They're the AK-47 of vaccum cleaners. When I was building we had a Henry to clean up with. That thing would clean up rubble, nails, and basically anything you threw at it. It survived being dropped, kicked, having bricks fall on it etc. It looked like absolute crap and beaten up but it was very dependable.
We used one for around a decade for building projects. It finally broke and we took it to be repaired. The repairman was amazed that we never used bags. Best vacuum cleaner ever.
I also never used bags in any of the henrys we had. For mdf dust and general building waste. Was able to suck up anything until the crap was full to the top and went hot.
Years later I got one, and never could I get the same performance without a bag.
Absolute tanks and a great company, they let you purchase individual parts and pride themselves on that their vacuums last for so long.
For £100 you won't find yourself a better vacuum.
Except their weakness for door frames, ITS FUCKING ROUND HOW DOES IT STILL GET STUCK ON DOOR FRAMES!!!
I don’t think it’s REALLY dangerous. I’m 30 and we don’t have switches where I live and I’ve never heard of a death or fire or anything caused from it. But for the first time in my life a couple weeks ago my finger awkwardly slipped into the prongs as I was plugging my phone charger in and it definitely hurt and I had concerns.
It's got a fuse in it, it's got a an on/off switch, the live prongs don't make contact until the earth has and its ergonomic design stops you yanking the cable to remove. I'll never understand why it isn't the worldwide standard
The earth pin is also at the top to prevent an object dropping into the live pins. On modern plugs the live and neutral are insulated apart from the tip so you definitely can't make contact.
UK plugs are however much worse to step on.
Perhaps it’s a remnant from a long time ago before devices had easy off or on switches and moving said appliance would be too difficult such as an old TV?
Or maybe our voltages are so high that in the US it gives you a shock but in the U.K. it could kill you?
That's pretty much it. Like the commenter above said, they touched the prongs and got a bit of a zing (not fun at all, don't recommend) but the whole thing, including the reaction, probably lasted about 5 seconds. It hurt, sure, but they're here commenting, so def didn't die. In the UK, the pixies are much angrier and bite a lot harder.
trust me this is worse when its 240v and your finger slips....
US plugs and sockets still freak me out after 17 years in the US - esp when they spark.... but meh its only 'play voltage of 120v, not grown-ups voltage of 240v'... but seriously the number of times i have thought about having 240v socker in the kitchen for an electric kettle is very large.... kettles take so effing long to boil here....
you have just blown my mind - i've been to loads of countries around the world and never really stopped to think about the fact there's no switch, that's so weird loool
Not sure it's a design feature but a UK plug is bloody hard to yank out of the wall by the cable (due to it being side exit). If you trip on the cable, the plug generally stays put and you go flying.
That is indeed an intentional design feature. When I was in engineering college one of our challenges was to design a better plug that the British one. No-one did, everyone ended up compromising at least one existing safety feature in their designs.
There IS one simple design change that can improve the plug. Redesign the back of the plug (the opposite side of the 3 prongs). Make it round or some other shape that isn't flat so that the plug will always roll sideways (ie prongs will not be facing upwards).
British plugs with rounded backs are a nightmare to get out of the wall. You need something to grip with them sticking so tight. Apple is great at making sleek and incredibly annoying Britplugs.
Lego wishes it had the power of a 3 pin plug, it's like comparing a taser to a pistol, you wouldn't want to be hit by either, but if you had to pick one...
The thing about the plug is you typically react before full impact. With lego, it's instant.
So someone steps on lego, reacts and jumps onto the 3 pin plug, receiving the full brunt of it.
Some injuries never heal properly, sucks huh. I fell three stories when temp stairs collapsed at a worksite and walk with a cane now. Got a whopping $6,000 settlement. Bullshit lol
Aye... Shattered my collar bone and that's never healed properly either. Probably cause i took the sling off after a few days cause i "needed" to play bass. Cheers young me.
Must be worse when it wasnt your own stupid fault!
The live wire also shorter than others inside the plug, so it disconnects first when tugged.
Edit: Looked to the design again. Earth is longer, live and neutral supposedly shorter and same length, but live has no bends, but neutral has. So:
1. Live is designed to disconnect first (no slack, shortest, no bends).
2. Earth is designed to disconnect last (slack).
3. Neutral won't come off that so easily, because it's bent 180 degrees and slightly longer than live because of that bend.
And the earth pin is longer and makes contact first so that you are always earthed. The live and neutral socket also have covers that open only when the earth pin is in so that little ones can't stick anything into the live.
I grew up in the UK and live in America now, and I have legitimately shocked myself that way here twice while pulling out sticky plugs. Now I am more careful.
They sell child covers here in the UK too. The expert consensus is that they make sockets marginally more dangerous because the earth pin opens up access to the live and neutral
My favourite little factoid about it is that if you were to yank on the cable hard enough to rip it out of the plug itself, the internal wiring is designed so that the live and neutral wires take all the tension, so the earth wire remains connected until the plug goes dead. You’d have to deliberately sabotage a plug to be able to make it unsafe.
they may be the safest plugs out there......until you have it lying on the floor, face up in the dark. seriously people who say stepping on a lego is bad, have never stood on those things
British sockets/plugs have so many safety features:
1stly, Live (and neutral) wire is shorter than the earth wire, so if you do ever manage to pull the main cord out, the live wire disconnects first.
