British Plugs and Outlets Are On Another Level
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2024
- I'm a proud American, but these British plugs are pretty cool. #diy #electrical #britishplugs
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00:00 #10 Longer Ground for Safety
01:45 #9 Those Clever 9mm
02:31 #8 Cord Orientation
03:04 #7 Intentional Order of Destruction
04:06 #6 Easy to Open Plugs
05:19 #5 Fuses All Around
06:31 #4 Beefy Pins
07:05 #3 Earth Pins Every Time
08:01 #2 Switches on Every Socket
08:40 #1 230v - Навчання та стиль
As a Brit, the switches don't cause any confusion when troubleshooting, they're pretty bullet proof and growing up with them, you know they're there.
Yep, it's a ludicrous idea . . . a lamp doesn't turn on so we start taking the bulb out and checking it, lol . . nope, no one does that, we make sure it's plugged in and turned on . . . it's like saying if your mouse won't wake up your computer from sleep mode then you start to unscrew your computer . . . nope, you'd check if it's actually switched on . . . I suspect your point about 'growing up with them' is why people who've not grown up with this system might think it's confusing for some reason.
The switch also means that we don’t ever leave plugs on the floor to trip over…
The switches are also always on/off the same way up… so it’s trivial to check.
@@JohnR31415 I agree. As a European, usedthem in Malaysia. Switch, fuse, dinosaur plugs, just perfect!
...and is always the first thing you'd check if a device doesn't work. Personally I always troubleshoot from the socket towards the device and not the other way around. Confirm you have power and then trace why that power is not reaching the device as it should.
The biggest design flaw is that you can step on the prongs hurting both the plug and your foot. We need a redesign that incorporates a 3 pin design, but also lies the pins flat. No one should copy our design, they should take the best FEATURES of our British plug designs but redesign the layout...They say "don't fix it if its not broken" but lets be honest it IS broken.
Don’t think a British person has ever really had an issue with not switching on a socket, we all grew up with the switches! Similarly to how someone knows automatically to flick a switch to turn the light on! Also load balancing isn’t usually problematic- usually have a separate circuit for likes of cookers and washing machines!
👍
rather forget to turn on a socket than have it throw me across the room just a preference!
Not only that if you are unsure what's broken you just plug in something you know works to rule out a faulty switch/socket..
An electric cooker won't be on the same ring circuit as the sockets, it will be directly connected to the consumer unit by a higher gauge cable.
just turn it off at the wall before bed!
I love how the downsides of the G-plug are totally irrelevant things, while its fenefits are complete game-changers
Yeah. It's a fair evaluation, but the conclusion is that British plugs are, in fact, undefeated
I agree, and their size means easy to grasp
Lol USA greatest country uses 120volt 8:46 while the rest of the world 230volt.
With everything going low voltage seems completely overkill to have every outlet capable of 230v.
@@davejulien 110v systems need larger diameter cables to avoid volt drop, so a 230v system uses less resources.
I'm american, but when I was deployed to Iraq, we used these plugs. One thing I miss about these is how satisfying it is to plug these in and how secure they felt. Definitely wish we had these in the states!
I preferred the plugs when I was in Sweden tbh, Don't remember ever having a problem with a sagging cable neither unlike I've seen some saying on here with an American plug, I've also used a plug in Mexico, Perhaps it's similar to the US plug?
In general I agree but I'm not thrilled about ring circuits.
@@danielbliss8014 not all UK circuits are ring circuits, and installers are using radial circuits more commonly here now. Ring circuits are good for smaller gauge wire to be used, typically 2.5mm twin and earth. For a radial circuit 4mm twin and earth is commonly used (to allow for heavy loads), which is obviously more expensive. Can i just add, that standing on a UK plug is 10 times worse than standing on a lego brick :(
@@paulgregory8973 I know all too well about the risk of standing on them.......I grew up over there. Thought US plugs were in that grey area between a practical joke and a dare when I came over here.
No.
Having grown up in Ireland I can attest that stepping barefoot on a 3-prong plug is one of the most painful learning experiences of my childhood. Great video.
Yep, that only happens in Ireland.😁
Stepping on that.
Made me start screaming and cursing in languages I don't even know i could say
I jumped off my bunk bed and landed on one...it wasn't the best! 😞
lol me too.. stepping on an upturned plug feckin hurts like a b4stard
Yeah, that and lego
I’m British, and have never struggled to turn on a socket, nor have I ever struggled with their size. But I have trod on one though! And I’ve still got the scar on my heel to prove it! And even with that agony permanently seared onto my cortex, I'm still able to marvel at their incredible design. I rather took them for granted until I watched this vid.
Do you hit your head on low ceilings and doors as well.
Everyone will learn to stop leaving things on the floor, one way or another
3 prongs makes three points of pressure which distribute the force, it would probably have been a lot worse with a two prong plug
its worse then lego
@@mas_aco309 one of them is longer than the other two, it's like stepping on a one prong plug at first
As a Brit, the size of our plugs has never been an issue. I've lived in the EU and spent time in the US and am always baffled by how flimsy the connection feels with US sockets. I've also never ever had to think about load balancing in any house I've lived. Our electrics are pretty foolproof: plug what you need to use in and that's it. I have also stood on a plug once, in someone else's house, and believe me, once is enough, you learn to be tidier!
Aye, I personally love that the lighting is on a seperate ring so that on the rare occasion where I have caused a load imbalance or a piece of equipment had an earth leakage, I don't have to feel my way around to find a torch in order to get the sockets back on.
Agreed with you that British plugs are very safe and foolproof. Sometime I even think the safety standard might be too high that used too much material.
The plugs fit flush to the wall as well which means they hardly take up any space when connected
Yeah, I don't understand why load balancing was even brought up as an issue, as long as you don't exceed the ampere rating of the circuit breaker you never have to even think about it
Our plugs are always perfect, to the level that we go abroad and cant believe how bad other systems are.
Great video, thanks. Another correction from an old British electrician, the ring main itself is also protected using either a large 30A fuse or more modern circuit breaker so the total load cannot exceed design criteria (nominally 30 amps). Cable sizes for the ring main are not small at all at 2.5mm sq (twin + earth) and have double insulation over singles used on lower voltage systems. Load balancing has never been a consideration in normal homes as large appliances, such as an oven or hob, have their own dedicated high current rated circuits; as do other large loads, such as air con units. Lastly, we also use dedicated radial circuits for specific purposes. For example, central heating boilers, tumble dryers, washing machines etc. to keep the high load appliances off the ring main.
Excellence is expected 🇬🇧
Separate rings for the lights too IIRC.
@@unclemick-synths radials for lights in uk
32A is the standard
Rewiring a plug was part of our science classes at like age 14, it's kind of weird to think that that's not a standard experience everywhere since it was a pretty good demo of how electricity works
Your lucky, don't think my school ever taught that, if they did I can blame the idiots of the class but also the punishment system for also punishing everyone else :p
That's because back in the day you had to attach plugs your self
@@Magic__7 I'm 19. I was taught how the plugs work via a diagram at school, but it was Dad who taught me the practical side of wiring them.
@@lennonhorrocks3754 im 20, i we learned how to wire them in phyisics in year 9
School never mentioned it but at like 13 i found some old hifi equipment and needed to swap a plug to use some of it. Although these days more and more plugs come sealed.
In the UK, we lift weights from the age of 3 in nursery/creche in order to manage the extra weight of our plugs. Also, we walk on hot coals every weekend in order not to feel pain when we walk on trailing plugs (which happens literally all the time).
But seriously, it's unusual to feel proud to be British about anything at the moment, so thanks for the video!
bruh... guess whats the global human race language is.
@Colin Mitchell Please elaborate. I'm not a professional electrician or engineer, but I just spent all day trying to wire up my shed and then watching UA-cam videos about how bad I did it and the English outlet/plug certainly looks better to me right now. I'm American.
@Colin Mitchell Safety features that prevent potential death via electric shock aren't "over-designed". I feel terribly sorry for anyone who hires you as an engineer as you clearly have no regard for health and safety if you want things to be simple at the cost of danger
@@Nvggs Facts broski!!! 😳😳😳😳😂😂😛😛😛😛😛😛
@Colin Mitchell
Yeah, but to be fair Australians need to save every penny they can on wiring in order to pay to fortify their houses against random animal attacks... Nobody wants a Kangaroo kicking their door through and punching them in the face, or dare I say, a dingo breaking in and stealing their baby!
