Changing Plugs
 

Our stuff arrived yesterday and I had to go out to bunnings to get a load of plugs for our electrical stuff

The guy in bunnings told me that it was against the law to change the plugs myself and that i needed to get a certified electrician in to do it ..

He also told me that if someone died from electric shock in my house i would be done for MURDER!! :scared:

They were still happing to sell me the plugs ...

Was he talking crap? I've done it anyway

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Unfortunately, he's not talking kr*p! Do a search on plugs or electrics, its been discussed many times, and its one of those Aussie red tape issues that amazes us Brits every time :rolleyes:

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Surely he's not suggesting you hire an electrician to do it. Fraser did all of ours when our stuff got here. I do think they go over the top with all their rules and regs. For god sake I was taught in school at 15 how to change a plug.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I knew this but still went ahead and changed all our plugs with ones bought from Bunnings and similar places.
What gets me about this law is that unless someone tells you, you are non the wiser. There is no sign next to the plugs telling you this, the packaging doesn't stipulate who is allowed to follow the difficult steps, nor does the checkout operator check your electricians certificates before selling them to you.
Yes, my ignorance is bliss.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I cannot believe that any of you would do anything so dangerous and complicated as changing a plug!

I suppose some of you would even change a lightbulb instead of calling in a professional?

Re: Changing Plugs
 

mine too ...

I've been changing plugs all my life so i feel qualified to do it safely ;)

Re: Changing Plugs
 

yeah he mentioned that we weren't supposed to do that either .. i actually laughed at this point!!!

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I'm looking for a sparky to come and switch our kettle on.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

............and me to! At the last count, it was 26 here!!

I've heard that the "solid" white and black versions are no longer "legal" (although they are still on Bunnings shelves!) and that the "clear plastic see through" ones are to be used. :eek:

Either you think they look all hi-tech or, like me, you reckon they are naff - the choice is yours.

Jim

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Dumb question, if a disaster occured and you had to make an insurance claim, how would they actually know that you had changed them yourself, unless you told them ?

(not that I'm suggesting dishonesty of any kind)

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I'm guessing you'd get some king of certificate ... but it doesn't look like any of us would know ;)

Re: Changing Plugs
 

So if that heater you rewired burns down the house (hopefully not with you in it) you just say to the insurance bloke "Aw mate, I bought that bloody thing from a garage sale. Some pommie bastard that was moving back to the UK, selling all his stuff. Didn't know it was dodgy."

Re: Changing Plugs
 

They go from one extreme to the other here, saying you can't change your own plugs but building new houses and putting plug sockets next to the sinks in the bathrooms as standard :scared:

We were shocked when we first started seeing this in houses we were looking around, especially with the children, too easy for an acident to happen. We even saw a house on realestate.com with a TV in the bathroom hanging over the bath :scared:

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Not this old chestnut again :rolleyes: ;) I thought it had been agreed that it was ok to change plugs. You just can't start fiddling with fixed wiring. I believe the rules are the same in the UK now as well.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

This is an Aussie urban myth. You can change plugs yourself. I have a leaflet at home somewhere given to me by a work colleague who has his own electrical business. I'll try & find & scan it.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Well, I got a friend of mine in Australia to send over 20 plugs to me in old Blighty where I changed them myself (or got my sparky brother to change them) that way they were done before I got into Australia as I thought customs would check this on entry of my container. Customs never questionned me about the electrical goods I imported so my point is proven. After all, wouldn't customs place a "changing plugs by yourself is illegal - you must appoint a certified electrician to do this" on all imported goods with non-Australian plugs?

PS: The law here is changing and plugs will soon no longer be allowed in bathrooms and will need to be at least 2 metres away from sinks and other water sources in other rooms. New house builds may well already be doing this.
Whilst Australia has strange extremes, UK is the opposite - you can totally rewire your house if you want to with absolutely no training at all. Again, this is changing in the UK and starting with commercial premises, all electrical wiring work must be carried out by a certified electrician coming soon!

Andrew

Re: Changing Plugs
 

oh so rite.........i can't believe they put electrical sockets within easy reach of water, its just asking for trouble.
its murder trying to tell my partner not to sit in the bath playing the playstation.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

And the light switches in the bathrooms arn't pull cord ones, just regular switches, also for the extractor fan, so easy to go to turn the fan off when you get out of the shower with wet hands, have forgotten and done it a couple of time now :scared:

Re: Changing Plugs
 

WA, where you are, is different. You ARE allowed to change your plugs over there, it's just the rest of the States that aren't ;)

All houses are supposed to have to have a Safety Switch, (at least in QLD) so if you jump in the bath, with the TV aswell, you will trigger the auto cut off, and just disconnect the power, rather than damaging the TV with a power surge. (and of course yourself :) )

Re: Changing Plugs
 

It's an RCD or earth leakage as it's called in South Africa. Most countries require it's use now, although loads of older houses in the UK don't have it. Light switched in the bathroom are fine. This idea that you can get a shock if you touch them with wet hands goes back to the days when switches were made of brass & were badly insulated. Modern switches are so well insulated that you would basically have to spray it with a hosepipe to get it to short out. Again I have no problems with plugs next to the sink for the same reason, In fact it's quite handy to charge up the Braun toothbrush.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Don't the sparkies put a tag on the plug?

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Don't be so silly, you've got to get a certified plug tagger to do that :D

Re: Changing Plugs
 

:D Mate sorry, I should have known that.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I knew about the plugs, but a light bulb - that's a joke right?

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Yes, of course it is.......... I think ........... isn't it ? :D

Just off to google.................... ;)

Re: Changing Plugs
 

well the guy in bunnings said that we were not supposed to even change a lightbulb ... but i'm not sure how serious he was being ...

