I learnt about reversed polarity when I was 14 years old. I switched the light "off" to change a bulb and got a right belt.- suprising how quick you learn.- never forgot since. Ed
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In the UK the ground is used by the power stations as the neutral conductor, and that is why we receive a shock if we are earthed and touch the line connection of a plug or appliance. We therefore need an earth connection as a safety measure.
In most other countries the neutral and line are isolated from the ground, so an earth is not required. You would have to touch both wires to receive a shock. As long as all the appliances being used are double insulated, i.e. do not have an earth connection, then reverse polarity should not matter.
> but surely most of our equipment IS earthed, eg, fridge, water heater, charger, space heater, kettle, tv, <
A lot of them are, but certainly not all. E.g the waterheaters for vans (on the continent) usually do not have earth connection. In this case usually the flat plug is used, although there are also non-earthed plug that look like earthed plugs, destined to fit in such contact. These can be recognized by the missing metal parts for earth-connection (in the Netherlands on the sides of the plug, UK I think had a third pin, France has a pin in the wall-plug hole and a hole in the plug.
My fridge, fanheater and oven are earthed, my kettle is not earthed. So if you want to be sure look at the plug.
------------- WL
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Quote: Originally posted by allengenealogy on 12/3/2007
Well I really opened a can of worms here. thanks to all
Not really. I've seen threads of discussion regarding this very query on a number of web-sites, and I've yet to read of a definitive answer. Personally, I'm going to stick to checking the polarity, after all, it's not too hard to do.
I carry two Euro-UK adaptors, one reversed and clearly marked as such. My EHU has a red warning light that comes on if the polarity is reversed so I simply swap adaptors. Similarly, I carry a short length of cable with the standard male/female blue ends attached but the polarity reversed. So when I`m in France it doesn`t matter whether the hook up boxes have the standard blue connections or the Euro ones, or whether the polarity is reversed. I can deal with it in seconds.
None of the above is expensive and saves faffing around when you`ve arrived tired and have an hour or two of setiing up to do. As to the safety aspect, I`m a firm beliver in taking all sensible precautions while dealing with electricity even if it does involve shelling out another few pounds to do so. Ultimately if I blow my hairdrier or something up it`s only money, but God forbid my five year old daughter should be holding it at the time.
Continental electrics can be fun- I trained in IT whilst living and working abroad and one of the things that I did was to wire college classrooms whilst installing networks etc. Later when back in the UK, I managed to set fire to my house due to wiring in the "wrong way" compared to the "UK way". Had never thought about it when I started the task. Fortunately only damage was to several coats which I smothered the flames with LOL. Certainly learnt my lesson!
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Topic: Reversed polarity- Does it matter?
