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Grounded sockets here were made mandatory in the early 1930s, so you won't find anything non-grounded anywhere really. Either 'Schuko' or the older, non-fused, 3 round pin UK type (mostly only the larger 15amp version) were used. The BS546 round pin sockets were also shuttered, going way back to the 1930s - other than the lack of sheathed pins, they had most of the features of the current UK system, only were significantly clunkier!

 

The 15 amp round pin plug is a ludicrously big device, but was commonly found on even table lamps here!

 

It would be extremely rare to find a 'two pin' (Schuko) installation in service nowadays. Maybe if you went back to the 1970s or 80s, but they're long gone, as is BS546 (round pin UK type). They were common enough in some homes wired in the 50s/60s too.

 

In modern installations, the 5amp modern version of those plugs continues to be used for sockets that are controlled by light switches or dimmers. E.g. if you want to have your standard lamps or table lamps to come on / be controllable by the dimmer at the door, those are the outlets used. 

 

A rubberised 15 amp BS546 plug was also standard for theatre / stage lighting rigs, but has been replaced by modern 'CEEform' connectors in modern installations. These are the exact same as the blue industrial plugs used all across Europe, except they're usually black to make them less visually obtrusive.

 

Mandatory RCD on sockets was 1978, but you'd find them on older installations too.

 

Those are the 5amp plug sand sockets used for side lamps - they're still compatible with their 1930s-50s predecessors, and are still used as the mainstream plugs in India.

 

Also a theatre dimmer pack, using BS546 plugs.

 

Schuko was never used here in theatre.

 

'Powercon' is also used quite a lot throughout modern theatrical installations. These are IP rated, robust and very compact.

[this post was last edited: 7/31/2021-19:47]

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U.K. regs evolved and some aspects are stronger than others. There was always a lot of emphasis on grounding and child safety (shuttering), but they were slow to adopt things like RCDs and had rewireable fuse holders in distribution panels until modern circuit breakers arrived.

The old BS546 system (replaced in the 1950s but took a while before it stopped being installed) was a bit of excessively complicated kludge of plugs and outlets. You had at least 3 common, and different sized 3 pin plugs. 2amp, 5amp and 15amp and these were not mutually compatible. So in a living room you might have had a couple of 5amp socket outlets for the television and a 15amp next to the fireplace and maybe a 2amp for a lamp.

The kitchen might have had a coupe of 15 amp sockets. Bedrooms could have had 5amp or 2amp.

Then to complicate it further, there were another 3 mutually incompatible 2 pin (ungrounded) type outlets and plugs from an older system that were still to be found as late as the 1970s.

The reality in older wiring was a mess of adapters in use. If you wanted to move the vacuum cleaner from room to room, you might have needed 5amp and 15amp plugs. Appliances were also delivered without plugs, as it wasn’t possible to determine what type of plug a householder might want to use.

It was one of the EEC low voltage directives in the 1980s than banned that practice, requiring moulded plugs.

BS1363 (the current system) replaced all of that with a single plug (with a fuse that can be rated 3, 5, 10 or 13 Amps). In modern times, only 3amp or 13amp fuses are used. The intermediate sizes aren’t deemed particularly useful.

Ireland originally had used Schuko, but only the grounded type of outlets were ever installed. There’s a non grounded version of CEE 7 outlets commonly used in older wiring on continent. A few countries however, used only grounded outlets.

We abandoned Schuko in the early 1960s and also BS546, but only the 15 amp version was typically used as an alternative to Schuko. The full range of U.K. round pin sockets weren’t common here in Ireland.

The present day rectangular pin plugs replaced everything and became mandatory. The U.K. round pin system was completely retired, but still used for like for like replacement for a time and for special purposes (lamp sockets) and here in Ireland Schuko and BS546 remained defined in standards, but only really as a reference.

The only place I’ve ever seen Schuko in a modern installation here is as a supplementary socket in hotel rooms. They often install one at the dressing table / desk just as a convenience for continental European visitors, and to avoid adapter use / people attempting to ram 2 pin plugs into Irish standard sockets.

Shuttering of sockets has been mandatory in both jurisdictions for a very long time, and even went as far as to cover landline phone sockets. The RJ11 jacks used here since the late 1970s (same configuration as the US/Canada) generally had a flap that springs down to cover the terminals. The U.K. used its own version, which is basically like a larger RJ11 turned sideways and has a similar setup.