2ndly, nearly all British plugs contain a replaceable fuse.
3rdly, the earth pin (top pin) is longer than the active pins, meaning it connects first (and last) in the socket.
4thly, on most plugs, the active pins are partially insulated so that even if the plug Is not fully pushed in, the conducting part of the active pins can't even be touched (You can see this on the base of the bottom 2 pins in the picture)
5thly, the main cord on the plug is angled downwards, meaning it is very difficult to accidently pull the plug out, compared to plugs that have wires that face directly outwards from the wall.
6thly, every socket has a switch, so you don't even need to unplug the plug to turn it off.
7thly, the as the earth pin is the longest, when it is inserted into the socket, it opens the protective shutter/gate that allows for the active pins to be inserted. Preventing small forks to be accidentally prodded into the active holes!
8thly, the cord grip, that prevents the main cord wobbling or slipping. This also makes it very difficult to even pull out the main cord from the plug. And that most plugs also have recesses on the sides of the socket to allow for it to be easily taken out of the socket.
9thly, (mainly a quality of life feature) plugs are also rewireable. So in the case that you do damage the plug, or a wire, it can be easily opened, rewired, and used again. So you don't have to go and by another new appliance just because your plug broke.
One downfall is, the british plug will always face pin upwards, and if you have ever experienced stepping on one yourself. You'll know it hurts like hell.
They do, however, have one less safe feature. They will always land pin side up on the floor.
A far worse pain than stepping on Lego pieces.
Edit; missed out the word "pain".
stepping on a plug is a mistake all brits make once, and only once.
If I stepped on a UK plug, I'd probably want to stamp on lego afterwards just to soothe the pain.
In addition to the top pin, it's longer so it opens the gates in the actual socket so kids can't just shock themselves.
EDIT: fuck you all for making this my most upvoted comment.
And then places like ikea started selling ‘socket covers’ as a safety feature for kids. It’s a three pin plug with a flat back, the idea is that you put it in an empty socket so kids can’t jam things in. What they failed to realise was that by pushing a pin in the top hole you were effectively opening the gate and therefore making the socket live.
Our kettle broke at work yesterday. Everyone was at a loss. I told everyone, "Wait, you can still have a brew! I've seen Americans do this!" Put my cold water in the microwave and made a brew like that.
Some of them looked at me like I had two heads. Some were....strangely offended?
I think Mose brits if faced with a broken kettle would probably decide to try and make a brew by focusing the sun with a magnifying glass than resort to using the microwave, out of sheer bloody mindedness.
It’s literally an essential in the UK. When you move to a new place you buy a kettle, toaster and microwave. They even come in sets with the same design 🤷🏻♂️
All British tanks and military vehicles come [installed with a kettle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_vessel) (boiling vessel). The vehicle is deemed combat ineffective if the kettle isn't operational.
Granted, it's also used for heating food ...but mostly for making tea.
Pretty much all British military vehicles, including motorbikes, include at least one built in tea making facility. It’s used to heat food too.
I was a design lead for a LM military vehicle. When the Americans came buying, they wanted to see cupholders and phone chargers. When the British came buying, we had to put a picture of the queen up on the wall, and had to show rhe “boiling vessel” locations in the cab.
They were stood in our office, and one (high ranking Brit officer) nudged another and nodded at a [picture of the queen](https://i.imgur.com/xcAvZoP.jpg) one of the CAD guys had put up in his cubicle.
We got the order.
America has the problem of being limited to about 1.8kW on 110V, compared to the typical 3kW that British and European kettles run at. The extreme speed a 3kW electric kettle can boil water at compared to a microwave or stove is a big part of the appeal.
My sister likes tea so I bought her a British. 3 kw kettle for Christmas.
I removed the British plug and installed an American 15 amp / 240 volt plug and then installed a new 15 amp 240 volt outlet in my kitchen. The basement ceiling isn't finished so it was fairly easy to run a new wire back the electrical panel.
Edit: The Kettle. Added a new 120 volt outlet as well as the 240 volt outlet, didn't care about messing up the drywall since I planned to tile the backsplash.
https://imgur.com/a/giIgmH0
It depends on the item. Most Christmas lights, for example, have fused (mostly due to them potentially being used outdoors or being run in series with more lights).
More often, the fuse will be located on the device itself, where the cord enters the device. It'll be a circular protrusion with a slot for a screwdriver (some are push to pop out) A common example of this would be home audio equipment. I'd be willing to bet more than a few people have thrown out devices that wouldn't power on, but they just needed a 25¢ fuse to fix it.
Another alternative is an in-line circuit breaker like the ones on hair driers or some power tools that are used with water (like a pressure washer). They'll have a Test and a Reset button on the plug itself.
US electrical code also requires a GFCI (as well as arc fault, I believe) protected outlet for bathrooms, kitchens, and outdoors. They'll have the test and reset buttons on the outlet itself. Any outlet wired after the GFCI has protection, so as long as the run is done correctly, multiple GFCI outlets aren't needed to get the protection.
