scrubbedexpat097

Stop itYou'll have me Dancing in the Street

Sally Redux

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...

Leslie

With your little China girl.

scrubbedexpat097

You'll all Absoloute Beginners

paddingtongreen

I thought that red shoes showed the dandruff!

Steerpike

You are inadvertently demonstrating the far better terminology in use here in the US. Terminology that conveys actual usage is always a good thing. GFCI - "Interrupts the Circuit when there is a Ground Fault" vs ... RCD ... no obvious interpretation. And 'Fuse Box' (or 'Breaker Box') - "box where the fuses are" vs 'Consumer Unit' ... ?. Not to mention 'Outlets' - "where electricity comes out of" ....

And if the darned thing does trip (US or UK), I'd rather reset it at the outlet (where presumably I'm standing when the event occurs) rather than at the breaker box.

I think the explanation for a lot of the differences is the voltage level. The UK uses 240 Volts for residential delivery, compared to US which uses 120 Volts. Higher Voltage is more dangerous and thus has to be more carefully handled - hence, more protection on plugs, restrictions on light switches, etc. If you inadvertently touch a 120V wire, you'll get a tickle compared to touching a 240v wire. Conversely, a US appliance that has only 120 Volts to play with has to draw roughly double the current to achieve the same power (P=VI), so the wiring is carrying more current, and I think this explains why lights are more likely to dim when another appliance is turned on - there is a momentary dip in the current flowing to the lights.

Overall, the major trade-off is between efficiency and safety. For technical reasons it is cheaper to distribute power at higher voltages (fewer losses, and the lower current requirements save on copper costs) but the higher voltage presents bigger safety issues.

chartreuse

Or, perhaps, you've gone native.

No. It's the current that kills you, not the potential difference. So US supplies are actually more dangerous, as well as being shit.

Bob

Still have to go to the fuse box when it trips in the US though, that trips far more often than the fuse in the plug socket....and it trips all the bloody time at my place, okay that's not saying much as the landlord is crap, but even in our old place it tripped more than a drunken monkey.

Oh, and current is what kills you, you can survive 10K volts with a bit of a stutter, but up the ampage and your toast.

meauxna

Doesn't that mean that people are putting too much load on the breaker? IE too many things plugged in and running on each circuit?

Steerpike

Technically, yes, it's the current that kills you. But it is Voltage that 'delivers' the current - you don't get to 'up the ampage' other than by increasing the Voltage (or reducing resistance). So - given identical conditions - a human being standing on a moderately conductive surface - touching a 240 Volt wire vs touching a 120 Volt wire will deliver double the current to the body, no?

paddingtongreen

Now that is silly. You do that enough times and eventually you'll expose the conductors, then maybe you'll just get a surprise that makes you dance a little, or maybe they'll short and burn the house down.

Bob

It should, but you don't have to put much to blow it though....

chartreuse

You'd think so, but in practice it doesn't matter. 110 and 240 are both considered "low voltage" and either is capable of overcoming skin resistance at the point of contact and delivering more than the "let go" current (at which point you can't let go) and the lethal current (which, depending on the path it takes, can be more or less than let go).

IIRC, for low voltage stuff the PD doesn't really come into play, from a safety point of view, until you get down to around 30V.

Jerseygirl

It doesn't happen very often because we leave everything plugged in unless it's something that's put away after it's been used.

If we're going away we unplug the computers.

srefre

Not if it means a layman, who knows a little bit about electricity thinks that because the acronym makes sense to them they are ok to start playing with it!