts I read in this forum & the US forum, none of us have the safest system.

Like Joe, I also thought that New Zealand may have the edge due to enforcement of regs., use of RCD's, and until recently the prohibition of DIY electrical installations.

I believe that when correctly installed the UK system is very safe, as I guess are the systems of most developed countries.
However I would like to see some ammendments to UK regs & practices to improve safety, as follows:
1) Mandatory RCD protection for all general purpose sockets and certain other circuits, eg. electric shower, bathroom lighting.
2) Prohibiting the use of rewirable fuses. (Most other countries have already done this.)
3) Use of safety BC lampholders that only energize the pins when a bulb is inserted.
4) Change of specification for the general purpose BS6004 twin & earth sheathed cables, requiring: Insulated earth (CPC/ground) wire of same cross section as the L&N, preferably stranded. Thicker outer sheathing similar to Australian standard TPS cable, to provide improved resistance to mechanical damage.
5) Require an electrical safety certificate (Periodic Inspection Report) by a qualified electrician for all homes over 20 years old when they are sold. (Some mortgage lenders in this area require this now as a condition of mortgage.)

Re PME/MEN/TNC-S earthing system.
This seems to be a efficient safe method of earthing in the UK.
I suspect this is due to the fact that unlike many countries, most of our final distribution cables are run underground using concentric cables, which reduces the possibility of an open neutral. When PME earthing is used on overhead supplies in this area, the PoCo runs the final section from the last pole to the building underground in concentric cable with an earth electrode at the pole. Earth electrodes appear to be put in the ground everywhere the PoCo make underground cable joints near the consumers' premises.
The PME link in all UK installations is before the meter, unlike Australia, NZ & US. This reduces the possibility of a bad neutral connection in the installation main switchgear causing earthed metal work to rise to mains potential. In the UK we have fairly stringent bonding requirements for metallic service pipes of water, gas, heating etc. in PME installations.
PME earthing is not permitted in the UK for some types of installation, these are:
Building sites, caravan parks, petrol stations, farms etc.
New electricity supply regs. may require additional earth electrodes in certain circumstances.

Thought provoking thread you've started here Steve!

I guess it's easy to look at small, individual items to compare safety, but it's much harder to decide which system is safer/safest when looking at the whole picture.

David,
I have nothing against the expansion of GFI/RCD protection, but I would add a caveat to the way in which it is applied in the U.K.

We already commonly have whole-house RCD protection where TT earthing is employed, and split-bus RCD protection on some consumer units on TN-S and PME systems.

If we are going to require RCD protection for certain circuits on all systems, I would much rather see a move toward individual branch RCDs. I know it's a bit of a Catch-22 situation regarding the use/price of combined RCD/MCBs at the moment, but I think it would much better than the present arrangements.

Hear hear! These things have been deprecated (to use one of the IEE's favorite words!) for decades. The only mystery to me on these things is why they remained so popular for so long. I don't know of any manufacturer still making rewireable carriers except for Wylex with their "Standard Range." Full marks to them for continuing to make parts which will still interchange with a 40+ year old panel, and I have a particular liking for the Wylex Standard panels/fittings, but I think it's time that the rewireables were deleted.

Re PME and overhead lines, isn't it curious that when PME was being installed in the 1930s it was used almost exclusively in rural areas where at that time just about all distribution was overhead?

David,
I certainly hear you there, on the prohibition of Rewirable fuses.
They simply do not have the ability to interrupt the high PSC currents, and normally create a fire hazard more than anything, if a decent short circuit occurs.
I recently replaced a switch-board that was full of these fuse carriers, with it being a 3 Phase board and the fuses fitted side by side(Red, Yellow,Blue fashion), one fuse blew
and the whole board exploded, through flash- over, between the phases.
It's all MCB protected now, damn them porcelain fuses!.

well thank you Paul....some comparisson is always insightful.....would you know if a MEN , or other grounding system has ever been posted?

I've looked in the Technical ref area

The Main-Earth-Neutral system that Trumpy talked about is equivalent to British PME. It's diagram #2 in the U.K. Power thread.

