h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lanzababy- do the plugs in the bathrooms there have Ground Fault Interupter protection there? Until NA changed over to that system, bathroom plugs here were switched with the light switch and had built-in transformers to isolate them.

I grew up in a little Brit enclave in the South of Vancouver Island (complete with Remittance Men) and many of the houses had 'switch down' to turn on lights and switches for wall plugs. I imagine few of those still exist there, but some even had black for off and white for on buttons instead of switches.

I've no idea what that is zoomer, but I do know they don't have that much power going to them, there are circuits for lights and circuits for stuff like kettles. I only use my hairdryer in there and nowhere near any water.

The ground here is so dry, which is why we've got these copper spikes.

North American and European plugs are quite dinky. Would I be right to assume they don't have internal uses?

*fuses*

I guess so, we've a whole array of circuit breakers. Only recently a man from the power company came to inspect they were all correctly installed.

Properly bonded to Mother Earth, then?

We have the grounding spikes here as well and the grounding usually includes the plumbing system. The NA wiring rules usually has circuit breakers rather than fuses, with one breaker per plug in the kitchen and bathroom and several plugs per breaker elsewhere. The electrical code here insists on ground fault interupters for plugs that are near plumbing- these cut off power the millisecond power is detected going to ground. A Very Good Thing if you are part of that circuit!

I know all this stuff because I apprenticed with a fireman/electrician so I could re-wire my first house and several places I have lived in after that. This is permitted here if a permit is obtained and the work is inspected before being closed up.

"But a cooktop hot plate left on? My kids do that, and luckily it's been on low heat, and nothing harmed."

The electric cooker is one thing I *always* turn off at the wall, and for exactly that reason. When it's glowing red hot it's less dangerous, but when it *looks* like it's off, that's when somebody scatterbrained would be likely to leave a tea-towel or something on top of it.

And it's one thing I can not turn off at the wall - the plug is down behind the thing and would require pulling the whole cooker out...
But it does have an alert light - if a hot plate or the oven is turned on, a red light shines... so at a quick glance I see if it's off or not.
Kids are learning.

"A fire which killed six people in a tower block was sparked by an electrical fault in an old television set, police have said.

Mr Murphy said London Fire Brigade advises people to make sure all televisions are unplugged at the socket when not in use."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5888246/Camberwell-tower-block-fire-caused-by-faulty-television.html

But could we also reduce risk to the same level by having newer appliances?

Faulty fridge starts fire in Church http://www2.scnow.com/news/grand-strand/2011/dec/12/4/church-fire-closes-road-little-river-ar-2853577/

Well yes, of course you could put all your trust in technology. But if you can't afford the latest technology in every field, you might have to fall back on common sense at some point.

It's a sincere consideration. Which of my appliances should I worry about? Or had I just better get in the habit of switching everything off?

And for fridges and televisions - they're 'always on' appliances. (TVs if you use Standby instead of their physical switch.)

It's sincere advice I'm giving, too. It's not good enough to say something like "appliances are now too advanced to catch fire".

Now I've seen a wooden framed, wooden walled building burn, and my advice is to err on the side of caution.

"Which of my appliances should I worry about? "

When was the building you're living in last wired?

If the answer is "within the last 20 years" or so, then the answer to your question is "probably none of them". Your home will look after you. Older than that - all bets are off.

Depends who wired it, too. I've seen some cowboys in action. (Walls should be chanelled in vertical or horizontal lines, directly from the socket. The chanel should not go around awkward items of furniture. That way, future people drilling into the wall don't get a nasty surprise.)

TRiG.