I live in Ireland and, just like the use of the metric system, I love the G plugs. As you said, they always point downward which is great when you have something plugged in snuggly against a cupboard or a dresser and you don't have to get an extender/brick to corner off the plug as you may have to with the A type. I love it's safety and will happily risk every night of potentially stomping on one to keep it in my home every single time. Honestly it's one of the greatest inventions Britain has ever produced
@R Voit make me laught...the metric system was adopted in France in 1799, and some years later was use on all the european continent, inclusive germans who was not realt friendly against France in that times... but the US, despite they recive a significative help from France to access to independance in 1783 which was signed in Paris, did not adopt the metric system from he's friends and hold to the imperial system from they colonist and the weird farenheit t° scale , that's was alway considered in France as a realy strange attitude...all the more strange that the 2 first US embassadors in France was Benjamin Franklin and he's successor Thomas Jefferson, both founding fathers from the USA...
Nigerian here, and I can confirm that the UK type-G plug is the common type around here. We only usually see the type-B and type-A coming in with laptops and printers and such. And, yes, the issues you raised about the straight-out direction of the cables are legitimate headaches. Nearly everything else - fridges, washing machines, electric irons, electric stoves/cookers, televisions, set top boxes etc - all come with 3-pin type-G plug. Never stepped on one of those, but I think I have enough reflex memory experience from stepping on other stuff to keep me from EVER making that mistake. The mere thought of it is giving me the creeps. Yikes!
You've never stepped on one, don't worry son one day your coming of age ritual will be achieved 😉
As someone who has lived my entire life here in the UK I am shocked to hear that you don't have switches at the sockets. It's just such an alien concept from my perspective.
As an Aussie i agree.
I’m in the UK and there are no switches on any of my sockets. They are optional.
@@pencilme1n Same though to be honest the amount of plug-in gadgets I have is far less today than when I was a kid at least outside of the kitchen.
'Fondly remembers all the separate parts the stereo system and VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and SKY boxes under the TV'.
Now it's all just USB charging mobile devices.
Shocked indeed
Multi sockets and extention leads don't commonly have switches though.
I've never had any problems with confusion about whether a switch is on or off, and I've never stepped on a plug because every plug is either plugged into the wall or put away, so it's never a danger. Honestly some of the things you listed made me go "Wait, America doesn't have that?" The switches in particular I was surprised about because it's something I always took for granted. Very interesting video though.
I've stepped on plugs because my house doesn't have enough outlets for all the plugs (especially back before USB C laptops, the TV always seemed to have a few different laptop chargers on the floor near it) and it's bad, but you usually notice before putting any serious weight down and it's more of an "oh god that was scary and could have gone badly" than an "oh god that hurts"
I wish I could say the same but I've definitely stepped on them
@@lilithstenhouse267 Not to mention that as a consequence of their weight and "bulkiness" they pretty much always lay/rest on the floor pin sides up, so almost every Brit has experienced the profound agony that ensues from stepping on one at some point in their lives . Lego has nothing on British plugs. 😂
I was spinning around on an office chair as a kid and fell off, hitting my head against an upright plug. Now my mum is pretty self sufficient so she washed the blood out my hair and patched me up herself, but for most people that would have been a trip to A&E :)
@@harrylangton3206 Thought you were going to say for the rest of your life you had three prong marks in the middle of your forehead.
Not mentioned here, the fuse in the plug is intended to be rated for the flex/cable and appliance together, so a smaller cable gets a smaller fuse. Therefore even under fault conditions insufficient to trip the main breaker, you still can’t melt the wire, because the fuse blows first. Typically a 13A fuse on a 3kW kettle, a 3A fuse on a lamp. An additional important safety feature!
I think it's great that new items already come with a fitted plug as standard long time nowadays and now that actually makes me wonder why and if you can still buy plugs? What would be the actual point ha
@@David.L291 yes you can still buy plugs. I often convert foreign equipment to plug type G.
Its also still possible to damage a plug, say crushing it when the equipment is in storage. Or pins wearing with very heavy use over 20 years.
Unfortunately, most plugs are automatically sold with 13A fuses. In reality you should be asked what the plug is for then be provided with the appropriate fuse.
The fuse in the plug trick is in most USA dangerous gadgets that are not directly wired like afurnace. Blow dryer, clothing dryer, clothes washer etc.
From Singapore, whenever i went overseas, i'm blessed that we have G-plug in Singapore. It's so safe and the flexibility to change the plug ourselves. We always remember and make sure to switch off all irrelevant switches before we leave home, except the one for the fridge.
I'm British and have taken these plugs for granted. Listening to this, I feel a new appreciation for them.
The rest of the world just have to do everything wrong don’t they!
As a french living in the UK, these plugs are one of the things I like the most in this country!
Let's talk about Brittish faucets next. Shall we? >:)
@@XtreeM_FaiL you mean "taps".
@@jonnyjackson6050 Yes, but should they be called double taps?
Very true - stepping on a plug is one of the most painful experiences. However, since all our sockets are switched, it's an unusual situation. Most of the time you'll just leave the socket plugged in, and switch it off from the wall
I've actually never trodden on one. Unless it was so painful I've blanked the memory.
@@offshoretomorrow3346 I have - the Apple phone chargers with the removable USB cable, the cable comes out, plug ends up face up, I forget I've dropped it and... well... you can see how it ends
Usually a light plug when your wondering round to the toilet at night with no foot protection.🤬🤬
Comment came to soon!
As a kid I Jumped off my bunk bed straight on to a plug. I remember there was blood but its was about 40 years ago now :(
As a visitor to the USA, I was impressed by the solid quality of the plumbing, amazed at how small the stall doors are in public toilets and how loose the electric sockets are in the wall.
A wonder of British Engineering that is often overlooked or taken for granted I'm sure. There's just something nice to see you, an American, appreciating it like this.
When my dad taught me how to wire a new plug when I was a kid and then I did it properly myself, I was chuffed. But when I'd get in to trouble, like in school, as a punishment, he'd take the plug off my Playstation or TV, but he often overlooked that I was able to take the plug off something else in the house to make it work again. LOL. He'd regretfully armed me with the knowledge to combat his own punishment 😏😅😆😝
It is not in any way a wonder. These plugs and sockets develop poor connection. I shy away from using them whereever I can as they cause disaster, they melt, they are one long line of problems from day 1.
@@davidsvarrer8942 Shame to hear that. That's never happened to me, so maybe you're using it wrong. "Don't blame the tools" 😅😆😝👉
@@Johny40Se7en yep, user error!
Not just me then... mine was usually my Scalextrix lol
@@davidsvarrer8942 What nonsense. What you are describing is more likely a fault resulting from another variable in the circuit. These plugs, when wired correctly, are generally foolproof.
On the subject of size, you'll note that despite the chunky plug size, the standout from the wall of the plug and cable, is LESS with the larger, British style plug. Because the cable sticks straight out of the wall in the US version, its stand out is larger, meaning that you need more space around your socket in order to use it. In Britain, its fairly common to see certain devices plugged into sockets that are behind bits of furniture, like sofas, tv cabinets and bookcases, without those furniture items themselves standing off the wall by much. This means rooms can be arranged to make maximum use of floor space, without having to spend a lot of effort or time accounting for the positions of sockets.
With regard to the switched sockets, it absolutely doesn't make trouble shooting more difficult, it just makes it different.
And on load balancing ... Nearly nobody has to worry about that. Most peoples homes concentrate the majority of high use items in the kitchen, the kettle, the oven, the refrigerators and freezers... All that load heavy stuff is ordinarily in one room, but kitchen wall wire is often beefier itself, to account for that load intensity.
First time an American has complained about something being too big.
As a UK home owner the large draw items like cooker, water heater or car charger are on independent circuits. My house has a few loops all feeding back to the panel. But the cooker is its own loop.
Other systems have 90° plugs too.
The European style plugs usually have straight plugs for small power devices and angled plugs for higher power devices.
Your comment has made me aware of this. 😁
Indeed.
In the UK homes will be wired with ring mains for the lights and electrical sockets with something like a 3-6 amp breaker for the lighting circuits and a 16 amp breaker for the circuit with the electrical sockets.
The rings for the lighting is usually done by floor so all the lights on the ground floor will be on one ring and all the lights on the upper floor will be on another.
The electrical sockets are often a hybrid of radial and ring with all the sockets in a room being on a ring but each room being connected to the breaker box radially so there will be a single wire from the breaker box to the kitchen but all the sockets in the kitchen will then be on their own ring. The same will go for all the other rooms with all the sockets in that room on a ring but that ring being fed with a single spur from the breaker box.
High power electrical items such as electric ovens, hobs, electrical shower heater units, and immersion heaters for hot water tanks will all be on their own individual spurs usually with 30 Amp cable that goes directly from the breaker box to an isolating switch that has an indicator light to show that power is being supplied to the appliance.
This is so that if the appliance has to be powered off for some reason it can be powered off with a switch close by without needing to switch it off at the breaker box.
For instance, in the kitchen an electric cooker and hob will be on their own 30 Amp spur that is independent from all the other 13 amp sockets that will be on the kitchen's 16 Amp ring main.