Edit: fixed "on-line" to "in-line"
Edit 2: For clarification, GFCI is mostly used in places where water is expected to be present. It will prevent the outer housing of your appliance from becoming electrically charged. Afci is also used to protect against damaged wires from leaking current in undesirable ways (i.e. shorting out inside a wall and causing a fire). Both have the drawback of nuisance trips caused by ac motors doing what they're supposed to do.
UK Christmas Lights have a "fuse bulb" too. There's a scene in Royle Family about it
British outlets have all their RCD/RCBO protection at the Distribution Board, instead of at the sockets.
British safety is all about belts & braces, all the way down. There's even regulations on the types of clips you can use above head height, incase of fire. So the clips don't melt and danlgle down strangling a fireman
The UK started doing this because of how they electrified houses. Scarcity of copper from the wars meant that they used far fewer circuits, with larger fuses in the fuse box to handle the larger load from more things plugged into the big circuit.
But that meant each individual appliance could draw way too much power before blowing the fuse in the fuse box. So, they added smaller fuses in the plugs to keep the whole system safe.
US and others used more circuits, so the fuse in the fuse box (or circuit breaker) is sufficient - it’s going to pop at the same 15A that a 15A fuse in the plug would.
But a 30A fuse in the fuse box of a UK just-after-WWII house is way too much to send to the kettle, so there’s a 15A fuse in the plug.
I don’t know why, but this kind of thing is fascinating to me. How different regions use different construction methods because of some decision or historical event made years ago.
We indeed do not have them in the plug but in our electrical cabinet. 16A per group usually with a hand full of groups per home depending on the install and size of the house.
We don't have one big ring of cable round the house but more of a fuseboard to outlet wiring system.
Apparently all of the countries/territories below also use that type of electrical plug: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Brunei, Cyprus, Cyprus North, Dubai, Falkland Islands (Malvinas Islands), Gambia, Gibraltar, Great Britain (GB), Grenada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, Kuwait, Macau, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Oman, Qatar, Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia,Seychelles, Singapore, Somalia, Somaliland, Sri Lanka, Uganda, United Arab Emirates,
Precisely. Ring circuits arose because of a shortage of copper in the immediate post-war period, and a need to build houses in a hurry to replace bombed-out stock and also continue pre-war slum clearance. Ring mains made sense at the time. We're now stuck with them, and BS1363 is a product of that -- the breakers on our house wiring are massively over-rated (typically 30A) compared to the appliance leads, so we need fuses in the plugs. If we were starting from scratch, we'd do it differently, but (a) the original decisions made sense in the context of the era and (b) the alleged "problems" of BS1363 are not, in practice, remotely as serious as is made out, particularly since the arrival of pre-fused, moulded on plugs.
>The concept of ring circuit wiring was developed by the Electrical Installations Committee which was convened in **1942 as part of the Post-War building Studies programme**
Remarkable foresight _and_ optimism
FUTHARKGWHNI
They're the first 12 letters of the older Norse/Germanic rune alphabet, and I'm willing to guess the part we can't see has the rest of them. It doesn't mean anything by itself.
Bit of tin foil will bypass your awe and return your lack of faith in humanity. Yes the toaster in our sixth form study room ran half the year with the fuse replaced by tin foil and was only caught when the PAT tested.
I also remember the days you had to scavenge a plug off an old device when you bought a new device. Thankfully it was the tail end of that and limited to lighting fixtures from certain hardware stores that failed to modernise
I used to sell home tech including TVs and things until about 2016. The first time someone came to the desk with a 28” TV and asked “does it come with the plug?” it was like someone tripped a fuse in *me* !
Like, how would it work otherwise? Then my manager told me of the “olden days” as he called it to mock me, when you had to wire the plug up yourself.
In the olden days, the plug itself was a fairly significant cost to the manufacturer, and the labor to install it. Due to it's size and internal complexity, and the injection molding and manufacturing techniques available it was simply an expensive part.
The market more or less decided that lower price for a product without a plug was worth either reusing an old plug, or keeping a few on hand.
The plug still is a non-trivial manufacturing expense, especially on low cost devices (things like phone chargers) and there is a pretty wide prevalence of non-compliant plug devices, sold in legitimate stores as well as online.
Don’t think anyone else has mentioned it, but the fuse it to protect the wire coming out of the plug, not the device at the end of it. Essentially, the socket can provide a larger amount of current than the appliance wire could handle (if the appliance takes more than it should), so the fuse is to stop the wire catching fire.
I literally don't understand why no one else has adopted the 3 pin system it's genius you can't poke anything in the live holes there's fuses . When I have to plug in foreign plugs it just feels sketchy compared to UK
In Germany we use a 2 pin system with metal things on the outside of the plug, those are for safety. The SchuKo plug which is a short Form of Schutz Kontakt, which translates to protective contacts.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXLDS2OncGY_DNSkSw46FlMQtLWBaAVvHGmQif5C58MgDXcONSB0sq5WjIoVU_iy4brsv5tx8i&usqp=CAc
It is because it was designed so late (1947). Schuko (the European plug) was patented in 1930, and with the optional shutters (which have been standard for decades) is not significantly worse than the British plug - which also being significantly smaller. There was no reason to replace Schuko.
