Mains Socket safety covers for children (not advice)
KJ44
Posts: 38,093 Forum Member
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I'm not campaigning or anything, but I was just amazed at how something we take for granted as "safe" is quite the reverse.
http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/index.html
http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/html/photo_gallery.html
I suppose there'll be someone who disagrees ...
http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/index.html
http://www.fatallyflawed.org.uk/html/photo_gallery.html
I suppose there'll be someone who disagrees ...
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Comments
Interesting site also.
We used to have those, and I can remember that as a child I couldn't get into them, but as I got older I still couldn't. I can also recall my dad breaking several trying to get into them.
Irritating things
Nearly every electrical appliance I have bought recently has had a mains plug fitted with a plastic cover over the pins.
Took me a while to work out why I needed a hammer to get the damn plugs into the sockets and even then no leccy flowed to power the appliance
I'm a chartered electrical engineer and a member if the Institution of Electrical Engineers, and I can tell you that there is concern within the institution about these covers. Basically, for anyone who hasn't followed the link, electrical sockets have built in safety shutters so live and neutral are covered until you insert a plug - the earth pin on the plug is slightly longer and pushes the shutters aside first, exposing live and neutral so the other two pins can go in. These so called 'safety' covers that you can buy, if inserted upside down so that only the earth pin goes in, push the shutters aside leaving the live and neutral dangerously exposed. If you have any in the house and you've got kids about, chuck them out (the 'safety' covers, not the kids)!
What use the earth pin of the cover to open the slats on the live/neutral? Wouldn't exactly have thought that would be prevalent. Suppose it's a play-off of just how easily removed the cover is (which will depend on the age and capabilities of the child) and/or how easily available the covers are to little hands if not in use in sockets.
Am I missing something here?
Yeah, I had a look at some of the other ones in the gallery and they can be forced in upside down. Its not something that I ever really tried doing.
Pretty dangerous if you left one lying around though by the looks of it.
No the theory is that a child could prize a safety cover off and then try to put it in upside down themselves.
The only safety devices we used in the home were a stairgate, and a playpen - could never see the point of anything else!
I wholeheartedly agree with this. In looking at the industry that has sprung up around baby proofing your house, it is such a money grabbing exercise when for years and years many many people were able to raise children without an epidemic of disaster.
Of course there are always accidents in the home, but prevention by education is a much better thing as, what happens when children are in other people's homes which don't have all these gadgets?
But I guess the point is that someone who isn't bright enough to know how a socket works, probably isn't bright enough to be able to work out how to keep their child safe from other "hazards" in the home.
In "baby proofing" we will have a stair gate, and safety corners on the glass tables in the living room. Cupboard locks, door stoppers, safety covers are just a rip off. I also saw hob guards??? For goodness sakes, if you can't keep your child safe in the kitchen when you are cooking, keep them out of the kitchen!!
Yes.
You are assuming an idealised arrangement of socket and cover.
It's perfectly possible to expose the live mains to little fingers with these devices.
Get rid of them is the best advice to the safety concious.
Just like playing pegs and holes.
Yes.
These sockets were very carefully designed to prevent accidents.
Providing devices with 'pins' that are exactly the correct size to defeat the the safety mechanism is just daft.
I also used baby walkers :eek::eek: and never once had any kind of accident with them.
Like another poster said, teaching them the word NO is better than letting them do as they please and having to put as many devices in their way as possible.
What bugged me most was when I started childminding from home the regulations state you MUST use them........ I tried to argue my point was told no they must be used at all times to safeguard the children in my care!!!!!
Used to make sure they were in on inspection days lol.
Any after-market device is inevitably going to have some kind of compromise.
edit: Though, ironically, a two-pin cover would be safer than a three-pin cover.