The 30 Amp spur will come into a faceplate with a 45 Amp switch for the cooker and hob and a 13 Amp socket that can be used to test that there is power to that faceplate from the 30 Amp spur. The switch can turn the power to the cooker and hob on and off while not effecting the 13 Amp socket.
Under the counter appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers and larder fridges or appliances such as floor to ceiling fridge freezers which will be plugged into sockets that are inaccessible will usually have a fused switch in an accessible location that controls an unswitched that is located behind the appliance.
As has been stated elsewhere, in all cases fault finding will start at the switch first with this either being a switched socket or the fused switch in the case of appliances that run off a switched spur. These will usually have an indicator light to indicate whether they are supplying power or not.
Finally, because power outlets in the UK have individual switches in them, an appliance can be electrically isolated by simply setting the switch on the outlet to the off position so there is no reason to unplug the device and so having stray plugs laying around the room with their pins in the air to step on is not really an issue as the socket does not need to be removed from the outlet to power off the device.
@@paulchartley UK domestic ring mains are usually 32A. Domestic lighting tends to be a radial (not a ring) between each light fixture with a live and switched live dropping down to the light switch ( no neutral)
@@Isnt_that_Aaronic the cooker will be on a radial circuit
I grew up in a former British colony and we use these plugs. Didn't think much of these while growing up. Then I went to the US to study for 3 years. I've been literally shocked 4 times (vs 0 previously and since) mostly when pulling out plugs and accidentally touching the live point. Definitely have a greater appreciation for these plugs now
Lived in the US nearly all of my life. I've literally never been shocked plugging or unplugging anything unless the cord going into the plug was frayed.
@@Angelsilhouette Yeah but this guy got used to the additional safety features of the UK plug so has never really needed to take much care whilst inserting or pulling them out... prior to his trip to the US.
@@DAN.eight6 yep exactly :)
@@Angelsilhouette these comments are why people think americans are...let me not be rude nvm
@@ShakTMT We might have good plugs, but they built the most advanced and powerful country in just around 250 years.
One of the benefits that you fail to mention. Because the cable exits parallel to the wall you can place a piece of furniture such as a side cabinet in front of the outlet without the risk of either kinking the cable and or damaging it in the process.
We have those kinds of cables in the eu as well
You still need lots of clearance regardless if you want to plug something in and out because of how long the pins are. Some North American plugs have the cord parallel with the wall, but it's not a standard.
@@pikachuchujelly7628 once plugged in what remains on the outside is very minimal, you can definitely push your furnitures right against the wall and have a very minimal gap
@@pikachuchujelly7628 usually things that are being plugged in and out don’t go in sockets behind furniture so it’s a non issue. Things that remain plugged in long term such as a lamp or television do not need much clearance.
A nice benefit to the cable exiting the bottom (rather than the front) is that no matter how thick and heavy it is, the plug will never sag in the socket. I've seen brand new type A/B plugs in brand new sockets sagging and falling out of the socket just from the weight of the cable on them.
And you can put furniture right infront of the outlet and still have something plugged in.
@@electricpaisy6045 I was going to comment that too, the cables sitting flush to the wall is very convenient
It baffles me that people are baffled by plugs with angled cables. In continental europe both types are in common use.
A receptacle that allows a two-prong plug to sag is defective and should be replaced.
I knew the potential for foot injury would be among the cons. As someone born and raised in the UK, I can attest that we only ever step on a plug once in a lifetime. It's so horrible that you never repeat it. I'm sure we have a more tentative shoeless-in-the-dark shuffle than anyone else in the world (along with the other Type G regions mentioned in this video) due to this plug design.
This Fact has been proved so many times. Step on a UK plug once and scarred for life with 'The Fear'.
It's up there with kicking a bed leg with your little toe barefoot
after your first time your feet will never leave the floor with the shoeless-in-the-dark shuffle.
I would never wish someone to go through that pain, not even my worst enemy.
I think stepping on one of our UK plugs is the only real negative. The size makes no real difference. In fact with the cable running down from the outlet you can have furniture far closer up against the plug than with a US version. We do a lot of things in a mixed up way here (like our odd mix and match of metric and imperial) but our plugs are just objectively better.
The black insulation on the live and neutral pins has not always been there. It was introduced because of the amount of people pushing metal objects like cutlery and other metal objects behind the plug. The plugs can be hard to pull and the amount of people with arthritis and children that were killed trying to prize them out of the wall was the ultimate reason that they are now insulated.
Consider it a live service update. One of a few in fact.
Most of my life I used EU plugs, and there is something really satisfactory about how the UK plugs fits to a socket that you don't get with the EU ones. Flat plug, flat socket, everything flush and tight. Never the slightest wobble.
As a Malaysian using the same UK plugs, I can confirm on the satisfactory of punching and snapping the plug to the outlet. It’s like “yup, done ✅”
Think flip phones.
EU plugs are utter garbage. They should be outlawed.
They really are a work of art. So many safety features that are taken for granted and most people wouldn't even notice.
That's really electrical engineering, it's a truly amazing subject but people just take it for granted.
@@Fastnet72 has the Mona Lisa helped power millions upon millions of homes in a safe manner? She can smirk all she likes but she's done nothing on the scale of a type G plug.
@@Fastnet72 Calm down Peter. You'll get there in the end..
Can confirm, am british, didn't notice.
@@Fastnet72 its much better than the mona Lisa. Beautifully designed engineering which is taken for granted
Brit here. Although I'm not an electrician (I'm in radio/electronics), I can honestly say that although 'load balancing' is a theoretical concern it is not something that bothers 99% of people at all. I've never seen an instance of it anywhere. As for treading on an up-turned plug, we Brits are sensible people and we don't have plugs lying about in the middle of the floor! Finally, if an appliance fails to switch on, we don't automatically think it's faulty, we just check it is plugged in and the wall-switch is on.
also, yes it big and bulky but it sits flat against the wall with cable coming down which is great if a plug is behind somthing like furniture
As a Brit you’re lying if you say this has never happened to you 🔌 🦶
As another Brit, I refute your claim that we never step on plugs. I have done it a few times. It’s even worse than stubbing your toe on the coffee table.
@@miles7374 No really, I've never stepped on a plug! Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I look where I'm going or maybe we don't leave plugs lying around the floor! But really, I suspect I'm like the majority of Brits who have never stood on one, and I've just asked my wife and she tells me she hasn't either! Please don't accuse someone of lying just because you have a different experience.
@@LoFi3 I didn't say that. It would be a foolish claim.
The thing I like about this design is that you can leave the plugs, plugged into the sockets and switch off on the socket if you want to isolate some equipment. Like you do when you go on holiday, for example. Also, by leaving them plugged in you don't step on them. And the downward cable means the plugs and cable are flush with the wall so can place furniture up against them.
"Like you do when you go on holiday". This is exactly what I've done for a couple of decades. You are going on holiday and don't want devices draining power or presenting an electrical fire risk, you just go round switching off the sockets. With a TV for example, we would have a dvd player, vhs, sky, speakers... plugged into a 4 way extension. Simply flip the switch and you can be certain that it is isolated.
Mid 90's we were on holiday in France and we had a call from a neighbour (we lived in rural Ireland), the house alarm had been going off for days. Turns out we hadn't turned off the fax machine and my Dad (a Doctor) had been receiving faxes which are printed using heat (fax/receipt paper turns black when heated) that triggered the infra-red motion sensors. The alarm would finally turn off just for another fax to arrive and set it off again. Hahahahaha. Our neighbour was a couple of fields away but it had been annoying them for days until my Dad told them where a key was hidden so that they could go in and flip the switch.
i am from Hong kong and im gonna show this to my colleagues in the US, as they were always laughing at how chunky the plugs we use in HK are, i am so not educated, and even though my user experience is much better, I cannot explain how it is much safer to use and all the advantage it has😂 British Plugs yeah~!
As British born, London in 1985. And an electrician since I was 18 I can confirm we do have great plugs.
Until you stand on one 😄
All those safety features meant we had to swap character-building electric shocks with character-building foot impalement!
@@bucketheadothers2384 Why would we stand on them?
@@user-nr2cs2rq7h 99% of brits will have done at some point when they are left unplugged and you unknowingly stand on it, followed by a few cuss words 😄
Swear* words.
As a Brit, I love that the downsides are that, they're big, you wouldn't normally check the switch, and you can stand on it 😂😂😂
Ikr? I’m also a Brit and checking the switch is a pretty common thing to do, not a flaw. It’s just Americans aren’t used to it 🙄
Yeah, but I HAVE stepped on it, and it is excruciating. Still not as bad as an electric shock though 😂
@@1815matt I think every Brit knows the pain of standing on a plug! It normally happens at 3am on the way to the toilet 😂
Reckon he tried a bit too hard to find downsides!
