On Saturday, 19 November 2016 08:37:48 UTC, Chris B wrote:
On 19/11/2016 02:44, tabbypurr wrote:


It's all quite simple. 3A fuses aren't required for new goods that
conform to the law, if extension leads aren't used. IOW in most cases
3A fuses are unnecessary. Now add the real life facts of old appliances,
nonconforming goods, extension leads and daisy chained extension leads
and it's easy to see why 3A fuses are still a smart idea.


Just a thought but do you know if they have ever been "required". I ask
because, when I were a lad (late 60s early 70s) our council house was
rewired from 15A Round pin to 13A square pin. The contractors who did
the rewiring put new plugs on all of the appliances that were about and
in use and every one of these plugs had a 13A fuse in it.

As a 14 year old who was just starting to get into engineering I thought
this was wrong and changed some of the fuses appropriately. However I
thought the contractors might have been doing a dodgy job and I wrote
off to someone (Cant honestly remember who but BSI comes to mind - their
kite-mark was everywhere at the time).

I definitely got a reply, the gist of which was "Any fuse is better than
none and yes there is nothing really wrong with putting a 13A fuse in a
table lamp"

I have been pretty relaxed about fuse ratings ever since.

It sounds like you were wrongly advised. At that time a lot of table lamps & some other goods used what is now regarded as speaker flex for a mains lead. This stuff is not protected by a 13A fuse, it requires a 3A to be safer.. Also other appliances in use at that time could not be counted on to have inbuilt overload protection.

OTOH the safety standards of the day were a lot laxer. There was plenty of class 0 stuff in use, wires stuffed under plugs, heating run on 1930s lighting circuits, taped twisted flex joints and so on.


NT