People living somewhere on the British Islands.
This is a device that produces static electricity
You plug a power plug in a power socket
I have marked on this image of the power plug where the static electricity gets delivered into the power socket
Let me clarify my point:
- Washing machines produce static electricity
- Walls and sockets don’t produce static electricity
Let me add another point that I’m trying to make here
- The dangerous looking pin in European sockets is not dangerous at all
Also note that the Germans and the Dutch use sockets that don’t have the dangerous looking pin. Both types of sockets and both types of plugs are compatible with each other. European continental standardisation is very useful sometimes.
Let’s take a look at the European plug and the location where it delivers the static electricity to the wall socket.
Let’s now compare that with an actual photo of a British Island’s (Irish guys use it too) plug.
My adult male finger (I have very thick fingers compared to Tinne’s skinny fingers and Tinne has thick fingers compared to a small child’s fingers) fitted in the space. It was possible for me to fully touch the static electricity pin. The device was powered on so the two pins for delivering the actual electricity where completely connected.
Now let’s see some actual photos of the European plug in action. Decide for yourself.
The solution is to convert those crazy English, Irish, Northern Irish, Scotts and Welshman (boy, I do hope I didn’t forget anybody) to the European system :-)
It should not be possible to touch the live/neutral pins while the plug is partially inserted as in your photo. The bases of these pins are required to be covered with insulating material–if you look at your last photo you can see the black insulation.
By the time that the live/neutral pins are connected to the supply, the exposed portion of the pins should be well within the socket.
I just did a brief test and the live/neutral pins were not connected until there was only about a 5 mm gap between the socket and the plug; there was a good 4-5 mm of insulation already inside the wall socket by then, so the dangerous portion of the pins was totally inaccessible.
Wikipedia has a decent article detailing the features of the Type G (British 3-pin) plug at .
Hey Sam: Sure, I agree about the live and neutral pins. But with my test it was possible with a UK plug that has insulating material at the bases of the neutral and live pins to have electrical contact while touching the pin for static electricity with my tick fingers.
This means that the device was live and running on electricity (thus it surely is possible that it’s producing static electricity indeed), meanwhile I could touch the pin for guiding the static electricity into the wall.
Note that with devices that produce static electricity (devices with moving parts), not only the neutral and live pins can transfer a significant electrical charge.
This was not possible at all with the European plug/socket combination. Not in a single imaginable way.
In fact, with the European one it was not possible to get the plug/socket into a situation of having contact with the entire combination not entirely into place (for example the pin for static electricity not being entirely correct, which is indeed possible with the UK system). Which makes me conclude that the European plug/socket combination is more atomic (either the plug is inserted correctly, or it’s not).
Even when trying very hard and having the plug inserted 50%, all of the pins in the European system are inside the socket’s hole. Not possible to touch any of them, not even with a piece of iron wire.
The GND is also connected to the cover of the washing machine.. so you can touch it no matter which plug you are using.
(note i am a different sam).
you should not be able to get a shock from touching the earth pin. in the halfway in, device power on photo the earth pin is still contacting the earth in the socket. there is little chance that you are a better earth than a copper wire connected to a metal rod in the ground under your house.
also the earth pin in the plug must be connected to an exposed metal on the appliance. so if you could get a shock from the earth pin, then you could get one from the metal case of you washing machine.
if an electrical fault in you washing machine causes electricity to be getting on the metal case and earth pin, then the current should blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker.
you will however get small amounts of electricty in the earth. this is a real pain for audiophiles, and scientists, but should not be a safety issue.
So I’m not sure I understand. Did you actually get a shock at all, or are you just complaining about some theoretical possibility?
Also, is it possible with normal europlugs to insert a piece of wire into one of the live holes of an empty socket? Because you can’t do that with the British sockets.
Fraggle: That depends on your socket.
Looking at those in my walls I’d say yes. But I’ve definitely seen sockets with protection for just that. You could also buy plastic plugs to put into those sockets you aren’t using, for child safety.
Random slightly related comment: The “best” way to attach a (flat) europlug (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europlug ) to an (North?) American socket (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEMA_connector ) for instance in a hotel, without an adaptor, is to keep some American device attached, but pull the American plug out so far that the uninsulated pins are viewable (and touchable, should you feel suicidal), then “piggyback” your europlug so that the inner sides of your europlug pins touch the outer sides of the American plug pins… Usually it fits quite snugly. Totally unsafe, don’t do it if there are kids around or if you are drunk, etc, but works surprisingly well.
With respect: If you’re getting a shock from the earth pin,
You’re stupid enough to touch it – yes, I don’t care how big your fingers are or whether it should have charge, if you’re not paying attention, you probably deserve to win a Darwin award.
You have an electrical fault in your house wiring, call an electrician.
After everything you’ve said, BS1363 plugs are still safer than their European counterparts’.
The “static pin” is a ground pin. It’s there more to protect users from shorts, particularly with any metal-bodied device – I’ve never heard static electricity mentioned as a reason before. Though, in either case, ground is going to sink all but an insignificant portion of current versus a path through a many Mega-Ohm human.
Other things to note:
– ground is longest, so the equipment is grounded a) before going live, on insertion, b) after power is withdrawn, on removal. I’m not sure this is always the case with the several different variants of contintental designs
– The live ports on a 3-pin socket are shuttered, to make it near-impossible for a child to try insert metal objects into them (the mechanical force of ground-pin insertion is used to lift the shutters from the live ports).
