Cheap French plug tops?

[inkflo]

We have a variety of British, Spanish & French plug tops/adaptors & we want to change the lot for French ones.

They are just under 2 euros each in the stores & we have a huge amount to change, does anyone know of a supplier that does them in bulk for less money please? Dept 87

[Gyn_Paul]

If you can stand waiting, all the bricos run promotions on their various ranges, and 'electricitie' will eventually come round. For my part, I'd high-tail it to Brico Depot in Chateauroux and buy them there. They are virtually as cheap as the promotions anyway.

To get trade - and trade prices - you need to be a registered artisan (and have French forefathers yea unto the third and fourth generations.....), otherwise the deal you can expect would lead you to believe they are individually wrapped in gold leaf.

p

[Kitty]

In my house, plug adapters seem to disappear.  Every year, I buy 10 in the UK at a discount outlet and they get absorbed into the house, only to disappear into the ether.  Where do they go?  The same place as socks?

 

[La Guerriere]

They sure do. This is why it is best to buy new French plugs and rewire everything. Now just to get everybody going which side is live which is neutral. Hahahahah !

[LEO]

[quote user="Cathy"]

In my house, plug adapters seem to disappear.  Every year, I buy 10 in the UK at a discount outlet and they get absorbed into the house, only to disappear into the ether.  Where do they go?  The same place as socks?

 

[/quote]

Hi Cathy , I lose at least one pen/pencil every week!

that is a whopping 52 pencils a year.

Would the persons who find these pencils please get in touch!

[sid]

I get all my pencils that way [Www]

Sid

[La Guerriere]

You can try sprinkling paperclips into the back of a wardrobe. After six months they turn into wire coathangers....

[inkflo]

[quote user="Gyn_Paul"]If you can stand waiting, all the bricos run promotions on their various ranges, and 'electricitie' will eventually come round. For my part, I'd high-tail it to Brico Depot in Chateauroux and buy them there. They are virtually as cheap as the promotions anyway.

To get trade - and trade prices - you need to be a registered artisan (and have French forefathers yea unto the third and fourth generations.....), otherwise the deal you can expect would lead you to believe they are individually wrapped in gold leaf.

p

[/quote]

Many thanks,

I think we'll have to make that journey to Chateauroux.

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="La Guerriere"]

You can try sprinkling paperclips into the back of a wardrobe. After six months they turn into wire coathangers....

[/quote]

You have to have paperclips from two different boxes otherwise all the resulting hangers are the same sex. This way you not only get hangers, but after another three months you have twice the number of hangers as when you first looked.

Don't leave it longer than a years though, or else you'll be overrun.

As for pens and pencils, as Douglas Adams explained, they slip through a hole in the space/time continuum (which is generally found to be down the back of the sofa) and end up on the planet Biroid.

Next week: Wright's Law concerning copulating cables ......

p

[Mikew]

Will someone helpful tell me how to rewire the power blocks that seem to come with every computer and digital camera etc....................................................

[sid]

If you mean the bulky power supplies, there's nothing you can do except use an adapter. These things are a real nuisance! [:@]

The longer you live here the less of these you'll have as they gradually reach the end of their useful life, then you replace them with French ones. [:)]

Sid

[Alan Zoff]

Before people rush out to buy the cheapest adaptors, plugs, etc., bear in mind that you are plugging these into a 240 volt supply. If they make a poor contact either with the wall socket or internally, they are a fire hazard. Poor contacts or poor materials combined with mains power invariably means heat which can set fire to cable, then furnishings and so on without blowing a fuse or trip....

On a similar note, I received the following email message (sorry about the format - I have just pasted it in here) about plug-in air fresheners:

This is one of those e-mails that if you don't send it, rest assured
Someone on your list will suffer for not reading it. The original
Message was written by a lady whose brother and wife learned a hard
Lesson this past week.

Their house burnt down.. Nothing left but ashes. They have good
Insurance so the house will be replaced and most of the contents. That
Is the good news.


However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire. The
Insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He
Had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked her
Sister-in-law what she had plugged in the bathroom. She listed the normal things...
Curling iron, blow dryer.
He kept saying to her, 'No, this would be something that would
Disintegrate at high temperatures'. Then her sister-in-law
Remembered she had a Glade Plug-In, in the bathroom.