@@imlanding when you're trying to be quiet... but the barrage of expletives you let out when you step on one is never quiet 😂
One of the minor features about the plug that often gets overlooked is that if you are colour blind you can wire it correctly as the colours are designed so that one is black one is white and the earth is black and white and the colours where chosen for both the letter reminder and again with partial colour blindness they could never get mistaken
I live in Malaysia (which uses British Plugs) and yeah, I don't understand other plugs, I will always stand by British Plugs!
Now I want to see a comparison to EU plugs.
I grew up with them and was shocked about the lack of safety on US plugs.
Exactly....everyafety feature he likes on british plugs is done better by EU ones xD -the switches
@@stixinst5791 what do you mean the switchs?
@@lewiskidd9568 he wrote "minus the switches", meaning the eu plugs don't have switches
@@lewiskidd9568 minus the switches
@@stixinst5791 aand then there's the swiss plug, which is better than the Schuko plug (can't mix up live and neutral), and also the smallest one.
I grew up stepping on these. Brilliant for this purpose. The pain is pure and exquisite, the endorphin rush that follows sublime.
It is quite uniquely painful isn’t it? Still - I wouldn’t recommend it!
Be more careful then.
Yes, you know when you've stood on one of these bad boys with bare feet
There is no pain like it, it's not even pain, it's like an out of body experience, it's like being so cold that you don't even notice how cold you really are
It’s up there with stepping on Lego at 3am while trying to find your way to the toilet in the dark.
The best thing I learn from the design is that the cord always came out from the bottom of the plug, so if you have water leaking from the appliance the water never flow into your wall socket. Very nice design.
Genuinely don't think the negatives even come close to making an argument against our plugs. Amazing invention
I'm happy for you.
As an Australian, I would have to agree and have to say that this whole system with ring main, individual fuse and plug is pure genius! However, To improve this would be to have each power outlet RCD protected with a lower tripping current than of the main.
@@andrewstewart8704 How do the RCDs in Australia work?
@@jovetj trips the circuit if there is an earth leakage. AKA earth leakage detector safety switch
@@andrewstewart8704 No, sorry, I meant how much leakage current do they allow there? Are they installed only as MCBs or are there receptacle versions like in the States? Or?
They are much larger than the North American plugs, but interestingly since they're a 90 degree plug they actually take up less space in your home. You could shove a piece of furniture up against it easily, whereas our plugs need several inches of space to give the cord room.
Flat design plugs are now becoming more readily available.
Excellent point! I’m currently traveling in Scandinavia and noticing the same thing: flatter plugs = furniture tighter to the walls and less risk. The US has these as well but they’re just now getting some traction and it will be a while before they’re common.
The first thing I thought of when he mentioned the size is the number of times I've had to squeeze a plug through a gap. I could never do that with the UK plug.
@@LRN2DIY Is it still a lot easier to mold inline plugs than 90 degree ones? Most US plugs are molded unlike the assembled plugs in the UK, but I still agree the 90 degree plug is wonderful when working with furniture.
Annoyingly, in the UK most plugs sockets are a few inches above floor level (except for the kitchen where they are sometime installed at work-surface level) . . . so having a cord that exists the plug go downwards is rarely ideal . . . for example you've got a radio or computer or TV, and the plug will usually be plugged in 4 or 5 inches off the ground and the cord exiting it then heads downwards, only to then need to go upwards, I see this as somewhat of a design flaw - I 3D printed myself a bunch of plugs where the cord exits from the top, which are much more practical if you want your leads out of the way or to better fit behind things. Another solution is to mount the sockets upside down.
Coming from the UK, a pet peeve when travelling (especially in Asia) is that the plugs are so wobbly, connection drops as soon as it's moved and sometimes they just fall straight out of the wall. No idea how you could hoover with 2 pin plugs and not go crazy. Definitely don't take them for granted now!
If it's something your used to, I guess you don't take any notice.
@SeekCraft No she's right. They don't handle weight well either. Try plugging some wall adaptors in and tell me how you get on.
you know you're a Brit when you say hoover instead of vacuum lol
your suposed to pinch the prongs together a bit so they hold in
Maybe travel to Hong Kong the next time you are in Asia and you will feel right at home! With these plugs, I mean.
3 pin plugs are SUPERIOR and by far one of the top 5 best achievements Britain ever made on this plant
Up there with the battered Mars bar, imo.
Curry
The London Underground
The Electric Motor
The Type G plug
The Steam Engine
In that order 👆🏽
@@stickykittyNo mention of the The G String… 😅
@@smoketinytom I knew I forgot something 🤣 well done lad!!
don't forget telescopes, toothbrushes, chronometers, the printing press, fire extinguishers, lawnmowers, cameras, telegraphs, the chocolate bar as we know it, tin cans, thermos flask, telephones, stainless steel, spoked wheels, turbines, ATMs, jet engines, the world wide web, cement... and there's more.@@stickykitty
Surprised that you didn't even *mention* the Schuko plug CEE 7/4 and CEE 7/7. Apart from serviceability, it is basically identical in terms of safety features - in small details, arguably even better. Especially if you consider the differences in which the european power grid and houses are set up in the most parts of Europe compared to the UKs.
- Two ground clips that always engage first, while all ungrounded Europlugs (2 pins) i've seen so far have this "9mm" protection even tho it's redundant here due to RCCB and being unpolarized in the first place.
- Beefy pins
- 240v
- Most Schuko plugs also have the sideways orientation for the cable, only the compatible Europlug is straight most of the time
- Internal order of destruction exactly the same
- While the UK uses ring circuits, the rest of Europe uses radial circuits, together with the excessive breaker setup and RCCB that each house here has having fuses inside the plug isn't nessecary, the same goes for turning off individual sockets. You may still find sockets that you can turn off occasionally, but it's redundant and doesn't serve any security purpose here. Some security features that are built into UK plugs are actually built into our power grid and houses instead, yet are still partially present on some versions of our compatible plugs anyway. It is surprisingly hard to electrocute yourself on a Schuko outlet, even on purpose.
- Bonus: the CEE 7/7 standart of the Schuko plug is even compatible with french sockets, that have the ground pin in the socket rather than the plug. While of course retaining the ground pins for non-french outlets.
You can't expect that Britons will admit that something from Germany is better. They already have a hard time with german cars. 😂
Went to Spain and used them before. Horrible experience with socket stability and how it just seems to want to come out of the socket with a little cable weight. UK plugs have never failed me and always plugs in tight into the socket.
@@nevmiku I personally never had that expierience with a Schuko plug, only some Europlugs here and there - but those usually don't have heavy and long cables attatched to them in the first place. The full size Schukos (round with ground pin contacts) sit so tight in the socket, that one has to really put some force in when pulling them out, at least in germany and france.
Did you use an adapter that was UK Type G to Europlug? That's the only scenario i can imagine where this would happen. If you adapter only had a slim, 2 prong plug then it was definetly a europlug adapter and no proper Schuko adapter, so sadly it makes sense as those were never designed to have much weight on them in the first place. But since they are compatible with more outlet types, those adapters are also more common than a proper UK type G to Schuko adapter.
@@nevmiku In Spain sometimes there are still type C installations. They look like type f but the lack protective earth.
what you describe sounds like type C.
All good points and a fine example of a plug that is engineered to suit its environment, as the G-plug is. But there's no need to defend it; just because it wasn't mentioned, doesn't mean the presenter wouldn't think it was well designed. However it is not standard. Several plugs can be inserted into the corresponding socket, whereas the Type G is the only type, it is not cross-compatible with anything else. The Schuko does not have a separate fuse, and can also be found corded dead straight, i.e. easy to pull out. Nor are shutters part of the core specification. Then again, it doesn't need a separate fuse, as the radial circuit is commonplace in Germany and elsewhere. BTW it would be interesting to go into why the UK historically has used a ring circuit. I know why, not sure everyone does though!
As someone from Ireland who grew up with these plugs, I can confirm the extreme level of pain that comes from stepping on one them...
Yes I agree.
People always complain about Lego until you remind them of that time they stepped on a plug.
Only stepped on one once and i learned my lesson
No plug is outside of a socket unless it's bundled or spooled together
Why would you unplug something and then leave it were you going to be walking? You probably deserve sore feet.
I've done that once or twice, thanks for reminding me lol.
I grew up in South America where the US standard or its variations are ubiquitous (127V). After I moved to the UK, one of the things I fell intensely in love was tthe electrical sockets/plugs design (the other is roundabouts). Its design and network is so vastly superior that there is not even a comparison - and should have been adopted worldwide.
Believe us, if the Empire had its way, everyone would be speaking English and using 3 Pin Plugs (pretty sure they were our main objectives). But everyone wanted their independence back so here we are.
