Electrical Safety

Common Dangers

• Mixing electricity and water• Long trailing cables• Damaged cables or plugs• Children and animals• Overloaded sockets• Covers off appliances (e.g. PCs)• Poking things in sockets• Cables or appliances near hot objects

Plugs

Plugs should be wired correctly, i.e

• The right wire to the right pin

• No bare wires

• Wires just long enough to reach pins

• Cable grip over the thick outer cable

• Correct fuse

Plugs

• The wire in plugs is made from copper as it is an excellent conductor and is very flexible

• Each copper wire is insulated with a flexible plastic coating

• The three wires are insulated again in a thicker wire for extra safety

• The case is made from a tough plastic to insulate and survive minor knocks

Electrical Safety - Fuses

• A fuse contains a thin wire which melts if the current goes above a certain value (the fuse rating), this isolates the appliance and prevents damage occurring

• It is important to select the correct fuse – the value of the fuse should be just above the normal operating value of the appliance – e.g a 10A kettle needs a 13A fuse

Electrical Safety – Earth Wire

• Metal cased appliances need to be Earthed• E.g in a toaster, if the live wire somehow

comes into contact with the metal case, anyone touching the case will get an electric shock

• By Earthing the appliance, should the live wire touch the case, the electricity will flow away to the Earth

Electrical Safety – Earth Wire

• It is only metal appliances which need Earthing

• If the appliance has a plastic cover it is called “double insulated” and does not need an Earth wire as electricity can not flow though the plastic case

• Double insulated appliances will have this symbol on:

Electrical Safety - Other

• The Earth pin is longer than the other two as it opens covers to the live and neutral sockets – this helps prevents shocks if people put metal objects into the sockets