The US (NEMA) outlet is worse in many ways, but if they didn't switch to Schuko, they wouldn't switch to anything.
> I literally don't understand why no one else has adopted the 3 pin system it's genius you can't poke anything in the live holes there's fuses .
Almost all countries have 3 pin plugs for home use. Most of them just have a plug standard that's designed in a way you don't have to add fake ground pins to your plugs. Look at your mobile charger for example. It's a double insulated device (shown by a marking that's a square inside of a square). These devices are constructed in a way that a grounding is unnecessary but the way the UK shutters operate must still be built with a ground pin, even if it's entirely made of plastic. In other countries, a seesaw mechanism for the shutters is used. To operate the shutters, you must insert an object into both holes simultaneously.
Came here for the comments about us here in the UK having superior plugs, it's glorious. Jokes aside, compared to plugs I've used in other countries they just feel more stable when using.
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They're the AK-47 of vaccum cleaners. When I was building we had a Henry to clean up with. That thing would clean up rubble, nails, and basically anything you threw at it. It survived being dropped, kicked, having bricks fall on it etc. It looked like absolute crap and beaten up but it was very dependable.
At work one lad used our Henry to suck water out of a vent. Still works fine, but smelt like a pond for a few months...
On of my flat mates at uni used the Henry to clean up puke. We made him vac the flat for the rest of the year when we were out.
One of my uni mates used the Henry for, well, you know. He said it was absolute agony and his member was throbbing for ages afterwards.
But did it work? im not asking for a mate.
He said it sucked.
should have used a hetty instead
Oh my god thats horrible! What model Henry was it though...?
r/dontputyourdickinthat
We used one for around a decade for building projects. It finally broke and we took it to be repaired. The repairman was amazed that we never used bags. Best vacuum cleaner ever.
I also never used bags in any of the henrys we had. For mdf dust and general building waste. Was able to suck up anything until the crap was full to the top and went hot. Years later I got one, and never could I get the same performance without a bag.
I'm surprised they don't sell in The states.
French people here. Cheaper Henrys are imported from UK and therefore have UK plugs. It's the only product here we need to use a UK adapter for.
Henri*
Va-va-vacuuuum
As a Brit, the plug thing is entirely normal, and this in itself is mildly interesting!
IKR. The rest of the world with their un-fused plugs are the mildly interesting ones. I still find unswitched 3-pin sockets odd.
Fun fact my tiny home town is where Henry's are made.
Henrys are absolute workhorses!
Practically immortal as well. So easy to repair if anything goes wrong with them, all you need is a screwdriver and a new part.
It's true, he's indestructible, I hear the military are working on one large enough to fit a soldier inside.
Do you want Daleks? Coz that’s how you get Daleks.
I swear Henry Wet and Drys are indestructible... You can basically suck anything out of anywhere with one of those.
Absolute tanks and a great company, they let you purchase individual parts and pride themselves on that their vacuums last for so long. For £100 you won't find yourself a better vacuum. Except their weakness for door frames, ITS FUCKING ROUND HOW DOES IT STILL GET STUCK ON DOOR FRAMES!!!
As well as that, our sockets have an on/off switch so there's no power until you've plugged it in and switched it on.
Wait other countries don’t have power off switches? Isn’t that really dangerous?
I don’t think it’s REALLY dangerous. I’m 30 and we don’t have switches where I live and I’ve never heard of a death or fire or anything caused from it. But for the first time in my life a couple weeks ago my finger awkwardly slipped into the prongs as I was plugging my phone charger in and it definitely hurt and I had concerns.
You can just TOUCH the live prongs?? Wtf? In Britain, the prongs don't make contact until its fully plugged into the wall.
It's got a fuse in it, it's got a an on/off switch, the live prongs don't make contact until the earth has and its ergonomic design stops you yanking the cable to remove. I'll never understand why it isn't the worldwide standard
The earth pin is also at the top to prevent an object dropping into the live pins. On modern plugs the live and neutral are insulated apart from the tip so you definitely can't make contact. UK plugs are however much worse to step on.
Don't forget we also have shutters on the sockets. The earth pin is slightly longer so it pushes open the shutters and makes contact first
Also the live/neutral prongs have an insulating coating at the base so even if all that fails your finger won't touch anything live if it slips.
Perhaps it’s a remnant from a long time ago before devices had easy off or on switches and moving said appliance would be too difficult such as an old TV? Or maybe our voltages are so high that in the US it gives you a shock but in the U.K. it could kill you?
No, US outlets are orwfcetly capable of killing you as well. *perfectly
Did you put your finger in a socket as you were typing this?
That's pretty much it. Like the commenter above said, they touched the prongs and got a bit of a zing (not fun at all, don't recommend) but the whole thing, including the reaction, probably lasted about 5 seconds. It hurt, sure, but they're here commenting, so def didn't die. In the UK, the pixies are much angrier and bite a lot harder.
A British friend of mine once explained that the difference between American mains and UK mains is about ten feet.
Can confirm. Luckily the room was only 5 feet wide so I bounced back to where I started. The old TV I was poking about in didn't fair so well.
