I have to say that I am impressed with the plugs in oz. Not because they have the worst plugs in the world IMO, but because they have differnt sized pins. If you have to put in an electric oven the fitted plugs come with all the pins a larger size than standard so that it cant just be plugged into a normal socket and if you buy something thats slightly more powerful than normal then the top pin only is bigger. This means that you have to buy the right socket for them to go into. I personally think this is a brill idea.

Jo

..or you could have all the plugs a standard size and put something inside them to handle different loads.. you could call it a fuse perhaps?.

what a good idea............... I wonder if there are any countries that have done such a thing.......................

Th UK already does this and requires a seperate ring for the Cooker at higher rating. There isnt a plug usually and should go straight in to the wall or is if a plug is used a 15A round pin one should be fitted, so it cant go in the 13A square pin holes. A fuse isnt any good. You can just change it, whats important is the cable that delivers the electric must be rated for cookers.

Hmm, let's see...

A system which stops you plugging in the wrong appliance in the first place, or a system that allows you to plug in the wrong appliance and relies on 19th Century technology to catch the error by ensuring that the appliance will not work until you dismantle the entire plug, refit the fuse, put the plug back together, and plug it in somewhere else.

Gee, it's a tough choice!

Sorry Vash, but it is way behind here, even all the Electricians my hubby works with agree They think it's a marvelous idea to have fuses in plugs, stops everything in the house going off for one thing.

Australia is way behind here I'm afraid !

Two words: circuit breakers. That's what they're doing in your fusebox.

You should have independent breakers for lights, appliances and general power. This means that if one thing goes off, you don't lose the lot; you only lose power to the circuit that your appliance is plugged into. So you walk to the fusebox, reset the breaker, and go on your merry way.

This is a lot simpler than messing about with fuses.

Both technologies have the good and bad, but I'd rather have a circuit breaker to switch than faff around trying to find the proper amp of fuse. Whenever I used to do that I never did have the right one and meant undoing a million other plugs trying to borrow one.

That and I never did like the pop, blackened plastic and a smell of burning with a blown fuse. Somehow it just isnt right.

Here I get to flick a switch and its all good again. Too Easy.

... and I think that's why you will find they are compulsory in all new homes in the UK and have been for many years.

One of the things that I found weird when I first moved here was having no cut-off switch for the cooker. In the UK the cooker was wired into the wall, and there was a master cut-off switch next to it. Here there was no switch, just a wired in cooker, then a walk round the length of two units and into a (normally locked) garage) to reach the fuse box if there was a proble,. Like the rest of the dodgy electrics in that place, the cooker didn't work properly, and sometimes you couldn't turn the rings off. With no cut-off switch :scared:

So, (finally) is this normal for Aus or do most cookers have a switch like the UK? Was this just more evidence of Mr D Odgy Landlord Esq?

I always fitted a 13A fuse in every thing anyway

If you have a circuit breaker it will blow heaps faster then a fuse becuase the wire in the fuse has to get hot enough to melt.
So I agree fuses are a waste of time especially if you have a safty switch.

Ours has one.

No switch on our cooker.. it plugged in and fuse box was just that, the old wire fuse.. Got that changed in week one.

What is electrickery ?

... and why are the sockets themselves so small?. The can't fit two phone chargers, for example, into a double socket.