I mean, it was definitely our fault...
@@rhysblaney3121don't get too high on that nostalgia - if that was the case, we'd also have very bad food everywhere
@@ReynaldoJAbreuR74 hey, you can't beat a Sunday roast 😋
@@lees6057 he wouldn't know
@@ReynaldoJAbreuR74 no we wouldn't, the British eventually adopted good aspects of a culture
Hi there! I'm from Singapore. We're using the UK plug and I feel really safe using the UK plug. The massive earth pin really gives a big sense of security (other than serving it's intentional purpose). Having stepped onto these plugs a few times in my life, it is not fun at all!
Agreed. I also live in singapore and feel very safe with these plugs
Be careful, Shouldn't leave plus lying around but yeah good plugs I guess but I much preferred the ones when I was in Sweden tbh
Stepping on it is a painful experience but we can avoid it altogether by placing the unused plug in an area where there's ZERO chance of stepping on it.
CVtech got me to come to here and watch the original
Thanks for taking the time to show off
Our awesome plugs! 🇬🇧 ❤
As a Brit it is wild to me that you can’t plug in a hair dryer and a iron at the same time 😂
Yeah! I thought the same!
haha yea, I have offpeak electric at 9:30pm to 2:30am, At 9:30 I charge my electric car, put on the dishwasher, put on the washing machine and also the kettle to make hot water bottles or cups of tea, not had any issue
OR making a brew and toast at the same time! Talk to me about load balancing lol.
Not only as a Brit, this is the case in the EU as well. That's just a normal thing for a western country with 230V
Out old house had a 1940s dual amp age wiring system this predated the square pin system and had 3 pin round pin plugs. You had a 5 amp circuit for lights etc and a larger socket 12 amp circuit for electric fires, hairdryers etc. Such set ups could still be found into the 1980s but have pretty much been replaced with modern wiring
It may have been mentioned already, but the plug also has extended "wings" sticking out on ether side at the base so that your fingers are kept away from the pins. They make it difficult to wrap your fingers around the base of the plug when inserting it into a socket.
Our UK plugs are so cool lol so many features we take for granted
European plugs have that too
T'is actually especially useful because I have some plugs that don't have these "wings" and whenever I try to plug them in, the skin on my fingers wrap around the plug and when I press down on, It basically just turns into a pinching machine between the socket and the flush plug. So, yes. it does have more implications than just the fingers touching the pins.
I'm from the UK and didn't know that🤣🤣
@@codname125 The European Type E/F plug is pretty cool, too. I think it looks better, but type G has more features. Both are pretty safe
I've heard the 9mm insulation strips weren't just a safety feature to prevent accidents, but also to stop people deliberately making bootleg distribution boards by looping wire over the pins, plugging it in, then connecting the hanging wires to another plug...
After moving to the UK I was like "why in the earth is this thing so massive?!".
Right now, after 2 years, I also think that those are the best plugs out there, for 4 major reasons:
1) safety, safety, SAFETY (as described in the video)!
2) their fit in the socket is very tight and they won't be falling out of the socked on their own, which can be quite common for EU/US plugs.
3) the ON/OFF switch is a great invention! For example, if I know that I won't be using my office space for some time, I can just switch off one of the outlets and everything connected to it (audio system, monitors, computer, lightning, consoles, chargers, etc.) gets turned off at once. Yes, I could just unplug the extension cable, but this is not as convenient and leads to my final point, which is...
4) every cable is coming down from the socket (as shown in the vid), so you can, connect the plug and place your furniture (for example a night stand next to your bed) almost against the socket (like 3-4cm from the wall), with just enough space to put your hand in for the on/off switch. Good luck doing that with your cable going out perpendicular to the wall.
> which can be quite common for EU/US plugs.
That's pure speculation. I've lived in Brazil (which adopted a version of IEC 60906-1) and in Canada (NEMA-2 and NEMA-5) and all of them do just fine.
> the ON/OFF switch is a great invention!
Adds to cost with a dubious return value.
> every cable is coming down from the socket
90 degrees connectors are indeed nice, however, if your wall panel has two outlets, then 180 plugs are much better.
EU plugs fit pretty tight as well
I have never even heard of such a thing as a plug falling out of the socket on its own, so that surely only applies to US plugs.
@@HeriEystberg yes, US plugs sometimes do that. some just fit extremely loosely
@@leonardopsantos the swithch is indeed redundand IMO. There are spliters with builtin one that dimly glows when on. I usually get a one with 1.5m extension cord and operate it with my feet.
And yo are also correct on the falling out part. In my 20years of using them this video is the first place I heard falling out is a thing.
The 90° cord is superior in every way, if you have two above eachother you justtilt the top connector by 60° for german efficiency
I’m a master electrician in Canada and was the equivalent in the UK. The ring main is protected with a 32A breaker, never heard of the balance issue. The wire size is 2.5mm² this is 14AWG, not a thinner gauge. With a ring main, the receptacle is fed from both sides of the ring; there isn’t any issue with loading up one area of the ring. The max plug fuse size is 13A the smallest is 3A the fuse can be tailored to the device. The maximum area for a ring main is 100 square meters, usually, the kitchen has its own ring main to cover the heavy loads associated with a kitchen. There is double the power available from a 220V plug vs. a 110V plug. A 1kW kettle will use 4A at 220V and 8A at 110V. The breaker box in the UK has 2 x 32A Residual current circuit breakers - RCCB one for each ring main. 6A breaker dedicated to lighting using 1.5mm² wire. The 32A receptacles will trip if a 30 mA fault occurs and must trip within 40 ms, but the lights will stay on. But the receptacles and plugs are expensive compared to North America, but you get what you pay for.
He did say Master electrician. And then proved it!!
The rules here are very strict regarding electrics and although DIY electrics is allowed there are a lot of situations where a qualified sparky is necessary to be compliant with the regulations. Doesn't matter much - until you want to sell the house...
I'm fairly sure that 1 Amp fuses are available for the type G plug.
@@manolisgledsodakis873 They are but they are super rare it's normally 3, 5, 13 I've only ever seen a 1 in Christmas tree lights
@@manolisgledsodakis873 The best fuse is a piece of aluminium foil , twisted around the failed fuse and inserted carefully into the clips. :))
@@jonsouth1545 There are also 10 amp fuses, although they're not very common, and of course they're all colour-coded:
3A - Red
5A - Black
10A - Dark grey
13A - Brown
As an Electrical Engineer, I've always been fascinated by the British plug, to the point where I frequently start talking about how brilliantly designed it is, and can go on and on for a very long time. Apparently I'm not fun at parties :)
hahaha
Brit here... just to say here in the UK we're particularly proud of our ability to hair dryer our clothes while ironing our hair at the same time from the same socket.
Agreed. Think it's one of the qualifications required to enter 'extreme ironing' competitions.
@VyktorAbyss - I think you've been watching too much Monty Python! That sounds like one of their comic routines.
🤣👌
@@wranglerboi " ... watching too much Monty Python." Sorry, not familiar with that concept.
Also running a space heater because the window's open to let out the cord for the hedge trimmer. (true story... hangs head in shame). :D
I worked out the switch as a kid and plugged my dads voltmeter into the wall. I turned the dial and it blew up, the tv went fuzzy and I thought I was in deep trouble, somehow the tv was fine when they got home and I got away with it. Sometimes it seems like a miracle that boys survive childhood.
You forgot to mention that:
1) each & every plug comes with a printed card teaching you how to rewire & change it.
2) All you need to fix your plug (barring possible a new fuse) is a small flat-head (electrical) screwdriver which we can pick up almost anywhere.
Heavy usage devices like cookers & washing machines usually have their own circuits.
Oh, and we also have fuse boxes which have our rings (lights, sockets, cooker, kitchen, etc...) on them separately as well as a main breaker.
I actually have a mixture of ring & radial circuits depending on the usage & that's just in a basic single flat, nothing special.
Regarding the down-sides,
The size is no issue - it's plugged into the wall & in fact less also likely to be tripped over or kicked that the US plug.
I've never had to 'load balance' nor do I know anyone (untrained) who has - in fact most wouldn't even know what you were talking about.
And, how often do you leave a plug lying on the floor? Maybe if you could switch it off without unplugging it would help. 🙂
As I'm British, I took these features for granted. I knew of all the safety features mentioned, but had never paused to think what a great job somebody did when they put the specification together. It's like most simple, but brilliant designs, you just don't realise they are so well engineered because they almost never give cause to notice them. Thanks for the video, I will not take our humble plug for granted again :)
@@GlennHoddleSucksSocks Never known anyone to step on one, I think a tad of cynicism
@@GlennHoddleSucksSocks I'm sure someone somewhere in the UK (or anywhere using these plugs) has stood on one, but I've never come across anyone that has - and I'm not young!
