I think the merits with the Australian pattern are the backwards compatibility, where a standard 10 amp plugtop will fit into any of the 10, 15, 20, 25 and 32 amp sockets. I read somewhere that the British pattern has two sizes and neither fit the other, either way around - you have to have the right plug, no matter what.

I have to say though, I've never seen the 32 amp socket or plug in the flesh. It could be handy if youn wanted to plug in your range so it could be shifted easily for cleaning underneath but I guess there's just not sufficient applications for it to be popular. In Australia, most applications that draw those sort of currents utilise three phases. A three phase motor has 20 times the reliability of a single phase motor - there's only one moving part and no condensers to worry about.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

"..the fuses in the plugtops make Britain's system safer. I fail to see where this is the case."

Yes, me too, just more opportunity for corrosion, heating, arcing and redundant as there is already protection at source & destination!

Interesting explanations, Brad. I think Australia is quite rare in the extent to which three-phase power is pretty much the standard household connection, certainly for any new construction.
Maven

To be honest I didn't realise they were heading back to three phase though it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

Australian-made electric ranges are still set up to be connected to two phases to spread the load of the hotplates and work on a single 32A connection via a wire link on the stove's terminal strip. Houses built up until the late 1960s were often given all three phases because 4mm² consumer aerials didn't have the capacity to cop the stove plus hot water.

6mm² on single phase has been the standard option since then, perhaps up until recently with 16mm² from the point of attachment down to the switchboard.

I'm somewhat out of touch with the domestic scene as my electrical experience is mainly in the commercial and industrial arena, where the law requires all three phases to be run to each and every switchboard for the purpose of load balancing.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

To be honest I didn't realise they were heading back to three phase though it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.

I've noticed at least 2 phases in new houses in Sydney.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn't unusual to see houses with 2 phase supplies.

With practically every new house being reverse-cycle air-conditioned, I guess it makes sense to simply cable in more than one phase.

Three phase in the workshop would be ideal.

QUOTE: I've noticed at least 2 phases in new houses in Sydney.

I was just working on a house with the most meager electrical service: An old disconnect box (c.1915) gutted with a single 30-amp screw-in fuse floating on ~100-yr-old original ragwire. This would be only ~3kw service total!



Seems both the authorities & the residents were happy to countenance this situation. I advised them to install fluorescent bulbs wherever possible!

Plenty of switchboards around that are still in that state here, mainly in Victorian-era mansions and terraces that line the streets of the inner suburbs. Oregon timber panel on 3x2 rough-sawn Oregon battens, screwed to the brickwork with hardwood rawlplugs. All wiring was VIR single core, double insulated drawn into in split-seam conduit which was terminated with the old 'clips all' (this name lead to the Clipsal brand we know today) junction boxes, tees and elbows.

I've noticed the wind-on connectors - I've seen them in one or two older installations but where I find them I remove them and replace with the more common BP connectors which do not need to be taped over.

In the days when this type of switchboard was installed it would have been far more than required. At best there'd be a few lights and a radio on. Irons were heated on the huge wood-fired stove in the kitchen. Heating was from fires and in cities and larger towns at least, gas was available for hot water.

I remember old irons being used as doorstops when I was a kid, as they'd been made redundant decades before as municipal electricity supplies became more reliable.

One thing to remember with any electrical installation - all connections must be tight. No 'contractors joints', that being wires clamped without first being twisted together. Loose connections start more electrical fires than any other faults put together. Yesterday I was called into work to replace a main switch that had cooked connections and the total load would have been smaller than what would be expected of the switchboard last pictured. One master clock system, electronic scoreboard for cricket and Rugby matches, a motorised rollerdoor, four light fittings and a spare GPO for a radio or something like that. 40 amp three phase supply with a load totalling about 4 amps, if that.

Use of lamps that draw very little current is a good idea. My flat is equipped with LED globes throughout now. I've had to repaint the walls with a lighter colour to achieve a good result but the added benefit here is that the place also looks bigger whilst using far less electricity.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Yes, I was wondering about the state of some of those Row houses in Paddington, Syd.

The "new" (early 1950's?) dual breaker box added to primitive installation (lower right) is a Westinghouse with breakers permanently attached to its Art Deco metal cover (unusual!).

I find the early stuff is much more interesting.

Yes, I was wondering about the state of some of those Row houses in Paddington...

Lots of them still around all of inner Sydney, South Sydney and North Sydney and they are still commonly found along the western rail line out to Croydon. My employer, in North Sydney, owns about 15 of them as investments. As they buy them they are generally gutted and refurbished though and this means new wiring.

Yes, it is unusual for a circuit breaker to be attached to its front panel the way you describe. Email, once a very large manufacturing conglomerate here in Australia, owned the licence to produce Westinghouse circuit breakers and they were made in large numbers, mainly for commercial and industrial use. On a couple of older installations I noticed small switchboards fitted with Westinghouse Quicklag breakers with the front cover directly attached. In a way it is a shame that all this DIN rail rubbish that is so popular now has taken over from the older Westinghouse stuff. Email switchboards (and other brands with chassis to accommodate Westinghouse breakers) are by far the easiest to work on.

