On 29/06/2019 01:32, Jim Michaels wrote:
On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 16:02:00 +0100, Scott
wrote:

On Tue, 18 Jun 2019 12:58:50 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 18/06/2019 09:13, Martin Brown wrote:

Arising from the EV Charging in the UK thread I am having an argument
with a USian who insists that UK wiring is unsafe and uses a combined

Its a little rich for someone in the US to complain that *our*
electrical systems are unsafe... You only need look at the electrocution
stats where they have annual death rates of thousands a year compared
with the "tens" per year we would expect here.

I heard that with 110V it is recognised practice to test for live
using one finger. Is this apocryphal?

---
Unless Statistics are gathered using the same criteria, comparison can
lead to false ideas.

Of course...

Of the 1,000 US Electrical deaths per year about 300 are lightning
strikes, 400 are contact with high voltage power lines, and most of
the rest are trade workers doing something wrong.

Its rare to have any deaths at all from lightening here. Deaths from
contact with the HV network are also pretty rare (in years when one
occurs it typically makes the news. e.g.
https://metro.co.uk/2017/11/21/man-e...lines-7097446/

However if your figures are correct that still leaves 300 or so deaths -
more than ten times the number we would expect here, with a population
only five times the size.

Several sites indicate the UK has more than a few electrical saftey
concerns.
https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.or...stics-england/

Indeed, no system is perfect. However you need to read the stats
carefully. Many of the fires that are classed as "electrical" tend to
include things where the fire started due to misuse of an appliance like
an electric cooker - but there was no electrical fault - it was just the
source of ignition.

Of those where there was an electrical fault, its often something like a
fridge freezer or a tumble drier that was faulty and started a fire.
(the cause of the fire in the Grenfell disaster)

(Our electrocution death rate of the 20 - 30 / year includes deaths from
contact with fixed wiring (a handful a year) and also ones from
(mis)users of appliances.

Having said that the death rate is far from the whole storey - we will
have 100K plus hospital admissions per year for electrical injuries, and
a few 1000 of those will be more serious.

(also worth noting that electricalsafetyfirst is branch of one of the
electrical contracting trade associations - and they do have a habit of
"bigging up" their stats at times, and lobbying for more regulation etc)


Being a North American, I would have to use my passport to get
somewhere with 110V as normal wiring ( a British shaver outlet comes
to mind )

They have isolating transformers included, so you would be fine so long
as you don't touch both poles at once!



--
Cheers,

John.

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