On 31 Jul 2005 23:00:48 GMT,it is alleged that
(Andrew Gabriel) spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

[snip]

Yes 0.75mm it'll carry 13A and only get a bit warm but a 13A fuse
takes quite a while to blow at twice it's rating and we are now
getting on for 5 times over that of the flex. I'm not convinced that a
13A cartridge fuse will blow before the flex gets rather to hot under
controled overload conditions rather than a dead short.

An overload implies the wrong flex is fitted.
For a short circuit, to get 26A in a 0.75m cable, the short
circuit would have to be 149m from the plug. Again, that's
much longer than an appliance flex is allowed to be.

I meant to stay out of this thread, however, something similar has
happened to me while using a hedgetrimmer with a ~50m x 0.75mm sq
flex, this being one occasion when such a length is unavoidable in
large gardens. Unless we install several outdoor sockets, and this
thread really *doesn't* need to get onto outdoor electrics, ring or
radial g. Cut through the flex part way such that it was jammed in
the blades, evidently the short wasn't _short enough_ to blow the 5A
plug fuse. Ended up throwing the hedgetrimmer away from me and running
to pull the plug, which was hot. Even with the blade of the
hedgetrimmer + sparking flex in contact with wet grass, the RCD hadn't
tripped either. This is one occasion where the 'circuit breaker plug'
proposed elsewhere in this fine thread would be a sensible addition.
Possibly with 'arc fault' sensing ability, as now mandated in the US
for bedroom circuits (unlike the US however, we should wait till the
technology is through its teething problems before requiring its use).

--
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commercially and financially it is an impossibility.
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