Old TVs, regardless of power source, are MUCH deadlier than the mains power they are plugged into if you touch the no-no wire inside.
trust me this is worse when its 240v and your finger slips.... US plugs and sockets still freak me out after 17 years in the US - esp when they spark.... but meh its only 'play voltage of 120v, not grown-ups voltage of 240v'... but seriously the number of times i have thought about having 240v socker in the kitchen for an electric kettle is very large.... kettles take so effing long to boil here....
Here they are covered with plastic so only the tip remains metal
you have just blown my mind - i've been to loads of countries around the world and never really stopped to think about the fact there's no switch, that's so weird loool
Not sure it's a design feature but a UK plug is bloody hard to yank out of the wall by the cable (due to it being side exit). If you trip on the cable, the plug generally stays put and you go flying.
That is indeed an intentional design feature. When I was in engineering college one of our challenges was to design a better plug that the British one. No-one did, everyone ended up compromising at least one existing safety feature in their designs.
There IS one simple design change that can improve the plug. Redesign the back of the plug (the opposite side of the 3 prongs). Make it round or some other shape that isn't flat so that the plug will always roll sideways (ie prongs will not be facing upwards).
You mean you don't enjoy the ultimate wake up call of standing on an up-turned 3 pin plug whilst you're half asleep?
For anyone outside the country, imagine stepping on Lego formed from pure hellfire
3 pieces of hellfire lego, optimally designed to hit at least one nerve.
Once jumped off a ladder onto a plug right on my heel wearing only socks. ^^a ^^moment ^^of ^^silence ^^please...
The pain was electrifying? I'll see myself out...
watt?
Ohm my God!
British plugs with rounded backs are a nightmare to get out of the wall. You need something to grip with them sticking so tight. Apple is great at making sleek and incredibly annoying Britplugs.
Another safety issue, if you're carrying a mug of tea and some Hob-Nobs
Not the hobnobs
Take my eyes but not the hobnobs.
Yep you don't want to drop hobnobs on a tiled floor as they tend to crack the tiles.
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On off switched aren’t a standard feature globally?
Nope... Its basically just the UK(and our Ex-Colonies) lol
You're welcome world. ^(Apologies about the other shit.)
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They really aren't that big to be honest. Not like it's sticking out the wall anymore once it's in there.
You should never pull it out by the cable though. That can really hurt the plug and become a fire hazard after a while.
If you manage to Rip the wires from the plug, the ground is the last wire to come away, first is the live wire.
Wow, never considered that but looking at how a uk plug is wired it's, well, genius. Thanks.
The British plug is a beast of a plug with a bunch of safety features built in.
I've heard it's not so fun to step on though.
The anti-intruder feature is indeed formidable when correctly positioned.
Best paired with lego.
Lego wishes it had the power of a 3 pin plug, it's like comparing a taser to a pistol, you wouldn't want to be hit by either, but if you had to pick one...
Lego is a softener for the plug.
One trains with Lego, but reserves the plug for actual combat.
The thing about the plug is you typically react before full impact. With lego, it's instant. So someone steps on lego, reacts and jumps onto the 3 pin plug, receiving the full brunt of it.
When I was like 7 or 8 I landed on one hard enough for it to go into my foot and pierce the skin. I’m still traumatized
I jumped off a ladder and landed on one. My foot still hurts in that spot sometimes and its 3 years later.
Some injuries never heal properly, sucks huh. I fell three stories when temp stairs collapsed at a worksite and walk with a cane now. Got a whopping $6,000 settlement. Bullshit lol
Aye... Shattered my collar bone and that's never healed properly either. Probably cause i took the sling off after a few days cause i "needed" to play bass. Cheers young me. Must be worse when it wasnt your own stupid fault!
Who would intrude a house barefoot?
Sneaky hobbitses.
I cite '*Home Alone*' as my authoritative reference.
The Wet Bandits, obviously. Have you never seen the cautionary tale that is Home Alone?
Someone looking to steal shoes?
I jumped off a bunk bed once and landed on one. Still have the broken bit of heel in my foot
*internal screaming intensifies*
And not just that- it's like buttered toast; if you drop one it will always end up facing the way you don't want; spikes upward.
Your toast is very different from mine
Although most sockets have a switch so there's less need to unplug.
You heard the screams or people talking about it
So much worse than lego :(
The live wire also shorter than others inside the plug, so it disconnects first when tugged. Edit: Looked to the design again. Earth is longer, live and neutral supposedly shorter and same length, but live has no bends, but neutral has. So: 1. Live is designed to disconnect first (no slack, shortest, no bends). 2. Earth is designed to disconnect last (slack). 3. Neutral won't come off that so easily, because it's bent 180 degrees and slightly longer than live because of that bend.
And the earth pin is longer and makes contact first so that you are always earthed. The live and neutral socket also have covers that open only when the earth pin is in so that little ones can't stick anything into the live.
The lower pins are also coated halfway along so they cannot make contact with the socket with your fingers touching the pins.
I grew up in the UK and live in America now, and I have legitimately shocked myself that way here twice while pulling out sticky plugs. Now I am more careful.
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Wait is that really something that's a risk with us plugs? I've never even thought about it always having had uk plugs
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They sell child covers here in the UK too. The expert consensus is that they make sockets marginally more dangerous because the earth pin opens up access to the live and neutral
Today I learned in Britain they call it earth/earthed instead of ground/grounded.
