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by weaksauce 4127 days ago
> (and scary dangerous - where are the switches? where is the Earth? though the EU are also typically unswitched)

well the bottom prong on a cord is the ground and anything that is not a wallwort is polarized nowadays so that the neutral and hot are always on the right wire.

by switched you mean it has a fuse in the plug? if so that's not something that america does. we have 15A circuits going to different parts of the house and if there is a possibility of water immersion there will be a GFCI circuit breaker or outlet installed to protect all downstream outlets. overall it works well enough that there aren't a massive number of deaths caused by it. usually you have do something exceptional to be electrocuted.

edit: the kettle I have is 1500 Watts and at 120 volts it's ~12A of current.
2 comments
amirmc 4127 days ago
UK wall sockets tend to have physical switches. Here's a pic.

http://m.alibaba.com/product/1462287490/UK-Type-13A-1-Gang-P...

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jdhzzz 4127 days ago
Kitchen and dining room circuits are required to be 20 A and GFCI in the US so you could up the wattage if need be. I doubt such a thing exists, though.
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DiabloD3 4127 days ago
They are NOW required to be that, but a lot of legacy circuits are still 15A, and some even don't have GFCI (GFCI only became a requirement in the late 70s/early 80s in the kitchen, bathroom, and anywhere else that can conceivably be near water.

This has spread to AFCI (arc fault instead of ground fault) being put in every bedroom as a requirement as well.

If your house doesn't have GFCI and AFCI everywhere, they're required, you proobably should start retrofitting your sockets.

All of that said, you can use temporary use 1800W devices on 15A legally without tripping the breaker.

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