@@GlennHoddleSucksSocks Pro-Tip, don't chuck a plug on the floor when not in use. Better yet, leave it in the socket and switch it off!
Can't step on it if it's in the wall.
I'd rather have a small chance of hurting my foot at my own error than the 101 safety flaws of the ones in the US.
Another feature of the British plug is the fuses also come in various capacities such as 3 amp, 5 amp, 10 amp and 13 amp. Electrical items will come with the correct amp fuse relevant to the load it will be under during normal operation.
Most think the fuse is to protect the appliance too but this is false, the plug fuse is to protect the cable and should be sized as such.
The downside to this is that when people casually replace the fuse, they almost always slap in a 13A one regardless of what the requirement is.
@@moopet8036 I do like for like everytime.
@@moopet8036 assuming they bother with a fuse and don't go for rolled foil from their last pack of smokes.
@@anne_frank_lol a pack of ten assorted fuses is £1. I keep a couple of packs in a drawer 🤣
I live in Malta and we use Type G plugs as well. Most plugs come with a 13 Amp fuse, the best feature for me is that you can easily replace the fuse to the one with the precise amperage required by the appliance
Yes, plugs should be sold without a fuse, making the user fit the correct fuse.
Im from Ireland and like you said, we use them. I've always compared these plugs to other plugs when i flew off somewhere. I always thought that they where the best design. You might find it also intresting, in Ireland we have a mains switch for our kitchens... So basically your oven and stove will not work unless you turn on the kitcehn mains, in morden Irish houses you will also have a mains switch for the dishwasher and washing machine.
I have a newfound appreciation for our plugs after this video. Always took them for granted. Troubleshooting isn’t really an issue most times as the plug is normally the very first thing you check.
Hi, I've been an electrician in the UK for 30+ years, and the load balancing 'issue' is a one in a thousand problem, and that 'one' is almost always the copper loom. Some people always think volts when they should be really thinking about amps 😉
On that you are absolutely right. You can also think in watts. A standard 32amp ring can take 7000 watts (i think I am correct) so if you don't know the amperage of your kit you can calculate in watts as most equipment has at least that written on it. For a spur socket, should you happen to have one, that should be capable of handling about 2800 watts. A lighting circuit can handle 1100 watts but if you use LED lighting there are no concerns you will ever get up to that. By the way I am not an electrician. This is just knowledge I have garnered over my many years. Always consult a professional electrician if in doubt. All wattages here assume a voltage of 220 volts.
@@ThePuterMan That's decent knowledge for a non-electrician, nice one. I wish there were more basic courses on conduction/resistance in schools and colleges, just so more people were aware of the processes. For example, most construction companies use the minimal safe amount of wiring to pass the safety inspections. But 20% more copper would give more than a 200% increase in safety for little cost, but they don't because they don't have to and no one seems to care enough to change regulations.
@@spookybuz7803 Thanks for sharing! Tell us more about the 20%! What spec cable is typically installed, and what do you recommend?
With Americans it is neither the volts or the amps; it's the thinking part in my experience.😏
PREACH
Brit here. My mum and step-dad recently moved back to the UK after living in Australia for 15 years. They brought their huge and expensive fridge and freezers over in the shipping container. They had moulded Ozzy plugs on them. Rather than using adapters, I could easily cut the old plugs off and attach UK plugs. Perfect. As for the shutter system in the socket, I can confirm that a sufficiently inquisitive child and a chopstick can open those shutters. I'm still alive, though :)
Probably need better shutters, the ones we have need quite a bit of force to open. A child shouldn't be able to open it.
@@sh-ehmed Leverage is a powerful force, my friend.
@@_Pikahiiri_ nobody can stop a child with levers
Brazilian system and plugs are very good as well. Earth pin as a guide, wall sockets have the plug shape in bas relief so the it only makes contact when it's practically impossible to get shocked, and still have the isolation on the live and neutral pins.
Used to hate these when I just got to the UK, but later realised how amazing they were. Travelling to the states and using those basic ones feels like going to a developing country.
Brit living in Mexico currently and I feel the same, they feel so fragile also!
The US _is_ a developing country.
I'm in a developing country and we use the British plug & wiring standards.
@@JivanPal - no, not anymore.
Considering the lack of a public and normal/proper health care (after all, you can be bankrupt because of one accident and pay a couple of thousands for a simple ambulance), declining education levels (easy to prove), lack of employee protection (what happened with a paid 25+ days of holiday each year (with 5 unused days each year going forward), a paid maternity leave longer than 6 months+, paid sickness days longer than a few weeks, normal 35-40 hours working week so you can have a proper balance between work and your private life, 1-3 months notice if you going to be fired - based on a particular job role)... and plenty of more examples.
At the end: even based on info from this year from "Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development" and PIAAC, and description of the education levels in US:
- half of US adult can't read a book writen at the 8th grade level
- 2% have a high literacy level
- and in this year, for the first time ever, PIAAC combined the fourth and fifth literacy levels. That's because there were no longer enough people at the highest level to count.
Just sad, as this could have been a great nation. Now it is just a laughing stock, and it is just... sad to see that.
And that is not even talking about, Uvalde or Sandy Hook (which should have been an eye opener for people) or whatever US is doing with gun issues...
Pretty much the country run like a corpo with people being treated like commodities. Nothing more.
@@tannhauser5399 I think you misread my comment. I said the US is a _developing_ nation precisely because of all the things you mention and more; not that it is a _developed_ one.
My late brother was BSc and first engineer for the CEGB. He admired the UK plug. It's an amazing device regarding safety.
@@TD75 yes. It is
@@TD75 the guy in the video literally tells us how he has been shocked multiple times. That's just not something that happens in the UK. Why design something poorly when it could be done better?
sorry for your loss
@@TD75 Your anecdote is not data. Remember that your experiences are not universal - just because you haven't heard of it happening doesn't mean it doesn't happen. An easy google search tells me there are 400 fatalities caused by electricity in the USA per year, while the UK has only 30, despite the increased voltage. That's 0.41 per million in the UK and 1.2 per million in the US. This plug saves lives.
@@TD75 You've never heard of it? You can find many video compilations online.
Brilliant. I thought they were just overcomplicated but this is a really cool design!
A typical ring main in the UK is 32A, which is 7kW of plug-in appliances on each ring. Cables are sized such that even if the ring is broken, the full load can be carried on either leg (spur) without cables getting dangerously hot, even when those cables are buried in walls. The so called 'load balancing' problems just don't happen, even with badly botched installations.
In any case, while many modern 2 or 3 bedroom homes have a single 32A ring main for the whole house, larger houses might have two or more ring mains, one per floor, or separate ring mains for the front half and back half of the house etc. We will typically also have additional 16A to 45A spurs (radial circuits) for high power devices like cookers, showers, A/C units and immersion (water) heaters etc. (I long for a 10.8kW shower and an 11kW induction hob).
We were challenged in an engineering course to find as many safety features on a uk plug as we could. Every team was easily into double figures!
The other feature of the replaceable internal fuse is that you can match the fuse to the load. Fuses are available as 3Amp, 5Amp or 13Amp and are colour coded to prevent confusion.
7a and 10a are available to British Standard too. Rarely seen.
Williams I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe. Link in my about tab.
@@flat-earther You just want a free trip into space
@@2Sorts You can get 1A and 2A ones also, but yeah mostly need to shop online or at specialist stores to get them as most brick and mortar stores don't carry them.
@@seraphina985 This is also true. 1st I saw those was at Bacton Gas Terminal. They used to fit the absolute smallest value fuse to any plug-in equipment that went out to the rigs.
Even new stuff had to be opened, examined, re-fused and then PAT tested by the maintenance shop on site, before I was allowed out to the rig.
I loved that thumbnail fading out at the start way too much. Super cool idea, more people should do that. It looks really seamless.
Good video, very informative and balanced. I will show it to my American friends who hate our plugs for their apparent over-size. I was going to mention the most obvious drawback I could think of - standing on one barefoot in the dark, but you already covered that. It's an experience many Brits have known at least once, then after that it makes you far more careful about leaving unused plugs lying around.
The size is for hands to hold it.
A safety feature in the design that you didn't mention is how the plug is internally partitioned so that even if the live wire were to come loose inside the plug, the partitioning (and what with the live wire being the shortest as you mentioned in the video) makes it unlikely that the live wire will come into contact with the neutral or earth wire/terminal.
Not to mention the size of the plug helps those with disabilities. You put that sucker in the palm of your hand and ram that thing into the socket. You probably don't even need fingers.
@@RACE.TV1 A smaller, lighter plug would most likely still be easier though.
@@RACE.TV1 it’s better for some, worse for others. Probably great if fine motor skills are your problem, but it would also be very clunky to manipulate for others
@@deletemedeleteme43 Some people still find them harder to use than other types of plugs. Ask any of the millions of people with arthritis in their hands.