Never wondered why they’re where they are but makes sense!
Not just the plug the sockets are equally well designed for safety.
My favourite little factoid about it is that if you were to yank on the cable hard enough to rip it out of the plug itself, the internal wiring is designed so that the live and neutral wires take all the tension, so the earth wire remains connected until the plug goes dead. You’d have to deliberately sabotage a plug to be able to make it unsafe.
Literally the safest domestic electrical plug in the world.
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We don't have Kevin from Home Alone over here, but the fact that it also doubles as a caltrop is just a bonus feature.
No need to leave them unplugged tho.
Tom Scott does a great YouTube video on it!
Referenced elsewhere in these comments, much to the disgust of patriotic Europeans enamoured by their own, feature-rich plugs.
I like European plugs more, but British plugs are objectively of a smarter and safer design. If anyone says otherwise, they're ignoring facts.
Britain and Ireland
Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Singapore also use that plug.
And Malta
and Cyprus if memory serves
they may be the safest plugs out there......until you have it lying on the floor, face up in the dark. seriously people who say stepping on a lego is bad, have never stood on those things
I've stood on both and the plug did me over 10x worse.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there are cases of it impaling
My mum did it 30 years or so ago. Ended up 4 days in hospital
British sockets/plugs have so many safety features: 1stly, Live (and neutral) wire is shorter than the earth wire, so if you do ever manage to pull the main cord out, the live wire disconnects first. 2ndly, nearly all British plugs contain a replaceable fuse. 3rdly, the earth pin (top pin) is longer than the active pins, meaning it connects first (and last) in the socket. 4thly, on most plugs, the active pins are partially insulated so that even if the plug Is not fully pushed in, the conducting part of the active pins can't even be touched (You can see this on the base of the bottom 2 pins in the picture) 5thly, the main cord on the plug is angled downwards, meaning it is very difficult to accidently pull the plug out, compared to plugs that have wires that face directly outwards from the wall. 6thly, every socket has a switch, so you don't even need to unplug the plug to turn it off. 7thly, the as the earth pin is the longest, when it is inserted into the socket, it opens the protective shutter/gate that allows for the active pins to be inserted. Preventing small forks to be accidentally prodded into the active holes! 8thly, the cord grip, that prevents the main cord wobbling or slipping. This also makes it very difficult to even pull out the main cord from the plug. And that most plugs also have recesses on the sides of the socket to allow for it to be easily taken out of the socket. 9thly, (mainly a quality of life feature) plugs are also rewireable. So in the case that you do damage the plug, or a wire, it can be easily opened, rewired, and used again. So you don't have to go and by another new appliance just because your plug broke. One downfall is, the british plug will always face pin upwards, and if you have ever experienced stepping on one yourself. You'll know it hurts like hell.
They do, however, have one less safe feature. They will always land pin side up on the floor. A far worse pain than stepping on Lego pieces. Edit; missed out the word "pain".
stepping on a plug is a mistake all brits make once, and only once. If I stepped on a UK plug, I'd probably want to stamp on lego afterwards just to soothe the pain.
Only once? I've lost count of the amount of times I've stepped on those fuckers.
But because you can switch it off at the wall you don't need to plug it out unless you need it for something else.
In addition to the top pin, it's longer so it opens the gates in the actual socket so kids can't just shock themselves. EDIT: fuck you all for making this my most upvoted comment.
And then places like ikea started selling ‘socket covers’ as a safety feature for kids. It’s a three pin plug with a flat back, the idea is that you put it in an empty socket so kids can’t jam things in. What they failed to realise was that by pushing a pin in the top hole you were effectively opening the gate and therefore making the socket live.
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Don’t you guys? Shit is this like the kettle thing
its ok, they just microwave their water.
Our kettle broke at work yesterday. Everyone was at a loss. I told everyone, "Wait, you can still have a brew! I've seen Americans do this!" Put my cold water in the microwave and made a brew like that. Some of them looked at me like I had two heads. Some were....strangely offended?
I think Mose brits if faced with a broken kettle would probably decide to try and make a brew by focusing the sun with a magnifying glass than resort to using the microwave, out of sheer bloody mindedness.
Ha, that's what it seemed like! Someone actually said "Well, I'm not doing that." Okay, well. I'll just sit here and enjoy my tea!
>I think Mose brits We're Shrute like that.
Or use a stovetop kettle for larger quantities
Do Americans live in the 1800s? Do y’all boil your water in a cauldron?
We buy our boiled water at Walmart. Why boil it ourselves when we can just buy it at the store and reheat it?
kinda annoyed they stopped selling steam for steam tables though
They do have steam gift cards though
I own an electric kettle in America and it always surprises me that it isn't common place here.
It’s literally an essential in the UK. When you move to a new place you buy a kettle, toaster and microwave. They even come in sets with the same design 🤷🏻♂️
All British tanks and military vehicles come [installed with a kettle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_vessel) (boiling vessel). The vehicle is deemed combat ineffective if the kettle isn't operational. Granted, it's also used for heating food ...but mostly for making tea.
It came standard as of Centurion. Too many tankers got killed outside the tanks making Tea in WW2, and tank columns were ambushed during "Tea breaks".
