On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:06:35 GMT, "neverwas"
wrote:

Surprisingly it can be a foreign plug and the flex can be made to a
foreign (non - EU, typically US) standard, perhaps with the proviso
that they include instructions for changing the flex


Is that now true for vendors in the UK please?

I know that there was consultation in 2006-07 on some changes to the
regulations. And also that some non-UK companies (eg Pixmania) ship
goods with French plugs and a simple plug-in adapter (rather than a
convertor). But they are selling from outside the UK.

For vendors in the UK the legislation used to require for ordinary stuff
(leaving stuff wired in like cookers) either a standard UK plug or "a
non-UK plug complying with the safety provisions of the International
Electrotechnical Commission standard IEC 884-1 (1987) and fitted with a
conversion plug of a type approved for use with such a non-UK plug which
encloses the fitted non-UK plug and can only be removed by the use of a
tool" (to quote the ex. note to the original Plugs and Sockets etc.
(Safety) Regulations 1994). And that's what trading standards seem
still to work to.

It would appear not. :-((


But I may have misunderstood and/or missed new regulations.

I am a qualified electrical engineer, and got on my high horse with
West Yorkshire Trading Standards when my daughters GHD hair
straighteners blew up, burnt her, and burnt a hole in the carpet when
she dropped them. It turned out this had happened several times within
her small circle of friends always caused by the US standard flex
hardening and cracking at the point where it entered the handle.

West Yorkshire Trading standards sent a nice lady (But only an
unqualified Local Government Officer lay lady {lay lady lay ?}) to
the house see me. It became clear she was only interested in
protecting GHD against counterfeit products. She took away the
cremated remains of the straighteners saying *only* GHD could say
whether they were counterfeit or not. They weren't, and GHD replaced
them as a gesture but unfortunately the "evidence" had been destroyed
in the process of examination. 8-((

The ruling above plugs and flexes came from her. Unfortunately
trading standards could not / would not produce anyone qualified to
discuss this with me.

A hint of a reference to this problem here.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061018130549AAGhRnb


One wonders why West Yorkshire Trading Standards were so keen to avoid
addressing the electrical safety issues. Gloucestershire Trading
Standards had no such reticence.

GHD straighteners was / is a local multi million pound business. ;-)

Derek