The investigator had one of those 'Aha' moments. He said that was the
Cause of the fire. He said he has seen more house fires started with
The plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the
Plastic they are made from is THIN. He also said that in every case
There was nothing left to prove that it even existed. When the
Investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the
Plug-in were still in there.


Her sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night light
Built in it. She said she had noticed that the light would dim and then
Finally go out. She would walk in to the bathroom a few hours later,
And the light would be back on again. The investigator said that the
Unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just
Blow the light bulb. Once it cooled down it would come back on. That is
A warning sign



The investigator said he personally wouldn't have any type of plug in
Fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many places
That have been burned down due to them.

 

[sid]

I feel sure that if these things were so dangerous we'd have heard about it on the news, not by a chain letter type of email.

Have a look at this link http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/pluginfire.html

or here http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_plug_in_air_freshener.htm

I remain to be convinced. Hang on there's a funny smell....... [blink]

Sid

[Pierre ZFP]

[quote user="La Guerriere"]

You can try sprinkling paperclips into the back of a wardrobe. After six months they turn into wire coathangers....

[/quote]

I thought everyone knew that socks are the larval form of coathangers.  Makes sense doesn't it?  Fewer socks, more coathangers

[Alan Zoff]

I take the point about chain emails, and tend to dismiss then myself, but I think the general message here remains valid. Two friends, one a health and safety officer, the other an electrician, warned us about the fire risk from cheap adaptors and poor electrical connections. (The electrician took me round a neighbour's house, checking the wiring for him, and was appalled at the number of loose connections in modern light fittings, etc, some of which had already caused charring of fittings and cable - in that case, nothing wrong with the quality of the fittings themselves, simply that the screw terminals had not been tightened properly.)

[Chancer]

It is always frightening to find charred connections but for them to start a fire they would have to be in contact with a combustible material.

The plastics used in plugs and plug sockets do not burn, they char and degrade, if the terminals were to then touch, the fuse would blow (assuming it is wired better than my property), if the socket is in brick, plaster or plasterboard  the fire would not propogate.

For me the biggest risk is floor to ceiling curtains resting on power points, especially those with UK plug adaptors, the Windsor castle fire was reputedly caused by curtains touching a halogen worklight.

As an aside I let an extension lead drop a short way to allow me to descend a ladder with greater safety, it had a UK adaptor (my tools are used here and in the uk) bought from CPC which shattered (or so I thought) on impact exposing the live terminal.

On closer inspection I found that it was only clipped together not glued or ultrasonic welded, it hadn't broken and easily clipped back together, too easily in fact as if it were tight in the wall socket it could come part whilst removing it. I have looked at my others of 3 different makes and they all are constructed in the same way, possibly they are stronger or glued but I cant really be sure without risking breaking them.

Another reason to ditch those adaptors!

[La Guerriere]

Short of buying new power supplies its probably best to use a short extension lead rewired with French plug and with multi UK socket. Thus power supplies can sit nicely in the sockets and not have the problem of pulling out of adaptors.

When rewiring anything for a French plug it is arguably better to connect live to the right hand pin of the French plug (thats right looking towards the wall, left looking at the pins). There is no fixed convention however, and any French socket (particularly of any vintage) may have live right / neutral left or vice versa. If it's important, check with multimeter, and you may well find that sockerts differ even in the same house....

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="La Guerriere"]

Short of buying new power supplies its probably best to use a short extension lead rewired with French plug and with multi UK socket. Thus power supplies can sit nicely in the sockets and not have the problem of pulling out of adaptors.

When rewiring anything for a French plug it is arguably better to connect live to the right hand pin of the French plug (thats right looking towards the wall, left looking at the pins). There is no fixed convention however, and any French socket (particularly of any vintage) may have live right / neutral left or vice versa. If it's important, check with multimeter, and you may well find that sockerts differ even in the same house....

[/quote]

Why is it 'arguably better' if there is no convention? Anyone with a Legrande double socket will have one L-R polarity and the other R-L. If that isn't an in-built acceptance that the phase may be applied to either side, I don't know what is [:D]

p