Re: Changing Plugs
 

We have changed all our plugs but my son in law got a friendly electrician to tag them. Thats how they know if you have changed them yourself, if equipment caused a fire and the plug is not tagged them they could argue that it was the plug that caused the problem and not the equipment.This would invalidate any household insurance. Is it worth the risk

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Just for your info YES leccies do have to tag the plug.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

nah that doesn't sound right at all

he might of said you weren't allowed to change a light globe :rolleyes:

Re: Changing Plugs
 

you're a veritable mine of information
can you tell me why when I buy a kettle the plug doesn't have a tag on it?
also I'm interested to know how the insurance company would know that the plug on that kettle isn't the original one and that I'd naughtily changed it?

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I think he was joking :) It's only fixed wiring that they apply it to, and all plug packets have a warning on them about it, but light bulb/globe packets don't.

I've also never known anyone get an electrician to change a light bulb/globe.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

after hearing i couldn't change my own plugs .. i wasn't too sure !! ;)

Re: Changing Plugs
 

i was thinking of putting an advert in the local rag offering my services as an experienced light bulb fitter and tester. If everyone can do it then i now don't see the point. :confused: :p :D

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Its not tagged beause your original plug is a sealed unit - check it out!

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Here's my experience over the last year or so.

I brought lots of UK 4-way adaptors with me so that I could change one plug and run British equipment - especially mobile phone chargers etc. which don't have a separate plug. I also brought travel adapters for plugging in odd items when I need to.

Things I've found out over the last year:

1) When you try to set up equipment and you have a mix of UK and Aussie kit, it gets a bit confusing planning to have enough of each type of socket to plug into each other. This is especially true when I'm using, say, a British extension reel with an Aussie vacuum cleaner to clean the car. {Aus socket -> UK Travel adapter -> Extension reel -> Aus Travel adapter -> Cleaner}

2) The kind of plug you can buy in the supermarkets won't fit over thick 13A cable on British appliances. You can buy ones in Bunnings that do.

3) The normal maximum current rating in Australia is 10A. Running too many heat producing British 13A appliances from the one wall socket makes you run the risk of overheating the cables behind the wall, or the live pin of the socket itself. In Australia the "live" pin is called the "active" pin.

4) You can buy 15A Australian plugs, sockets and cables which are thicker. They look the same as the 10A plugs, but the middle Earth pin is just a little bigger, so it won't plug into a 10A socket. (this one caused more than a little swearing!)

5) I brought a bag of British 3A, 5A, and 13A plug fuses with me in case mine blew over time. I haven't needed any yet. Any of you guys need some?

6) I whinged about the inferior, flimsy, aussie plugs for a while until I got the knack of them. Then I realised a) They grip the inner wires better if the flex gets tugged than British plugs do. b) The screw terminals are much easier to get the wires into. c) The clear ones are really reassuring.

7) Where I live, summer lightning storms knock out the power for a few hours on a regular basis. I got a 900W generator from an auction house for about $130 (they sell them in Supercheap Auto for $300). I've found this is just enough to run one fridge freezer, one light, one TV, one fan, and the water pump for the house. My cooker is gas. I've run an extension cable down through the floor to the generator from the kitchen to the shed so that when the power goes off I nip downstairs, fire it up and we can continue the evening in relative comfort.

8) Now that I'm a year into here, I find I've got about 3 or 4 travel adapters in regular use. I'm now getting uneasy about having them there for so long. They do pose a greater fire and shock hazard, so I'll probably do something about it soon.

The number of small black transformers I have to power bits of electronic equipment means I had to use British multi-way adapter boards anyway. As a result, this hybrid electrical system I have works well for us. Where I feel the need I change plugs, but in most cases I don't bother.

I hope this helps anyone else who, like me, finds that there are never enough electric sockets in any house!

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Running a 13A appliance (say a 3kW fast boil kettle) on a 10A circuit will trip the MCB after a short while, thereby protecting the circuit. I'm not too familiar with Aussie wiring regs but I would think that the house wiring 'behind the walls' would be rated so as allow it to take 13A. It would be pretty crap wiring if it wasn't.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

I know what you mean, and I haven't burned my kitchen down either. The cable runs would be OK, but you could get hot spots at weak points without tripping the circuit breaker. I've certainly had a socket singed at the live pin, but that was in a very (nice but) shonky rented house on the Gold Coast. I guess I'm suggesting that adding heavy duty British appliances will use up your comfort zone faster than adding Aussie ones.

Some people also think that they'd be able to tell if the UK appliance was causing an overload because the flex would get hot, or the plug fuse would blow. It might help someone to realise that the UK appliance will happily draw as much power as it wants, and it's the house wiring that will feel the stress. As you say though, hopefully the circuit breaker will prevent that, and I haven't met anyone who has had any problems.

Anyway. I haven't really posted much since I moved over here, so I just thought I'd put something back ... in fact I did all my posting before Karma was invented. As a result I must look like some kind of pariah with 500-odd posts and zero karma! lol

Re: Changing Plugs
 

?? what the ....? The man in Bunnings gave me a demo on how to change from a Brit one. Said it was so easy even I could do it! (patronizing t**t)Never mentioned anything else.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Not anymore, or not if you want to sell your house anyway. We had to confirm in our solicitors documents that no electrical work had been due by anyone other than a qualified permitted electrician since 1st Jan 05 and a friend who spent a couple of years doing all the exams and training to be an electrician at nightschool discovered he couldn't actually do anything more than simple bits without having prior submission of a plan to the local council and confirmation from them that he could do it or a few years experience or larger electrical work in the home.

Re: Changing Plugs
 

Don't worry mate, you'd only be done for manslaughter, not murder. :D

ADL