Nick revised the CAD drawings a few weeks ago to add the appropriate TN and TT designations which I didn't include on the originals.

Basically, MEN/PME is the same as standard American practice where the neutral is bonded to ground at the service entrance, although as you can see in the diagram, the exact point of bonding varies. In the European/International coding system, a normal U.S. supply would be classified as TN-C-S.

Wise words from David. As usual.

>1) Mandatory RCD protection for all general purpose sockets and certain other circuits,
>eg. electric shower, bathroom lighting.

This would make the risk of electrocution and fire very small. Let's just hope the price of RCD:s fall.

>2) Prohibiting the use of rewirable fuses.
>(Most other countries have already done this.)

The rewireable fuse is a joke among people who have been to UK or Australia. It creates an impression that these countries are decades behind in safety. (I don't think it was ever used in the German-influenced countries)

>3) Use of safety BC lampholders that only
>energize the pins when a bulb is inserted.

This would give it a clear advantage over the Edison socket, and the world should adopt this standard.

>4) Change of specification for the general purpose BS6004 twin & earth sheathed cables,
>requiring: Insulated earth (CPC/ground) wire of same cross section as the L&N,
>preferably stranded. Thicker outer sheathing similar to Australian standard TPS cable,
>to provide improved resistance to mechanical damage.

It would be nice with a world wide cable standard per your suggestion. (I think Australia just went the other way, allowing thinner insulation. )

thanks Paul

You're welcome!

I think I've posted this before, but here's a recap on how these new designations work.

First letter: Grounding of the supply.
T = One pole connected to earth.
I = isolated from ground (or grounded thru a high impedance).


Second letter: Protective grounding.
T = Installation grounded to local earth rod.
N = Installation grounded to supply neutral.

Third/fourth letters:
C = Neutral/protective ground combined.
S = Neutral/protective ground separate.

The PME/MEN/American arrangement is TN-C-S because the protective ground is combined with the neutral on the distribution side, but separate once inside the house.

The T for earth is from the French terre.

I see that our Swedish friend has posted a description of the systems on his site as well. Follow the link from this thread.

Paul, thanks for the recap on the systems designations, I find them quite hard to remember, using only the TN-C-S system over here.

I thought it might be an idea to revive a few older threads now that we have some more members.

Anybody have some more thoughts to add on the good and/or bad points about various countries' wiring methods?

All the respective systems seem pretty good in there own way upto the supply fuse. Its what goes on after the meter where it all goes pear shaped, and who do we have to blame for that I wonder! Its already been said on a number of occasions that its all about code enforcement. I dont mean nit picking codes either like a bit of sleeving missing or a cable unsupported in an atic. We see some real horrors on the board hear and all of them are by the invisible man with no name. I think all of us in hear are proud of what we do and leave behind. Its relativly easy to find fault with any job. Perfection is hard to achieve in the commercial world when your trying to earn the $. Yes we do try very hard to achieve it, Its the out and out dangers that we have to protect Jo public from and I suspect that not to many are created by profesional sparkys

Tricky one. I suppose I'm one of the fence-sitters and agree that each country has it's good points - but they ALL depend on the correct application and almost total absence of DIY...

I tend to think that the use of reduced voltages has its merits, but then I look at the reduced safety factors in the related equipment ( plugtops etc..) and wonder... In some respects the 115V systems are good that way, but then they are not universal even in US so it's of only limited advantage.

Having worked around a bit over the years I tend to believe we have a good set up in UK; modern systems at least. And there is money being spent on upgrading utils, which has to be a good thing.

I wouldn't be as bold as to think UK is the best, or to try and suggest any one country for that gold star!

Has anyone worked in Romania???

Yes, it's hard to come down firmly for or against a specific country because there are good and bad points in each (or perhaps good and bad are too string adjectives -- maybe "better" and "not so good" would be more appropriate terms).

