Non-compliant BS1363 plugs from reputable sources?

Right to repair: policy & activism
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Several experiences lead me to a sneaking suspicion that not all BS1363 plugs from reputable sources are compliant with the standard. I wonder if anyone has any corroborating evidence.

  • Some 18 months ago the church bought two workshop fan heaters from Screwfix (the heating system is inadequate and hirers were complaining it was too cold). After a while we realised the plugs were getting excessively hot, though there was nothing visibly wrong with them physically or in terms of their certification markings. We ended up taking them back for a refund shortly before the 12 month guarantee expired.
  • Recently, the 13 plug fuse in the church urn failed. When I came to replace it I found that it had partially melted the immediately adjacent plastic in the moulded plug. The fuse was properly marked BS1362 and with relevant certification body icons. ChatGPT tells me that BS1362 requires that a fuse dissipate no more than 1W at its rated current - not enough heat to account for this or the hot plugs mentioned above. With a replacement fuse the live pin got uncomfortably hot after only a few minutes.
  • So I purchased a replacement plug for the urn in Sainsbury’s. When I opened it I found it didn’t have a captive screw - a clear BS1363 non-conformity. A 1-off or a problem with an entire batch? Who knows. It’s labelled Masterplug, supplied by Luceco plc Stafford and appears to be available from several different retail outlets. Enough time to raise my blood pressure on the phone to Sainsbury’s customer helpline got me nowhere.

Anyone who has done any PAT testing training should know several of the tell-tale signs of a non-compliant plug, but these showed none of those.

Anyone else have similar experience?

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Thanks as always for your thoroughness & humour @philip.

I have seen a few overheated plugs & sockets in my time, but it never occurred to me that it could be the fuse.

Do we have any idea why the live pin got hot? Are you sure that it wasn’t a problem with the contacts in the socket?

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A dissipation of 1W in the fuse shouldn’t make the plug or its pins uncomfortably hot.

But in the past, I think hall hirers have insisted on using those accursed blanking plugs, which not being controlled by any British Standard, can (theoretically, at least) spread the contacts in the socket, causing them to no longer grip the pins of a plug as they should. But the socket that the urn is plugged into is well out of reach of small children, so if anyone was so risk-averse as to install a blanking plug in that at any time, I would strongly advise them never to get out of bed.

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Melted plugs and fan heaters came up in this other thread recently, in case there’s any connection - https://talk.restarters.net/t/how-can-melted-plugs-be-avoided/42642

(Apologies it not related - the details are a bit beyond me!)

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Thank you @neil, very interesting. I didn’t notice that thread at the time, and yes, very relevant!

Is it possible to link the two threads somehow as they are complementary? The other thread is closed, so maybe if you can reopen it just to add a link to this..

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I’ve reopened the other thread (it auto-closed as it is in the Repair Help category) :+1:

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