In most modern British houses, anything that would be heavy on load, such as your oven/washer/dryer, dishwasher, or shower would tend to be on a separate fused circuit of their own anyway. So that particular negative doesn’t really apply.
The one thing he misses about the switches at the outlet/socket, is that most display a red tab when they are in the on position. It makes it real easy at a glance to know if the switch is live, and is very handy if you have little ones running around.
Or they have ON printed on the upper face
@@applejuice5272 They still confuse me though, if you can see the word 'ON' it means the outlet is on/ live correct?
@@chatteyj Yes
Some even have red led that get turn on when you switch the power on.
British, what a fkin disgusting word.
We use these plugs here as one of the old dominions of the UK. Size with the plugs has never actually been an issue! At least I've never encountered it and Ive worked in places where we had one of those box splitters that you can plug in one plug on each side. So... 5. And they never got in each others way. Granted some plugs ARE different. But share many of the security features. The switches are fine too, you just instinctively know it.
I respect that you just fully committed to impaling your foot on that plug at the end
You should see the Apple version of the UK plug (for charging an iPhone). They tried to make it smaller and flatter and succeeded in making virtually impossible to get out of the socket
They redesigned them a couple of years ago… they don’t have that problem anymore
apple bad (obligatory Android user comment)
@@RYNOCIRATOR_V5 your wrong (typed on iPhone)
@@josh_1518 yore grammar are bad
@@josh_1518 *you're _puts shades on, in defeat, you explode_
One of the benefits of the removable plug that isn't mentioned is that you can remove the plug to pass the cable through a small hole and then reattach the plug. This can be useful and is far better than having to cut a massive hole to pass an entire plug through.
I did this when connecting up my offgrid solar to my home office, got a big extension cable, put the cable through a vent (60s house) and reconnected, no need to require a massive drill to drill a big hole through the wall
We can take the plug off and have an even smaller hole😉
@@infideluk They really don't get it, do they
@@FirstNameLastName-hahaha who is/are they here?
Good shout
I'm from the UK and live in the states. The size of UK plug body is more than made up for by the fact that the cable runs down and along the wall. Most standard American plugs run out of the wall, parallel with the floor, and so end up taking up much much MUCH more space as furniture, etc, needs to be away from the wall to accommodate them.
Then British plug is that size for hands to hold it.
As someone know these for the first time. I in fact love the way they design plug in the uk and it has multiple safety features
One great thing about the switched outlets (or sockets, as we call them) is that you don't need to leave things unplugged (where they can be stepped on). You just leave them plugged in and switched off. You learn very quickly not to leave British plugs on the floor. Interestingly, we do have sockets without switches, but they are pretty rare these days. Although, they are usually used behind kitchen counters for appliances. Then we have fused switches on the walls to isolate the appliances.
My house built in 1972 has no original switched sockets.
I have replaced some over the years with switched sockets though unswitched are still available. Either meets code.
You can still get unswitched outlets, they are generally used for things that you never want to be accidentally turned off. A classic example would be a freezer. They are also sometimes used on things like a washing machine or dishwasher with a remote switch so you don't have to move the appliance to isolate it at the mains.
In fact, wiring regulations make it difficult to have unswitched sockets. Every appliance has to have an obvious point of isolation and the switch is the easiest way to achieve this. Even the freezer will have a switch - but it should also be labelled to reduce the chance of it being accidentally switched off.
@@gavinminion8515 where does it say that in the regulations because I have not seen it.
@@jonathanbuzzard1376 BS7671 chapter 53 mandates isolation for every circuit. The on site guide also says (under 5.1.1) - "Means of isolation should be provided for every item of equipment". Whilst I don't think there is a specific mandatory requirement (hence the word 'should') it would be difficult to defend the use of unswitched socket outlets.
As everyone else has already said, the "negatives" disappear once you've had any life experience with these plugs.
Except for the stepping on them thing. That's always a curse
@@Faliat a result of untidiness, nothing else.
@@_rtj the switch on the earth pin you mean?
A downside to these plugs is the difficulty of removing them for people with arthritis or some other issue with their dexterity.
@@Faliat I would say not even that. Due to the switches on the plugs themselves I always just turn them off at the wall - virtually never unplug something and leave it on the floor. If I’m unplugging something it’s normally because I’m going somewhere and taking the plug with me.
@@lukemclellan2141 there is a clamp available at mobility stores that allows full hand grip to remove, less than £5 last time I bought one
i have a few issues with your negative points
1. Load Balancing - Load balancing isnt really an issue since cables are rated for the use there going to be used, also we use RCD with Overload to protect our cables. the rating on the RCB is tied to the max rating of the cable it feeds. For example, the ring main to the sockets in your front room may have a rating of 26A or a max of 6000W, that is considered more than enough however the RCD to your kitchen sockets will more than likely use thicker cables and be rated for 32A since thats where a lot of your power hungry devices will be. the kitchen sockets and cable for the electric oven will most likely be 6mm and be rated for 32A. if you have a electric shower then it will have its own dedicated cable that nothing else uses and be 10mm in thickness and most likely protected by a 42A or 50A RCD since most electric showers can consume anything from 8KW to 12KW
2. Switches - The switch is never an issue and seems your just looking for negative things to say
3. Plugs landing prong side up - again its another thing your just trying to think of, this is another case where its never an issue, i mean who leaves unplugged cables in the middle of the floor
He was scraping the barrel trying to find negatives to the point they were silly.
Also a safety feature that has long been forgotten with the grounded US style plug. Is the earth/ground pin on the uk style plug is in the correct orientation at the upper most position. Unlike most residential situations in the United States where the ground is in the incorrect orientation at the lower most location. That can make a host of complex issues but the one that I have seen a hand full of times is that, not only are the hot and neutral terminals not partially insulated like the uk style plug but also are side by side, and can form a cradle for a metallic object to rest on or in to complete a circuit until the breaker trips. Causing sparks, high potential for electric shock and a high likelihood of fire. Where if the plug had the ground pin in the upper most position if anything were to contact the hot terminal it would most likely go straight to ground and then roll off the contacts completely. I have heard a few different stories as to why the US style plug is this way in most residential areas. The most popular is that with the center ground pin being down. It looks more like a smiley face, is more aesthetically pleasing, and/or looks less dangerous.
Having stepped on a plug here in the UK, I can safely say that there is nothing more painful.
😂
I'm nearly 60, and I've never stepped on a plug! Usually, they are un-plugged near walls, where the socket is. So less chance to be stood on.
Love from Scotland :D
@@Kiss4cooper Fact Lego 😂
@@Kiss4cooper lego is nowhere near as bad as 3 metal prongs sticking in your foot
@@ukp42 57 and never stood on a plug in my life. Why would you leave them lying around, ever?
If you think our plugs are chunky, imagine a Brit coming over to the US, when I was over there years ago the plugs seemed so flimsy, almost scary, sort of like just sticking some bare wires into the holes and hoping for the best 😂it really felt precarious, the whole deal, how easily you can pull them out, how easily you could stick a bit of metal in them, the unprotected prongs when not fully inserted, no fuse, no switch . . . and so on, I'm sure you're are all used to it and they are safe, but to someone brought up in the UK it's a little concerning, lol : ) . . . . by the way, annual deaths by electrocution in the US average ~350/year . . . in the UK it's ~30/year . . . so even though your population is around x4.8 larger than the UK, you have nearly x12 times as many deaths by electrocution.
They make tamper proof plugs in North America as well.
People unplug in the USA by pulling the cord, seeing a big arc. Yikes! Arc fault detection devices will trip out each time.
@@johnburns4017 i never seen an arc
@@danlux4954
I have when there is a load running thru.
A lot of them happen when people are trying to plug things in probably, if your hands are even the slightest bit slippery things get painful rather quickly as you are pushing towards the pins while inserting the plug. Happened to me once over there fortunately the outlet was GFCI protected so it was just painful. I took to using a dry cloth or something to avoid the risk of touching the uninsulated live portions of the unsafe little buggers after that.
I've never zapped myself on a US style type A or B plug... but nonetheless those type G plugs seem way superior in all the ways that matter. The size isn't so important since they have a low profile from the surface of the wall... every type A plug I've ever damaged is because the receptacle is behind a desk or some furniture and pushes on the cable coming out eventually breaking the wires inside. One potential drawback though could be trying to fit multiple plugs onto a power/surge bar. Also I'm curious what they use for the DC low voltage 'bricks' that in the US plug directly to the receptacle for things like computer printers, aquarium pumps ets).