The logic seems to have been that network ringing voltages, in theory, could be beyond what was considered safe to touch. The voltage used is very similar to the US or continental EU networks though, so it’s just being extremely safety conscious.

PSTN/POTS is rapidly heading to the museum of technological history though!

Irish phone jack (probably from the early 80s) you could plug a US phone straight into this and it would work - more or less the same electrically, and the pin out is the same, but note the flap protecting the terminals.
[this post was last edited: 8/1/2021-03:55]
 
Older UK installations

Sorry to boost this thread back to the top, but only just spotted it... I have been incredibly busy over the Summer with work and domestic committments :-(

The house I grew up in (built and wired in the mid 1930s had BS546 15 amp sockets downstairs (usually 1 per room), and 30 amp 2-pin BS196 sockets upstairs. It appears that in the absence of any plumbing in the bedrooms (the only places with sockets), it was considered safer not to have any Earth connections upstairs at all, since wooden floors and papered walls were seen as at least 'reasonably' insulating. Smaller plugs and 'inter-series' adaptation were accommodated with a plethora of plug-in adaptors, which continued long after the adaptation of BS1363. My mother's house was rewired and converted to BS1363 (complete with a 'new-fangled' RCD, a large 'moving coil' device, almost as large as the 'fuse box', (which was still full of rewireable fuses), but an improvement on the old ' one 30 amp switch/fuse for power, one 5 amp switch/fuse for lighting) in the mid 1970s. My parents still had a few 'seldom used' appliances with 5 amp BS546 plugs on them until 2000 or later. I still have several examples of the adaptors, (pre- and post- BS1363) many of which were very much 'multi-way'/'multi standard'! I can post photographs, if anyone is interested.

Voltage at my house usually ranges between 237 and 245 volts, and really hasn't changed since the 'harmonisation' took place. I should still have the letter announcing the 'change' somewhere, though it implied that, as 240V was 'within range', nothing would change, and, for a very long time, nothing did change.

I'm sure there were more points to comment on, and, if I spot them again, I'll append another post!!

As always, I hope that some of this is of interest to at least a few members.

All best

Dave T
 
We rewired in 2017

All new enclosed in metal circuit breaker box as per new rulings each circuit is now protected by its own rcd etc and its all extremely safe, The kitchen has its own circuit and so does the laundry area and its odd how if anything trips that not all circuits switch off I guess its good for safety but when you are used to a whole house going dark when it trips out I feel its not doing its job but of course it is. In my shed I had a separate circuit to the house with RCD's built into the sockets/outlets but if a machine goes wrong and trips the power it still switches the house off which I wanted to avoid but its to do with the earthing apparently .... All in all a great job and more than enough sockets in the kitchen but why do modern electricians put all the room sockets in the bloody corners???

PS Dave I remember the 15amp round pin plugs and the multi adapters needed for different plugs in fact have some in the shed somewhere rescued from the house move etc...

Austin
 
Photographs

I will dig out a few of the more 'interesting' adaptors, etc, and take/post some pictures. One (if I can find it) was sold as a 'Universal' adaptor..... Theoretically, it converts 'most things' to 'most things'.... But is fiddly to use, and looks fairly lethal!!

All best

Dave T
 
Under older British wiring regs, and it is going back quite a long way, they didn’t accept that you could safely plug a small appliance into a 15 amp circuit. So you had different sized plugs that got progressively bigger as the rating went up.

There was also a system of 2 pin, non-grounded plugs, the only modern relic of which survives as the plug used for toothbrushes and shavers.

By design, no plug was comparable with a socket of a different rating, and no two pin plug could fit a 3 pin socket outlets.

In theory you were supposed to have a 2 amp appliance with a 2 amp plug on a 2 amp circuit and so on. In practice people used adapters, multi fit adjustable plugs and also quite commonly wired small appliances with 15amp plugs.

Ireland used Schuko on 16 amp radials, but we also used BS546 15amp sockets as an alternative. So it was a bit like a continental or US circuit design philosophy, with only one of the BS546 plug types.

The modern rectangular pin, fused plugs were designed to the same philosophy (as well as ring circuits) in mind but allowed you to protect an appliance cord with anything from 3 to 13amp fusing locally, in the plug itself.

In reality, you often found plenty of small appliances were wired to plugs with 13amp fuses, giving you similar protection to North America or Continental Europe and in modern times only the 3 and 13 amp fuses are generally sold. The intermediate ratings are more obscure, but you’ll often find them in moulded plugs, especially the 10amp fuse.

