Packets of socket covers should make it very clear that they are not a safety product

[duchesse]

My friend told me the other day that if we wanted to be foster parents, we would have to abide by all standard safety rules, including socket covers.

Don't get me wrong, I can totally see the point of stair gates when receiving other people's toddlers into your house- you have no idea what the child's experience of stairs will have been.

But I would be mightily teed off to be obliged to install something in my house that at best does nothing but could at worst create danger.

Manufacturers of these things are less than candid about their dubious benefits, and state institutions (SS, children's centres, etc) seem to be unaware that they are at best unnecessary.

I just think that manufacturers should be obliged to state on the packaging that UK sockets do not need them. AIBU?

[kali110]

Seriously flawed what is your deal?

[massivemammaries]

more dangerous than most wall sockets is actually the trailing "bar" type extension lead which most people tend to think is really safe (as an alternative to the block type 3 way plug)

a mistake in bs1363 means that it is possible to insert a plug upside down thus exposing the live terminals. It's also easy to spill stuff on them and socket shutters will not stop conduction of electricity through liquid!

If you are using these its' best to make sure that a plug cant be inserted upside down and also fix it to the wall if possible

[Blatherskite]

Our plug sockets were all original to the house, so 25 years old and don't have switches.

We're replacing them all as we go round decorating with brand new ones - which I will take all of the socket covers off now - but do I need to keep them in the older ones for now? We're doing the last room now so it'll only be a few more weeks.

I never knew any of this. I thought we were protecting the children. Thank you so much for posting this!

[RustyBear]

When my two were little, I had socket covers like these that covered the whole double socket, rather than plugging into the socket itself - in fact I still have at least one in place - it covers the switches too, so stops stuff like the fridge/freezer being accidentally turned off.

[MaMoTTaT]

FWIW - my dad has the same letters after his name (not that he ever uses them) as one of the two professionals that run the website. FIET is a little more "senior" - but the first one is nothing outstanding - you can get those after your name if you go went to technical college to study it.

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

I got these (along with cupboard locks and door slamming and trapping finger preventers) . DD had no interest in anything that I'd paid good money to prevent harming her. She found her own mischief and her favourite toy was a length of electrical wire which she cuddled. Not a specific piece any piece.

[MaMoTTaT]

nope - my children who liked filling random holes only ever filled holes they could physically see. They never bothered with the sockets as they couldn't see the holes.

thankfully they're all grown out of filling random holes with shite now.

Although I did recently catch DS3 shoving a piece of bread into a socket hole.

And hell if they could get those socket protectors out of the holes they really would be child genius' - I struggled enough

[nocake]

MaMoTTaT It's exactly those sort of children who will manage to get a badly made protector out of a socket and stuck back in so it leaves the live parts exposed. Or they'll manage to push something small and metal down the side of a socket protector and into the live parts.

It is very difficult to open the shutter on a socket with anything that isn't designed to do it. It needs to be the right shape, very strong and pushed in with a certain amount of force. Look at the shape of the earth pin on a plug (or the pin on a socket protector). See how it is chamfered at the end to help push the shutter? If your kids can find something (other than a plug or socket protector) that's the right shape then can push it in the socket hard enough to open the shutter without it bending or breaking they are baby geniuses.

They will be safer if you don't use socket protectors and instead you make sure all your sockets are in good, working order and you have an RCD in your fuse board to protect the circuit.

[MaMoTTaT]

I would use them if I had another child - I've had 2 children (out of 3 of tehm) who when faced with something with holes in it would quite happily shove something in every hole.

and I wouldn't have put it past either DS1 or DS3 to have "filled" all the socket holes at once..........

[create]

Bugger, my dad, who (thinks he) knows everything always insisted that I was being PFB and they were unecessary. Do I have to admit he was right?

[MaMoTTaT]

oh is that fatalyflawed the one set up by the 2 blokes who are memebers of the IIEIEIE (or whatever combination it is)

[SquirrelonmyHead]

When my DS started crawling he headed straight for plugs and tried to pull them out of the sockets. Once I caught him with it part out and his fingers were small enough to touch the prongs, eeek. I think it is more important to make sure you don't have things plugged in or appliances they could try to plug in than to have covers on.

[nocake]

No, a normal plug can't be put in upside down. Plugs are manufactured to a standard that means the earth pin is not long enough to push the shutter open if the plug is upside down. Modern plugs also have plastic sheaths on the live and neutral pins so even if they aren't pushed in all the way there are still no live parts that can be touched.

There are so many safety features built in that socket covers aren't necessary.

[massivemammaries]

@duchesse you are referring to BS1363 which is possibly the most ignored piece of British Standard legislation ever! It wasn't until the early 1990s that they actually started to enforce these rules and as a consequence there were millions of sockets installed with inadequate or non-existant safety shutters. Wylex was one of the prime culprits who mass produced sockets with pincer type pin locks that were only 2mm from the surface of the pattress.

There are still many properties which have this type of socket in use so it is worth checking

[moonstorm]

Ok I had no idea. Can a normal plug be put in upsidedown, therefore opening the shutter and making them dangerous? (Mother of a ds who likes to do everything himself and tries to plug electrical things in if he can, which is why I have socket covers...)

But 'abroad' is different??? Have family in Norway - they'll need socket covers??

[midori1999]

oneofthosedays, the sockets themselves prevent children shoving something long, pointy and metal into the sockets and electrocuting themsleves, and socket covers may actually facilitate this as the videos on the links posted show.

[duchesse]

Actually mm, the design of UK sockets was changed in 1948 to the current model with incorporated shutter mechanism. So any house with square pin sockets (not the old small round pin type which we used to have some of in a past house) will have that standard socket.

[oneofthosedays]

Ok I'm sold after reading the fatallyflawed website - I'm binning all mine. Read the cover review on the website, it goes through all the different makes of socket covers.

[nocake]

A safer option, if you have older sockets, is to replace them with modern sockets.

[massivemammaries]

Mae you would have had to stick 3 coat hangers in the socket - one in each hole- to get a shock

Not true actually. you only need to come into contact with the live to get a shock so if the earth pin is inserted or the shutter is damaged then a coat hanger in a socket could easily be lethal. The shutters have only been fitted to sockets for about the last 15 years so if the house is due a rewire then socket covers are a very good idea

[RubberDuck]

No, some of the socket covers DONT prevent something long pointy and metal into a socket - you need to check the position of the prongs compared to the edge of the cover and how flush the cover is.

As I say, we only bothered because ds2 had an unnatural fixation and it seemed the lesser of two evils.

[nocake]

Another person talking sense

UK sockets are designed to be safe and it is very, very difficult for a child to come into contact with any live parts. If you combine them with a modern switch board it is impossible to get a shock even if the child does manage to get through the safety shutter.