My tumble drier is a condensing one and uses 1.3kw some of the time. The washing machine heater is 2kw, the motor not a lot except when spinning. I don't understand this worry about the socket rating, just what are people expecting to overheat in a few minutes, and how is this different from a single socket?

Reasonable questions I think, but from above one would expect a fire every few minutes somewhere in the country. It is very rarely a problem and is usually due to something other than a socket in good condition. Poor quality plugs and fuses are a more common problem.

From the standards point of view, I do not see why a double socket is not rated at 26A, as it should be. The only reason can be that the connecting copper to each socket is perhaps too small, but this is unlikely and fixed for a trivial cost, or this is some kind of compatibility with other standards problem, but it is pretty much a UK and ex provinces standard anyway. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to change the rating to a sensible value? In fact I suspect that the 13A marking on some sockets is an error by a non-engineer in reading the specification, it is simply a single socket rating. Many manufacturers quote 20A in literature, again properly from the approval specification.

I also fail to see why we endlessly have questions about “current ratings” of everything when there are very few problems observed. OK, some think that BS7671 numbers apply in unintended ways, that time is not part of diversity understanding, and that fires can be started at 100 degrees, and are so risk-averse that they cannot see beyond their own reality. All of this comes from a completely broken education system, please learn some basics, it will make you much happier!

My tumble drier is a condensing one and uses 1.3kw some of the time. The washing machine heater is 2kw, the motor not a lot except when spinning. I don't understand this worry about the socket rating, just what are people expecting to overheat in a few minutes, and how is this different from a single socket?

Reasonable questions I think, but from above one would expect a fire every few minutes somewhere in the country. It is very rarely a problem and is usually due to something other than a socket in good condition. Poor quality plugs and fuses are a more common problem.

From the standards point of view, I do not see why a double socket is not rated at 26A, as it should be. The only reason can be that the connecting copper to each socket is perhaps too small, but this is unlikely and fixed for a trivial cost, or this is some kind of compatibility with other standards problem, but it is pretty much a UK and ex provinces standard anyway. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to change the rating to a sensible value? In fact I suspect that the 13A marking on some sockets is an error by a non-engineer in reading the specification, it is simply a single socket rating. Many manufacturers quote 20A in literature, again properly from the approval specification.

I also fail to see why we endlessly have questions about “current ratings” of everything when there are very few problems observed. OK, some think that BS7671 numbers apply in unintended ways, that time is not part of diversity understanding, and that fires can be started at 100 degrees, and are so risk-averse that they cannot see beyond their own reality. All of this comes from a completely broken education system, please learn some basics, it will make you much happier!