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How not to wire mains
Posted:
June 9th, 2014, 8:19 amby LongRunner
- Don't use a plug designed for round cord on flat cord, as it will not hold on. Although hardly a recommended practice, if the "unplug by pulling the cord" routine does pull the cord out of the plug, the retention is much too weak for my standards. Using a plug intended for heavy-duty cord on an ordinary-duty cord, or one intended for ordinary-duty cord on light-duty cord, can produce a similarly loose result.
- Don't depend on one screw to hold a fitting in place. Some d0rk did that with an outlet in my house, and to compound the problem the screw used was a countersunk wood screw, inserted into the plasterboard (which won't, by itself, retain any type of screw solidly, and that "mounting" failed just as you'd expect). The cut-out was, at that stage, an irregular shape that wouldn't retain the standard bracket, so I ended up replacing the outlet and using wall-plugs to hold it in place.