I was looking thru some stats a few months ago and the number of people electrocuted by modern European domestic wiring is absolutely miniscule. Wheather it's UK, French, German, Irish, Italian etc as long as it conforms with up-to-date codes it's quite safe.

The UK and Ireland are in a quite unique position. Our old domestic wiring systems being so over-complicated that they were impractical (at least 3 different incompatable plugs etc etc) so they were generally replaced from the 1950s onwards. It's extremely easy to identify an old installation as modern plugs simply don't fit into the sockets. This, by fluke, has eliminated a lot of old installations that would undoubtedly have remained in use had people not been forced, for practical reasons, to change them. It also made people highly aware of the age of their installation. The same is true of Australia and NZ who changed to their blade-pin plug in the 50s.

In the US and most of Europe, old installations will still happily accept modern plugs. This has meant that old, crumbling and often inadequate installations continue to remain in service and people don't even necessarily realise just how old and outdated they are.

I would be in favour of introducing a pan-european connector that was 100% incompatable with any exsisting system. The current round pin plugs/sockets, all of which are ancestors of the old ungrounded VDE (German) standard have one massive flaw:

Old 2-pin VDE, Dutch, Belgian, French etc ungrounded sockets happily accept schuko / french grounded plugs! ! Danish outlets, with their different grounding sollution, have also got this problem even WITH grounded outlets!

[The British, Swiss and Italian systems generally won't accept grounded schuko plugs and it's impossible to insert a 3-pin plug in those systems into an ungrounded outlet.]

Adopting a new system would mean that we could start from the drawing board, come up with something far safer than any of the exsisting systems and that was more suitable for the thousands of small electronic appliences that we all have these days.

(the British sollution's a total disaster for small appliences. you end up with giant power strips under your computer for no good reason.. it's safe but it's not very slick!)

A set of CE / Cenelec approved *SAFE* adaptors could be sold to make old appliences compatable with the new outlets.

Most current adaptors are an absolute disgrace to the electrical industry..!

The likelihood, however, is that grounded schuko will simply become the defacto standard right across Europe and the old non-grounded outlets will just disappear completely.

The ideal time for a change like this would have been in the early 1960s.. it's a BIT late to do much now!


As for the US system.. Something should be done about the bare pinned plugs! I have gotten a couple of little zapps from them! Surely they could be sheathed.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 07-18-2004).]

What was used prior to this?

I'll second that question. I didn't realize that the Aus/NZ plug only came into use in the 1950s. Come to think of it, I'm sure I've read about references to it dating to the 1940s, but I could be mistaken. I'm trying to guess what they might have used in the past, considering the stronger British influence back then. Was BS546 ever used down under?

That's very true. Looking around my immediate neighborhood, there are places built here from the 1930s onward, but you'll have a hard time finding any wiring which pre-dates the 1950s. By that time, people weren't satisfied with the "one socket per room" (if you're lucky) installations of the 1930s and ripped the whole lot out to start again with BS1363.

Older Victorian houses in the towns around here sometimes still have older wiring in service, but generally only on the lighting circuits. The circuits feeding sockets will generally have been completely rewired with BS1363 fittings which clearly date from the 1950s/1960s.

That's one thing which I think is clearly wrong with European connectors. Now, I know that in the U.S. people will sometimes cut off a ground pin to fit a plug into an old NEMA 1-15 outlet, but at least that takes some deliberate action on the part of the somewhat-foolish user. A Schuko plug which just fits straight into an ungrounded outlet is rather different.

A completely new system has been proposed for Europe before: There was the three flat-pin plug design rated 16A which was proposed sometime in the mid 1970s. Nothing ever came of it.

For sure! That's one reason why I've kept 5-amp BS546 on a lot of my bench equipment. It's far less bulky and neater.

There's a joke here in Britain. It's said that we go through three stages of any problem:

1. Deny that there's any problem at all, and say that we don't need to do anything.

2. Recognize that something might need to be done, but say we don't want to rush into anything with haste and we'd better just keep an eye on the situation for a while.

3. Say: Well, maybe we should have done something about it, but it's too late now anyway!



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-19-2004).]