The plus side of the U.K. system is you shouldn’t be able to overload a socket. An extension cord for example has a 13 amp or 10amp fuse in the plug, so if you overload it it just blows.

However, for some inexplicable reason they allow unfused double adapters (two plugs into one socket) and only require a fuse on a triple adapter block.

If you put two high power devices into a double adapter and plug it into a ring circuit, it won’t trip anything and is a fire hazard.

https://ie.rs-online.com/web/p/travel-adapters/3310906/

Never understood that one.
 
Was intrigued at a friend who did a couple of expat tours: first was in Heilbronn, Germany, thence to Glasgow, Scotland. Visited them in both places. One of the tasks for his wife during the move from Germany to UK was to wait for the electrical installer to change out all the plugs on the appliances (it was just one of the tasks that one did; like here in the US getting the washer/dryer ready for the movers).
 
Well, yeah. Although the majority of Europe uses the same plugs.

 

CEE 7/7 plugs are used in all areas of Europe except:

 

1. UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta (BS1363)

2. Switzerland (national standard, unique to Switzerland).

3. Denmark (national standard, unique to Denmark, used along side CEE 7 sockets now)

4. Italy (national standard unique to Italy but used in a few places in South America - also now co-exists with CEE 7/7)

 

So, really plug changes in Europe are an issue only in a few places.
 
'Older' UK installations

Going back to Reply #46, as BS546 plugs were unfused, in larger intallations, sockets of the correct rating fused appropriately at the distribution board would be used. In reality 'small' installations (ie most 2/3 bedroom terraced / semi-detached houses) had two 'switch-fuses' fed from the meter, one (30 amp rewireable) labelled 'Sockets', the other (10 amp rewireable) labelled 'Lights'. This was the only protection (other than the (back then, usually 60 amp) Supply Authority Cut Out) for any part of the installation. Over a period of time, many householders would 'rewire' the carrier with any piece of random wire he/she could find, so protection was often of decidedly 'doubtful' effectiveness!

The house I grew up in (built and wired in 1934) had this system, and had BS196 30Amp two-pin sockets upstairs, but many homes (especially older ones which originally had gas lighting) had NO sockets upstairs, only electric lighting, which gave rise to the development of 'adaptors' to allow the connection of an appliance (such as an electric iron, radio, or even television) into the (bayonet cap) light socket on the bedroom ceiling.
I have found a couple of these devices, and will post pictures soon, but unfortunately, I am in the middle of a 'time critical' project until the end of the month, so finding adaptors, photographing them, and getting the image files onto my computer will have to wait for a week or so.

All best

Dave T
 
Old Irish Installation

This was probably the absolute smallest, cheapest, and most basic 1940s/50s setup here and was often found in houses that took the most basic package on the Rural Electrification Scheme after WWII.

 

ESB (power company) provided a very simple combined meter and fuse board.

It contained a main main fuse (the box at the bottom) and 3 circuits - most likely 1 x 10 amp for the lights and 2 x 16 amp for the sockets, all of which were 'Diazed' fuses.

 

Most old houses would have had a couple of rows of fuses.

 

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pbs.twimg.com

 

The boards were made by Siemens subsidiary in Ireland.

 

<span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">(Diazed / Type D fuses are explained very well here: http://plugsocketmuseum.nl/DistributionBoard_NL.html )</span>

 

The cartridge fuses look like little ceramic bottles and each tip is a different size depending on the rating. There's a ring fitted inside the fuse holder, which will only accept the correct (or smaller) tip size based on diameter (hence the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">dia</span>zed name)

 

They were originally a Siemens design, but became generic and common across Europe. There's also a smaller version called Neozed and also Minized. You'll still find them in use, particularly in industrial equipment.

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plugsocketmuseum.nl
 
That combined meter and fuse board look a lot like my maternal grandparents had in their "meterkast". One of the three fuses was for a two burner electric cooktop. The electrical installation in that house was from the 1930's most likely. The other two fuses were 10 amps. I remember the bedrooms, or at least some of them didn't have sockets. However there was a socket on the landing, IIRC with an on/off switch.
 