– the UK plugs *always* have fuses inside them. At worst, it’ll be a 13A fuse (though, lower-power equipment should have a suitably lower A fuse). I’ve never seen a fuse inside a contintental 2 pin plug – some designs don’t even seem to have enough space for one.
– the UK plug design has a far more robust mechanical grip with the socket than the 2-pin design. While, in extreme cases, this might have an adverse impact on safety, this makes the UK plug far more pleasant to live with..
– The UK design is consistent amongst countries where it’s used. The 2-pin design has at least 2 different schemes for delivering earth (e.g. your plug/socket in Belgie is different to that of your neighbours to the north and east..).
I’ve lived for significant periods in the UK, Ireland and NL and, sorry, but the 3-pin seems safer and more robust, and the 2-pin can be *infuriating* due to the incompatibilities (and the hacks, like the too-thin “Europlug”, that are shockingly useless at staying firm in a socket when there’s a heavy transformer attached to them).
Give me the 3-pin anyday ;).
I was going to say something, but Paul Jakma said it all already and better.
+1 for Paul jakma who got all the info 100% accurate and one small extra note
The metal case of my imac has a small electrical current on it here in finland…
Never happened in england…
I’m with Paul on this one. Them plugs are ugly, but they sure are sturdy. Not to mention that UK wall sockets — while also being extremely ugly — usually come with on/off switches. I’ve yet to see that anywhere else in Europe.
In any case, UK and the rest of Europe both use 220~230v @ 50hz, so there’s no reason why you couldn’t use whichever plug you please. Simply plug in a convertor. Or if you have a 2 plug Euro, well, plug, you can just plug it into a UK socket with minor bending ;).
European aesthetics urgently need to meet British indoor electrical systems, though…
Just to second what has already been said:
The earth is a /protective/ earth. It is tied to all user accessible parts of appliances. One should be able to touch earth potential components with impunity (except possibly during an electrical storm :/). If you are getting a static electrical shock from it, I would be worried. The earth connection should be able to absorb or provide massive amounts of charge; that is for what it is designed.
ps. Because some people have taken this a bit too serious (on IRC): the blog item is intended in a joke-way. Not in a “we are better than you”-way.
But all (most) people in the UK (and Ireland) knew/know this. Don’t worry.
Anyway, continue discussing! :-)
The tone of the article seems pretty serious and somewhat derogatory. Language barrier strikes again! I was gonna post a quick primer in physics but I guess that’s unneeded. :P
It could be worse — you could be using NEMA electrical plugs and sockets like here in North America… :-)
Most people mentioned that the ground connection is primarily for your protection, but not why. The hot or neutral connection can leak onto the metal part of the appliances. When this happens, the ground will dissipate the charge. If the leak is stronger, more like a short circuit, the current flowing from the circuit into ground will cause the fuse to trip.
In all the electrical wiring I’ve seen, ground is always exposed. In many cases, its actually wired to the copper plumbing.
@Bram: They have on/off switches on plug sockets in Denmark.
Its also not just the britain who have these plugs.. so do asian coutries like malaysia!
Removed one comment from a guy who wrote that it would be justified if I were to be electrocuted.
Perhaps repost your post on your own blog, Chris Cunningham.
Maybe in your test the continental plug was safer, but you should note, that this kind of plug (with hole) can be attached to wall plug WITHOUT GND. The british one (if exist version without GND, I don’t know) will be safer this way.
You can get British plugs without ground – some things which don’t require it just come with a plug with a plastic third pin, which is of course still required to lift the barriers that stop you sticking a fork in the bits where live and neutral go.
And I’d like to take serious issue with the people talking about aesthetics – how are our sockets uglier than the continental ones with their rather jagged-looking cylindrical depression? The ones with the pin sticking out are okay, but the other ones which seem to be prevalent in Germany are rather horrible, I’d say.
Maybe it’s just a matter of what you’re used to of course – and we’re all united in the problem of wall wart transformers.
I’m talking about “wall socket” without GND like this one:
http://www.elda.pl/produkty/zdjecia_katalogowe/viva/v3.033.18.gif
and plug which should be connected with GND:
http://www.elda.pl/produkty/zdjecia_katalogowe/viva/v3.039.18.gif
Continental version of plug is “compatible” with both of them, than static electricity is not connected.
Once again you have proved the superiority of your civilization.
There are two protective schemes if live electricity finds its way onto an earthed user accessible part.
The first is a Residual Current Device (RCD); this (through a current sensing loop) detects any imbalance over a certain threshold in the current entering and leaving the circuits. Typical sense thresholds for consumer protection are 25mA and a maximum trip time of 200ms.
The second are fuses. If something leaks to earth it will probably be a low-impedance connection and thus lots of current will flow, which will blow a fuse. This is a much less good way of protecting humans.
If these devices were not present, I would imagine the most likely thing to happen would be that the electrics involved would melt and start a fire.
Regarding the tone of the original post, I managed to miss any humour involved, I’m sorry. However, the most important thing to me seemed to be that you misunderstood the purpose of a protective earth.
Everyone in the world should admit their fault and accept the total superiority of the Italian plugs, both in terms in space (they use half the space of a shuko plug, for instance), simplicity (the rewirable ones are very easy to assemble) and usability (they’re symmetrical, thus can be inserted in both ways):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#Type_L_.28Italian_3-pin.29
There is any hope that the entire world will switch overnight to these, please? :)