One extra advantage of having the flex exit downwards from the plug is that, if any water was to fall onto the flex, it wouldn't chase up to the plug socket and cause an electric shock. It would just drip onto the floor at the lowest point. Also, probably mentioned here somewhere, it has been illegal for some years to sell any appliance without a fused plug fitted. Most manufacturers opt for a molded plug. Nice and neat but a right pain when you have to thread the lead somewhere. Oddly, though, extension leads still almost exclusively come with a removable plug. :)
The plug-left-on-the-floor argument doesn't really hold: Thanks to the switches on the sockets, we don't _need_ to unplug things. If you do unplug something and you're too lazy to tidy it up, you _deserve_ to step on it! 😉
Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but having lived with someone who didn't tidy up after herself, the plug left on the floor does hold 😅
Have you met many humans? They're capable of a wide range of careless actions, and the person stepping on it isn't necessarily the one who put it there.
It does hold up. We are humans, if something can be solved the excuse to not do it can't be lazy like that.
I get people saying humans are fallible and will leave the unplugged ones lying around... its true. But only once, until they stand on one ! Then never again.
@@salty1977 why should they experience it even one. Just design it so it doesn't stay with the prongs up like eu sockets
The plastic sleeve on the live and neutral pins had not been thought of when my then toddler son tried to prise a plug from the socket using a dinner knife. The knife did not survive, but my son did and the flash gave him a surprise he didnt like, but it ignited his curiosity and he is now a full time electrician. And yes, standing on a UK plug with bare feet is an experience never forgotten.
"standing on a UK plug with bare feet is an experience never forgotten" and we only do it once! 🙂
@@archstanton5603 I did it one time and cut by foot open with a deep cut, one thing to know is that I’ll never do it again
I recently sorted through some boxes and threw out a few old plugs that didn't have the plastic sleeves. I probably bought them in the 1980s. (Yes, I'm a hoarder!)
Whenever I unplug something I make sure to tuck the plug out of the way so I can't step on it.
EXACTY - this was a fairly recent development - prior to 2005, they had the WORST MOST TERRIBLE PLUGS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!! They Killed CHILDREN
How extraordinary! I feel sure he pays very close attention to the safety aspects :)
British plugs are great - if you open them up (only certain devices, no ground pin needed), you will find a simple euro plug inside. Which completely sits inside connected to the british layout pins :D
With that huge size, I bet you could fit two Euro plugs in the housing. :D
@@digantdalal you can still fit two UK plugs in the double UK socket, as the converted plugs sit out a little deeper and power, not wider.
European plugs are so easy to bend break and come out socket. Really a down grade once you've lived with type G.
@@Dosedmonkey The whole euro plug/ socket system is a genius design. If your your plug comes out easily, you are probably using a dodgy converter or it is meant to come out to protect you from tripping over. Euro plugs come with only low power devices, for high power bi polar devices, it comes with round CEE 7/2 plug. There is no way, you can stick this CEE 7/2 into a hexagonal Euro socket. It has to be a type E/F round socket with earthing. Unlike in Type G, CEE standard plugs comes with straight wire out. It is meant for ease of plugging out and the device should not remain powered all the time. e.g. Irons, laptop chargers. Once you are done, plug it out and take it away. Vacuum Cleaners and hair dryers come with CEE 7/2 plugs with straight wire out while TVs come with 90 degrees L shape. You will certainly not trip if you step on a long vacuum cleaner cord because it will come off from socket before you trip. Type G is boring and big. Who needs a clunky plug for low power mobile charger or an led lamp with a low amp fuse? The mechanical design of hexagonal Euro socket prevents any high power round plug to be plugged in, and you can convert each round pin Type E/F socket into 2 or 3 Euro sockets with a cheap converter on wall.
As a person living in the UK our ring circuits are hard to overload even back in early days it's normally human intervention. That is the cause for these issues like nails in the rewireable fuses our fuses/MCB/rcbo. Are very good with over current protection and in many cases now quicker then the fuse in the plug to cut the power. The draw backs to our design is human neglect like leaving a plug on the floor to stand on we also have brail on some of our plugs so they can be read by visually impaired people
Another major benefit of the switch on the socket, is some devices dont have off switches at all, eg hair curlers, irons and some soldering irons (maybe they do in the US, but in the UK they heat up just by plugging them in), in which case, you can leave these devices plugged in if you want and turn them on and off as required.
EU plugs for the win, every safety system and more than British plugs have, but more compact and you can put them on either way.
@@PalpatinesPlumber The EU plug mimics little power it has to the chad UK plug bro
@@PalpatinesPlumber Disagree
@@PalpatinesPlumber The Earthing of the EU plug is inferior to that of the UK plug.
@@PalpatinesPlumber Dude just got ratio'd on a plug review D:
Never been more proud to be British then now knowing we have good electrical plugs 😆
Except when you accidentally stand on them barefooted, most painful thing
@@jamiehughes5573Agreed, hard to avoid any cognitive biases but it seems like we all had a some form of tribalistic/ethnocentric indoctrination, and if the plug is other way around then the plastic earth or metal live/neutral pins which are made out of brittle metal keep braking off when stepping on them. On all of the other plugs pins just bend and can be straightened out.
Was a great video, thank you. I can confirm, stepping on the plug at night helps you to see the stars.
David from Northampton, I get it.That sums me up a treat, al the kit and none of the "all the kit and none of the know how".
As a kid in the UK I recall being very proud of myself for discovering how to lift the guard from the live pins in a socket, shortly before my dad saved my life.
I use a plastic pen lid to do it so that I can use US plugs without an adapter (assuming the device is 220v compatible).
@@joeasher2876 disturbingly that trick also works with European plugs... I wouldn't recommend it though.
@@joeasher2876 I used a matchstick - when the plastic 'ground' prong on my gameboy power supply snapped off.
I used to british plugs.. i put the earth from one plug only connected to the earth then i connected the other 2 pins with the other adapter then i took out the earth and plugged my dwvice in and i was suprised when it charged
you wouldn't have died
You didn’t mention that the colours of the leads in Britain were specified by the Electrical Appliances (Colour Code) Regulations 1969. From 1 July of that year the live lead was brown, the neutral lead was blue and the earth lead was green and yellow. These are the colours least likely to be indistinguishable by a colour-blind person. Before that date the colours were red, black and green respectively, which all look the same to many colour blind viewers.
When I served my time as an industrial sparky back in the 90's, the flex colours were indeed, brown, blue & green/yellow. Standard house wiring cable (from distribution board to sockets, light fittings etc. were red, black and green or green/yellow sleeve.
Three phase cabling was red, yellow & blue with the neutral being black. If you were wiring ring mains in singles cable in an industrial setting, you would often find the live cable would be either red, yellow or blue, with the black neutral.
Times moved on and we standardised on the mains wiring being the same as the flex wiring, brown, blue and green/yellow, with 3 phase colours changing to brown, black & grey with a blue neutral.... Many older buildings can have a combination of wiring colour standards and a label has to be placed on the distribution board stating that both colour schemes are in use from that board. Complicated or what? 😆
Final point, you can get un-switched sockets in the UK, not as common as switched ones, and often used as a means of disconnection behind built in appliances or washing machines etc, but with a separate disconnection switch above the counter...
They are also that colour because bLue - for Left.
bRown - for Right
yeLLow for middLe
@@brooke1639 No, that was a mnemonic. The colours were chosen because most people who are colour blind can distinguish them.
Confusing the red and the green is rather unlikely unless you're trying to splice into it from the middle somewhere. And even then, you'd likely not have problems as the live lead is going to be carrying voltage when the neutral and ground aren't. It's something that you'd test for regardless of whether or not you're colorblind as you'd want to make sure that no numbskull wired it backwards. Which, for many applications wouldn't be an issue as the current does flow through both of them when in use.
It is better not to use colors that are easily missed by those with colorblindness, but it's more of a convenience and extra measure than anything else.
@@brooke1639 Except, that it would still work with the hot and neutral reversed, this is an AC circuit after all. You wouldn't do it because it isn't standard and can result in issues if somebody does come along later and assume that there's standard wiring going on.
Part of the reasoning for having the cable exit at the bottom of the plug is so that the cable sits close to wall, this helps to prevent the weight of the cable levering on the plug and putting force in the receptacles in the socket.
Over time if socket receptacles become bent or loose then a high resistance joint is created leading to excess heat and in extreme cases fire.
I’ve never seen a problem with “load balancing” as such, when a ring main is installed the perspective loading is taken into consideration along with the run length, resistance, voltage drop, and cable run environment (for heat dissipation) the cables should be sized and fused to accordingly.
The EU style plug also deserves a shout out. Has many of the same or similar features as the G plug (except for the fuse, only needed in the UK really, due to the way they wire they outlets) and is more compact. The EU plugs come in 90º and straight variants, usually things that you are likely to trip on it's cable come with straight plugs (like a laptop charger), while other things come with 90º ones.