On 4 Jul 2005 11:11:49 -0700,it is alleged that
spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

[snip]

Safety margin is determined by looking at what in the system causes
safety failures, and how often. Cable rating doesnt come into it. Your
heavy US cables are merely a waste of resources, achieving nothing
afaics.

Dunno, they seem much sturdier against mechanical damage (stripping
etc).

As an example a modest 3 bedroom suburban home normally has a 200amp
40 way main panel (CU). That is 200amps in each leg of the incoming
feed using three 85mm cables.

Above ground supply or buried? 85mm2 is awful big, even for 200A. Or is
it aluminium?

Generally Alumin(i)um wiring for the service entrance cables upto the
main breaker in the distribution panel.

[snip]

Again you miss it. Your systems are overloaded day in day out, not at
the service entrance but at the wall plugs that get too hot, and the
wirenuts that cant reliably maintain their ratings. The result is a
high level of fires.

Wall outlets and plugs don't get hot when they're new, it tends to be
the older ones that are loose that overheat. I never in 5 years in the
US saw wirenuts that couldn't maintain the ratings *when installed
correctly*.

Most fires are due to overloading extension cords, that is one thing
that really SHOULD be changed, they allow 13 amp rated (16AWG) ext
cords on 20 amp circuits, which is a recipe for disaster, one that all
too often works well:-(

precisely, here theyre illegal and unheard of. There isnt even a black
market in such junk, its just off the scale. Even the occasional 50
year old install isnt that bad.

As someone else has noted, they are appearing on lighting equipment
and scare the bejesus out of me, the ones that are on light fixtures
make the US backstab connections look secure.

[much snippage]

Not trying to further the war:-) Just observations I made.

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