I would be happy to defend double socket outlets in court, and the suggestion that 26A on a ring circuit is in any way unsafe. It is NOT reasonable to attempt to blame the electrician for using double sockets, or ring final circuits, or reasonable diversity. This whole point seems to me to be an attempt to re-engineer the whole wiring system based on scant or zero evidence. This is a trend that seems to be haunting every area of society, I have no idea why it should be happening except that certain political groups seem to have an agenda.

So, from the posts so far it seems that the evidence is that certain tumble driers have caused their plugs and socket connections to be somewhat burned, that certain sockets appear to be poorly designed, and that a lot of people “don't like the look of that”! The law behind “duty of care” also has an understanding that this duty goes with a “duty to control”, and this is important. BS7671 assumes the duty to control here, along with the customers' willingness to pay. It allows any accessories to BS??? to be used in most situations, at the reasonable choice of certain other characteristics (IP rating etc.), and sockets to be used with a ring circuit. It also suggests long-term cable ratings but recognises load diversity. All of these are bourne out as satisfactory in the almost complete set of installations, damage being really quite rare. Cases of fires caused by any of these are very rare indeed.

It would therefore seem that the components and cables are satisfactory, used to the guidelines of BS7671, and do not require derating by electricians on a whim. In fact, I seriously worry about some of the comments because they do not reflect reality, and whilst rings may not be entirely free of theoretical criticism, based on unlikely loading scenarios, finding any visible result from such seems to be impossible. I must have looked at thousands of installations in domestics, I have seen almost zero damaged cables from internal heating. I have seen some burnt sockets (well a bit brown around one of the pins, almost exclusively the live) but none that have actually caught fire. This is hardly surprising, to catch on fire they need to be heated to 500-600 degrees C, basically red hot, as do most common materials even paper.

Therefore I deduce that there is not a significant problem with double sockets or rings, and would need a great deal more evidence to reconsider my opinion. There are many more subjects covered in BS7671 that need more consideration than this, particularly electric vehicle chargers. It is extremely dangerous to charge batteries at a very high rate when in a vehicle, and resulting fires cannot be put out in the conventional way. The Earthing is very dubious, yet we carry on, and even the economics of such vehicles appears to be beyond consideration. The whole supply system is in danger of failure, yet the Government considers at least doubling the overall load by law. Why not worry about these much more important things.

I would be happy to defend double socket outlets in court, and the suggestion that 26A on a ring circuit is in any way unsafe. It is NOT reasonable to attempt to blame the electrician for using double sockets, or ring final circuits, or reasonable diversity. This whole point seems to me to be an attempt to re-engineer the whole wiring system based on scant or zero evidence. This is a trend that seems to be haunting every area of society, I have no idea why it should be happening except that certain political groups seem to have an agenda.

So, from the posts so far it seems that the evidence is that certain tumble driers have caused their plugs and socket connections to be somewhat burned, that certain sockets appear to be poorly designed, and that a lot of people “don't like the look of that”! The law behind “duty of care” also has an understanding that this duty goes with a “duty to control”, and this is important. BS7671 assumes the duty to control here, along with the customers' willingness to pay. It allows any accessories to BS??? to be used in most situations, at the reasonable choice of certain other characteristics (IP rating etc.), and sockets to be used with a ring circuit. It also suggests long-term cable ratings but recognises load diversity. All of these are bourne out as satisfactory in the almost complete set of installations, damage being really quite rare. Cases of fires caused by any of these are very rare indeed.

It would therefore seem that the components and cables are satisfactory, used to the guidelines of BS7671, and do not require derating by electricians on a whim. In fact, I seriously worry about some of the comments because they do not reflect reality, and whilst rings may not be entirely free of theoretical criticism, based on unlikely loading scenarios, finding any visible result from such seems to be impossible. I must have looked at thousands of installations in domestics, I have seen almost zero damaged cables from internal heating. I have seen some burnt sockets (well a bit brown around one of the pins, almost exclusively the live) but none that have actually caught fire. This is hardly surprising, to catch on fire they need to be heated to 500-600 degrees C, basically red hot, as do most common materials even paper.

Therefore I deduce that there is not a significant problem with double sockets or rings, and would need a great deal more evidence to reconsider my opinion. There are many more subjects covered in BS7671 that need more consideration than this, particularly electric vehicle chargers. It is extremely dangerous to charge batteries at a very high rate when in a vehicle, and resulting fires cannot be put out in the conventional way. The Earthing is very dubious, yet we carry on, and even the economics of such vehicles appears to be beyond consideration. The whole supply system is in danger of failure, yet the Government considers at least doubling the overall load by law. Why not worry about these much more important things.