Electric cooker switches

Andrew Jewsbury:

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

Cooker switches with in-built sockets are still very much mainstream items produced by most manufacturers of electrical accessories; available in numerous styles and finishes; and sold by every DIY and consumer grade electrical shop - unlike clock connectors or 13A sockets with different shape earth pins that are only sold by specialist electrical suppliers.

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.

Therefore it's possible that cooker switches with in-built sockets predate BS1363 although without examining the item it could in theory be made after BS1363 as BS546 plugs and sockets are still being manufactured today. Yes, it would have to have a fuse for the socket. Was the fuse replaceable from the outside like on an FCU?

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).

 

If that is the real explanation behind cooker switches with in-built sockets then it makes one wonder whether they are an eccentric, or even grotesque, relic from a previous era that has become ingrained as mainstream technology right up to today. There's not a lot else that a cooker switch with an in-built socket can be used for because most don't have a fuse for the cooker outlet like on a FCU. Twin FCU or a combined FCU and socket, that can replace a cooker switch, don't appear to exist.

Andrew Jewsbury:

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

Cooker switches with in-built sockets are still very much mainstream items produced by most manufacturers of electrical accessories; available in numerous styles and finishes; and sold by every DIY and consumer grade electrical shop - unlike clock connectors or 13A sockets with different shape earth pins that are only sold by specialist electrical suppliers.

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.

Therefore it's possible that cooker switches with in-built sockets predate BS1363 although without examining the item it could in theory be made after BS1363 as BS546 plugs and sockets are still being manufactured today. Yes, it would have to have a fuse for the socket. Was the fuse replaceable from the outside like on an FCU?

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).

 

If that is the real explanation behind cooker switches with in-built sockets then it makes one wonder whether they are an eccentric, or even grotesque, relic from a previous era that has become ingrained as mainstream technology right up to today. There's not a lot else that a cooker switch with an in-built socket can be used for because most don't have a fuse for the cooker outlet like on a FCU. Twin FCU or a combined FCU and socket, that can replace a cooker switch, don't appear to exist.