I have a small collection of different types of circuit breakers made by Email over the last 60-70 years. I'll get some photos together this coming week.

The domestic scene relied mainly on Federal porcelain re-wirable fuses in the same era. They are illegal on new installations now due to a track record of the home handyman using everything from coathanger wire to strands of wire from the clothesline to solve that old problem of nuisance blowing.

Above is a photo of the standard layout of supply authority equipment in NSW. Plugin meters are no longer used but the positioning of equipment is the same throughout the state. Other states have either fallen inline with this layout or kept to their own layout, depending on which state it is.

There is space at top-right for four meters (up to three for general tariff and a fourth for off-peak hot water tariff). Bottom-right is the ripple counter that allows the supply authority to turn your water heater on or off at will, usually depending on the load on their network at a given time. Top-left is what was known as the 'council fuse' but is mostly called the service fuse now, rated at 100 amps. This is what the connecting officer removes when you don't pay your bill on time. Bottom-left is the customer's equipment, usually a block of fuses or circuit breakers for various final sub-circuits.

By the way, for the benefit of those not familiar with the names of some of Australia's old industrial giants, Email had nothing to do with electronic mail, but stood for Electrical Meter and Allied Industries Limited, formerly known as EMMCO, Electrical Meter Manufacturing Company, who also made Airzone radios.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Plugin meters are no longer used

I'm thinking of posting a photo of the dreaded "smart meter" that is appearing like a weed all over the place.

A friend of mine got an honest sparky to admit to him that they are paid a commission to replace existing meters with these infernal things at every opportunity.

This discussion came about because he wants an additional circuit for more GPOs added to the small switchboard on his house. Every sparky that came to quote gave him the routine of how the whole board would have to be replaced and a smart meter installed. (The wiring throughout the old house is modern.)

Eventually, through a contact in the building game, he found a sparky who was willing to simply add a circuit and no more.

We didn't get a choice. The block of flats I live in got smart meters some years ago and after all that effort I've changed provider twice (AGL are a pack of ignorant bastards and their billing system sucks and Origin are just too expensive) and none of them have ever offered me a time-of-use tariff, not that I'd take the offer anyway. I'm not paying something like 65c/kWh to cook my tea.

By the way, when we replace standard hot water heaters with those that run heat pumps or a solar cell, the off peak tariff isn't supposed to apply anymore so when people convert they risk losing that huge discount.

Also, there's nothing that suggests that meters have to be replaced provided they have a capacity of 100 amps or more. Aside from that, most electricians are not accredited to replace meters. Carrying out work on equipment owned by the supply authority requires accreditation with the relevant supply authority and the payment of an extra insurance premium to cover damage caused to such equipment and the network. This covers metering, installation of consumer's aerials or underground services and connections to street distributors.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

most electricians are not accredited to replace meters.

I don't know how it works in practice, but I gather from my mate's experience with them that the sparkies are in on the deal somehow. Perhaps they are paid a spotter's fee of sorts.

As for alternative retail suppliers, I've been driven crazy by their door knockers (usually Indian guys) over the last year or so trying to get me to change to their company. Eventually I stuck a DO NOT KNOCK! sign on my front door, but by then the companies involved had ceased this nuisance practice owing to public fury.

You did the right thing. Been door-knocked myself there and those bastards are ruthless if given half a chance to suck you in.

A word of warning to everyone on this issue - never sign any deal with a door-knocker because they are all conartists.

It was quite some years ago now but I remember one of these blokes coming to my door and when I told them I wasn't interested he got defensive about his 'product' and said I should sign straight away. I replied that if he didn't F off I would carry him out to the gutter and throw him in it. He then demanded to know who I was buying my electricity from and I got the keys and started unlocking the wire door. With that sound he took off like a bat out of hell.

Stories of people being sucked into expensive contracts have been on Today Tonight at times. The old adage applies - if something sounds too good to be true then it most likely is.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

I'm sorry for wandering a bit off topic, but we have a smart meter and a heat pump hot water service. As posted earlier, the off-peak tariff for hot water does not apply, but is there any reason why a timer cannot be fitted to the HWS supply so that it only turns on at night?

At 310 litres of hot water and only 2 in the house, I feel sure we would not run out on a normal days use. The timer could be bypassed if that did occur.

Perhaps someone better versed than I in physics could comment on having to pump from the lower ambient temperature would outweigh the lower electricity price at night.

Harold

but is there any reason why a timer cannot be fitted to the HWS supply so that it only turns on at night?

You could have a timer and a 20 amp contactor installed to do this but the cost savings may not make the job worthwhile. A modern hot water heater can hold its temperature quite well and the heat pump uses less than half the energy of a large standard element.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...