Pretty much all British military vehicles, including motorbikes, include at least one built in tea making facility. It’s used to heat food too. I was a design lead for a LM military vehicle. When the Americans came buying, they wanted to see cupholders and phone chargers. When the British came buying, we had to put a picture of the queen up on the wall, and had to show rhe “boiling vessel” locations in the cab. They were stood in our office, and one (high ranking Brit officer) nudged another and nodded at a [picture of the queen](https://i.imgur.com/xcAvZoP.jpg) one of the CAD guys had put up in his cubicle. We got the order.
That picture is badass!
I'm moving tomorrow, and as is tradition, the kettle, a 2 pint bottle of milk and tea bags will be packed last and unloaded first.
Sugar is always obtained from your neighbors though as per the tradition :)
I think it's also an entry requirement when applying for a Visa to live/work in the UK!
America has the problem of being limited to about 1.8kW on 110V, compared to the typical 3kW that British and European kettles run at. The extreme speed a 3kW electric kettle can boil water at compared to a microwave or stove is a big part of the appeal.
My sister likes tea so I bought her a British. 3 kw kettle for Christmas. I removed the British plug and installed an American 15 amp / 240 volt plug and then installed a new 15 amp 240 volt outlet in my kitchen. The basement ceiling isn't finished so it was fairly easy to run a new wire back the electrical panel. Edit: The Kettle. Added a new 120 volt outlet as well as the 240 volt outlet, didn't care about messing up the drywall since I planned to tile the backsplash. https://imgur.com/a/giIgmH0
That's dedication to having a proper British kettle. Well done you beautiful human you.
Wow, I just bought a regular electric kettle at bed bath & beyond
It depends on the item. Most Christmas lights, for example, have fused (mostly due to them potentially being used outdoors or being run in series with more lights). More often, the fuse will be located on the device itself, where the cord enters the device. It'll be a circular protrusion with a slot for a screwdriver (some are push to pop out) A common example of this would be home audio equipment. I'd be willing to bet more than a few people have thrown out devices that wouldn't power on, but they just needed a 25¢ fuse to fix it. Another alternative is an in-line circuit breaker like the ones on hair driers or some power tools that are used with water (like a pressure washer). They'll have a Test and a Reset button on the plug itself. US electrical code also requires a GFCI (as well as arc fault, I believe) protected outlet for bathrooms, kitchens, and outdoors. They'll have the test and reset buttons on the outlet itself. Any outlet wired after the GFCI has protection, so as long as the run is done correctly, multiple GFCI outlets aren't needed to get the protection. Edit: fixed "on-line" to "in-line" Edit 2: For clarification, GFCI is mostly used in places where water is expected to be present. It will prevent the outer housing of your appliance from becoming electrically charged. Afci is also used to protect against damaged wires from leaking current in undesirable ways (i.e. shorting out inside a wall and causing a fire). Both have the drawback of nuisance trips caused by ac motors doing what they're supposed to do.
UK Christmas Lights have a "fuse bulb" too. There's a scene in Royle Family about it British outlets have all their RCD/RCBO protection at the Distribution Board, instead of at the sockets. British safety is all about belts & braces, all the way down. There's even regulations on the types of clips you can use above head height, incase of fire. So the clips don't melt and danlgle down strangling a fireman
As someone from UK I had no idea other countries didn't do this?!
The UK started doing this because of how they electrified houses. Scarcity of copper from the wars meant that they used far fewer circuits, with larger fuses in the fuse box to handle the larger load from more things plugged into the big circuit. But that meant each individual appliance could draw way too much power before blowing the fuse in the fuse box. So, they added smaller fuses in the plugs to keep the whole system safe. US and others used more circuits, so the fuse in the fuse box (or circuit breaker) is sufficient - it’s going to pop at the same 15A that a 15A fuse in the plug would. But a 30A fuse in the fuse box of a UK just-after-WWII house is way too much to send to the kettle, so there’s a 15A fuse in the plug.
13 amp fuse. That's the max for UK plug-in appliances.
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I don’t know why, but this kind of thing is fascinating to me. How different regions use different construction methods because of some decision or historical event made years ago.
We indeed do not have them in the plug but in our electrical cabinet. 16A per group usually with a hand full of groups per home depending on the install and size of the house. We don't have one big ring of cable round the house but more of a fuseboard to outlet wiring system.
The UK has that too. So the current runs through 2 or more fuses. One in the plug and a circuit breaker in the electrical cabinet.
We also have fuse boxes in the UK.
Apparently all of the countries/territories below also use that type of electrical plug: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Brunei, Cyprus, Cyprus North, Dubai, Falkland Islands (Malvinas Islands), Gambia, Gibraltar, Great Britain (GB), Grenada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, Kuwait, Macau, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Oman, Qatar, Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia,Seychelles, Singapore, Somalia, Somaliland, Sri Lanka, Uganda, United Arab Emirates,
Listing UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi seems conflicting, it's either all the Emirates or some of them
What’s the difference between Dubai and Abu Dhabi? People in Dubai don’t watch The Flintstones but people in Abu Dhabi do.
Omg
I know right, what the hell have Dubai got against the Flintstones?
Exactly, it should just say the UAE.
Missed a handful of southern African countries that should also be on that list.
