Tamper resistant outlets (with shutters on the hot and neutral) are required for new construction and remodels anywhere in the US that uses the 2008 or later National Electric Code. I think the relatively unsafe outlet design is somewhat mitigated by requirements for GFCI and AFCI breakers/receptacles in more rooms. I don’t think insulating the prongs would necessarily work with current receptacles because the slots may bnot be wide enough or they could get chewed up by the gripping hardware inside the outlet. Recessing the outlet seems easier but with no standard male plug design you may have more problems with people pulling the plugs out by the cord and damaging them because they can’t grab it well enough, especially if the outlet is engineered to hold the prongs tighter.
Looks like this guy got a necklace caught around a loose plug in an extension cord and got 2nd and 3rd degree burns. MSN
Unless something is broken, it’s not really possible to touch any live parts of a UK 3 pin plug that is incompletely inserted - the pins have an insulating sheath near the body of the plug - and when you pull the plug out far enough so you can see brass on the live or neutral pins, they are not connected to the power any more.
How do the shutters work? I assume not like the British ones (where the longer third pin presses on a thing that opens it) since three-pin plugs are optional.
The shutters open when they receive equal force from both prongs at the same time. So if you try to plug something in and it’s not aimed straight it won’t work, or more to the point if a kid tries to stick a fork in it they won’t open. I don’t know how exactly it “detects” that though.
Cite, please?
I love this quote:
A regular Nostradamus he is!
It’s not voltage that kills … rather it’s current …
We’ve argued that before. In fact it’s both. Ignoring fibrillation, it’s power that cooks.
Though you’re right that most ordinary people overestimate the significance of voltage and underestimate the significance of current.
Assuming a perfect voltage source (which the power grid is a good approximation of), voltage defines the current through your body. So it’s kind of like saying “it isn’t the height of the fall that kills, it’s the force of the landing at the end”. Well the height defines that force.
Agreed.
The other aspect that tends to confuse the layman is that 1 volt is a pretty small unit on a human scale. Whereas 1 amp is a pretty large unit on a human scale.
So immediately dangerous voltages look like big scary numbers but immediately dangerous amperages look like trivial pipsqueaks. Folks love their scary things to be big-looking.
It mentions being required in the 2014 code, but I know it was in 2008 because I ran into it in a project permitted in 2011.
I was a bit naughty and curious as a kid and pulled out a plug partway and dropped a nail across the prongs. It made a nice “Pow” sound and of course blew the fuse. Lucky I was just smart enough to drop the nail and not place it by hand.
Thank you! I learn something new every day. Before asking for your cite, I clawed through 2017 and 2014 and couldn’t find it… Stupid me.:smack: