Electric cooker switches

Why do most electric cooker switches have an in-built socket?

I'd suggest that today most don't - simple DP 32A or 45A switches seem to be a far more popular choice these days.


Traditional cooker control units do include a socket - usually 13A but I recall my grandmother having one with a 15A round-pin socket - the unit has a built-in 15A cartridge fuse to protect it.


I suspect that switching to electric cooking went hand in hand with the introduction of the electric kettle (as a conventional hob kettle would have been painfully slow on the old resistive electric rings) and as many homes in the 1950s, 60s and 70s still wouldn't have caught up with the new fangled ring circuit there often weren't many general purpose sockets about, especially in kitchens where electric appliances would previously have been a rarity, Since you'd have to run a new circuit to the kitchen for the new electric cooker, it makes sense to use the same circuit for a socket as well, rather than having to run two new circuits. Of course the socket was then used for all sorts of kitchen appliances, not just kettles, but in my experience, it was usually the kettle that went there (despite the regular hazard of the kettle flex laying across a hot ring).


  - Andy.

Why do most electric cooker switches have an in-built socket?

I'd suggest that today most don't - simple DP 32A or 45A switches seem to be a far more popular choice these days.


Traditional cooker control units do include a socket - usually 13A but I recall my grandmother having one with a 15A round-pin socket - the unit has a built-in 15A cartridge fuse to protect it.


I suspect that switching to electric cooking went hand in hand with the introduction of the electric kettle (as a conventional hob kettle would have been painfully slow on the old resistive electric rings) and as many homes in the 1950s, 60s and 70s still wouldn't have caught up with the new fangled ring circuit there often weren't many general purpose sockets about, especially in kitchens where electric appliances would previously have been a rarity, Since you'd have to run a new circuit to the kitchen for the new electric cooker, it makes sense to use the same circuit for a socket as well, rather than having to run two new circuits. Of course the socket was then used for all sorts of kitchen appliances, not just kettles, but in my experience, it was usually the kettle that went there (despite the regular hazard of the kettle flex laying across a hot ring).


  - Andy.