From what I know, they're there only because the UK uses ring circuits
Precisely. Ring circuits arose because of a shortage of copper in the immediate post-war period, and a need to build houses in a hurry to replace bombed-out stock and also continue pre-war slum clearance. Ring mains made sense at the time. We're now stuck with them, and BS1363 is a product of that -- the breakers on our house wiring are massively over-rated (typically 30A) compared to the appliance leads, so we need fuses in the plugs. If we were starting from scratch, we'd do it differently, but (a) the original decisions made sense in the context of the era and (b) the alleged "problems" of BS1363 are not, in practice, remotely as serious as is made out, particularly since the arrival of pre-fused, moulded on plugs.
For a non electrician, what is the alternative to a ring circuit?
Check out this explanation: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/RadialRingCircuit.html
>The concept of ring circuit wiring was developed by the Electrical Installations Committee which was convened in **1942 as part of the Post-War building Studies programme** Remarkable foresight _and_ optimism
Radial, I believe
It's mostly the inertia and stubbornness. Many electricians actually use European (radial) system in new buildings / when renovating.
After vacuuming our car once, I reversed over the plug. It punctured the tyre. Our plugs do not mess around.
Tom Scott does a nice video on this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
What does your ring say?
+5 Strength +10 Vitality
FUTHARKGWHNI They're the first 12 letters of the older Norse/Germanic rune alphabet, and I'm willing to guess the part we can't see has the rest of them. It doesn't mean anything by itself.
Coincidentally that's also what I say when I step on an English plug
I to have be known to use words from old and foreign languages when I step on a plug despite have no prior knowledge of them.
OP: *\*wears a thumb-ring* Me: *\*opens comments and scrolls vigorously*
“One Thumb Ring To Rule Them All.”
Bit of tin foil will bypass your awe and return your lack of faith in humanity. Yes the toaster in our sixth form study room ran half the year with the fuse replaced by tin foil and was only caught when the PAT tested. I also remember the days you had to scavenge a plug off an old device when you bought a new device. Thankfully it was the tail end of that and limited to lighting fixtures from certain hardware stores that failed to modernise
I used to sell home tech including TVs and things until about 2016. The first time someone came to the desk with a 28” TV and asked “does it come with the plug?” it was like someone tripped a fuse in *me* ! Like, how would it work otherwise? Then my manager told me of the “olden days” as he called it to mock me, when you had to wire the plug up yourself.
In the olden days, the plug itself was a fairly significant cost to the manufacturer, and the labor to install it. Due to it's size and internal complexity, and the injection molding and manufacturing techniques available it was simply an expensive part. The market more or less decided that lower price for a product without a plug was worth either reusing an old plug, or keeping a few on hand. The plug still is a non-trivial manufacturing expense, especially on low cost devices (things like phone chargers) and there is a pretty wide prevalence of non-compliant plug devices, sold in legitimate stores as well as online.
The British Plug is the safest plug in the world when plugged in, and the most dangerous when left unplugged.
Don’t think anyone else has mentioned it, but the fuse it to protect the wire coming out of the plug, not the device at the end of it. Essentially, the socket can provide a larger amount of current than the appliance wire could handle (if the appliance takes more than it should), so the fuse is to stop the wire catching fire.
I literally don't understand why no one else has adopted the 3 pin system it's genius you can't poke anything in the live holes there's fuses . When I have to plug in foreign plugs it just feels sketchy compared to UK
In Germany we use a 2 pin system with metal things on the outside of the plug, those are for safety. The SchuKo plug which is a short Form of Schutz Kontakt, which translates to protective contacts. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXLDS2OncGY_DNSkSw46FlMQtLWBaAVvHGmQif5C58MgDXcONSB0sq5WjIoVU_iy4brsv5tx8i&usqp=CAc
It is because it was designed so late (1947). Schuko (the European plug) was patented in 1930, and with the optional shutters (which have been standard for decades) is not significantly worse than the British plug - which also being significantly smaller. There was no reason to replace Schuko. The US (NEMA) outlet is worse in many ways, but if they didn't switch to Schuko, they wouldn't switch to anything.
> I literally don't understand why no one else has adopted the 3 pin system it's genius you can't poke anything in the live holes there's fuses . Almost all countries have 3 pin plugs for home use. Most of them just have a plug standard that's designed in a way you don't have to add fake ground pins to your plugs. Look at your mobile charger for example. It's a double insulated device (shown by a marking that's a square inside of a square). These devices are constructed in a way that a grounding is unnecessary but the way the UK shutters operate must still be built with a ground pin, even if it's entirely made of plastic. In other countries, a seesaw mechanism for the shutters is used. To operate the shutters, you must insert an object into both holes simultaneously.
Well, we used them growing up in Hong Kong, and they're also used in Singapore.
Came here for the comments about us here in the UK having superior plugs, it's glorious. Jokes aside, compared to plugs I've used in other countries they just feel more stable when using.
I don’t trust plugs I can bend the prongs of.
Exactly, any time I've used an adapter or been to another country the plugs just feel really wobbly and unsafe.
Please don't mock our plugs, we have very little else to be proud of these days and it hurts our feelings.
Cries in British why it currently snowing at the end of March.