Funny thing is, I’m getting a D-Type fuse board coming

From Germany, and it doesn’t have replaceable few things, and uses circuit breakers, I’m using it to replace the vintage fuses here which are wire based, so if someone blew a fuse on a circuit they would take the fuse out replace the wire inside and push it back in
 
Diazed was a very solid system and was used here well into the 1980s. Some electricians were quite slow to move over to MCBs, so you'd have still found plenty of 1980s boards with rows of Diazed fuses and an RCD.

 

We still continue to use a single Minized switch-fuse isolator as the main consumer fuse on the board, just after the main switch.

 

Fusing here is like this:

 

<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Network side (sealed)</span>

[Network] === [Main Fuse] === [Meter] === [Earth-Neutral bond for TN-C-S earthing] === [Demarkation Switch (Rotary)] === (to consumer tails)

 

<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Consumer side:</span>

(consumer tails) === [Isolating switch] === [consumer's main fuse/main breaker] === [RCDs/MCBs/RCBOs for final circuits] === final circuits. 

 

You've also got a layer of local fusing i.e. in plug tops (1 to 13 amps) and fixed appliances are usually connected through a fused connection unit, which contains a two pole switch and a fuse.

 

The demarkation is present in modern installations (since the 1990s). It's a rotary switch use used by the electrical contractor to 'energise' the supply when they sign off on a new installation. It's also used to fully isolate the supply externally in the event of a fire / problem, as it's located in a meter cabinet it can be tripped without entering the building. 

 

Commercial buildings, shops and apartments etc usually have a 'fireman's switch' outside the building that can be tripped with a pole to isolate the supply in the event of a fire.

 

See FCU (Fused Connection Unit) below. We use these for connection of say anything from a hand dryer in a commercial bathroom, to gas boilers, pumps, and also built in appliances where the plugs are in accessible are usually wired to one of these (with the cable outlet down below). You typically use a hardwired connection. It avoids any potential issue with an inaccessible plug fuse and gives you the ability to isolate the appliance.

 

We've a bit of a crossover between German/Northern European and British standards in Ireland. It's a bit like BS met DIN.

 

The wiring rules here, known as I.S. 10101 : 2020 are somewhat similar to the UK, but there are differences. Increasingly they're much more in line with harmonised IEC and CENELEC standards.

 

Fixtures and fittings at the end of circuits (switches, sockets, etc) are identical to the UK. Distribution boards and the type of wires used are a bit different.

 

Commercial wiring here, in industrial contexts, is probably a lot closer to other parts of Northern Europe than it is to the UK.

[this post was last edited: 9/28/2021-09:19]

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Sorry but I don't understand how you did that?

Did you connect  the two 120 hot lines togheter on one pole?

I put 120v outlets in my house fed with a 3000w voltage converter.

That is for my 120v vintage appliances.

I prefer US plugs anyway.

Lower european hz  is not a problem for 60hz  but 60hz used with a 50hz motor can be.

 

 
 
I actually heard that anything made for 60 Hz specifically

Does have major issues if used on a 50 Hz supply, as the frequency Oversaturates the coils in the transformer/motor and it can cause it to burn out, I’ve had that happen and it’s not fun
 
I

It is decades that I have the same 120v 60hz motor appliances <span style="text-decoration: underline;">here</span> and works wonderfully.

Mixers blenders vacuums and a washer.

Same for many US appliances ran in Latin America with a transformer, for instance a lot of vintage refrigerators.

Heard a lot of people burning out 50hz appliances with US 60hz though. 

That is a much bigger issue apparently  than using a motor rated for an higher frequency with a lower one.

 

Also I happened to read that using an even lower voltage may help things in that regard of cycle mismatch.

That is the case of Japan that goes with 100v 50hz yet it appears to be lots of US 60hz motor stuff used regularly in Japan without big issues with their lower 100v tension.

 

<hr />
 

[this post was last edited: 9/30/2021-11:10]
 
A theoretical advantage of 220V over 110V is that it takes 1/2 the amperage at 220V to supply the same power as a 110V circuit. So the wiring can be about 1/2 the cross section to carry the same load. All else being equal.

 

I have seen it speculated that the US went with 110V because we are generally richer in terms of natural resources such as copper to make conductors. OTOH, 110V may be safer for humans in case of accidental contact.

 

It should also be noted that in the US, large amounts of power are generally transmitted at much higher voltages. Again, to minimize the conductor cross section needed. This explains the need for step-down transformers to distribute power to businesses and residences that require 110 and/or 220 volts (although of course our split phase 220 volt system has two 110 volt legs).
 

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