DP has just broke my dryer

[Pinkdreams]

I asked DP to move the dryer whilst I clean under it as I spilt something, he couldn’t move it far enough so got annoyed and pulled it, which has now completely snapped the plug. I’m so angry. My dad says we can just change it ourselves, would you call an electrician?

@goingroundthebendatthisrate thanks for your detailed history lesson. And I'll add I've no doubt it took years from the point of standardisation to houses catching up with the new standards

UK sockets were designed to make safety top priority. Try and push a 3 month olds fingers into a UK socket, they won't fit!
People use socket covers because someone sells them and they think they should.
A socket cover used the wrong way up is one of the few things that can open the covers over the neutral and live pins. They actually make sockets more dangerous 😳

Op i don't blame you for not knowing.

I'm 46 and I was never taught either, my mum didn't dare do anything like that. One day as an older teen we needed to wire a plug so I followed the instructions on the bit of cardboard that came with the plug. My mum was terrified I'd get it wrong and suggested I called my absolutely useless, clueless boyfriend to do it instead. I told her if he did it, the house really would burn down.

Personally I don’t know how to change a plug and I don’t give a shit that I can’t do it.

piss off with your judgmental attitudes.

Ignore the sneering comments, OP. I am 62 and was never taught how to wire a plug at school. And rolled my eyeballs hard at the 'learnt it at Brownies' comment.
I would ask someone else how to do it too.

Plug wiring colours and set up are still on the GCSE science syllabus and have been for decades but sadly a lot of ( younger?) science teachers just teach the colours from a diagram and don't do the practical part.
I wouldn't recommend you do this unsupervised since you don't know the difference between a plug and a socket. Fiddling with sockets is really dangerous.
If your dad is competent at this or you have a friend who is, can't you get them to show you how to do it and check you have done it properly so you can learn a new skill?

@KatieDidItApparently so am I 🫣

It's a LOT more complicated than changing a light bulb!

I'm 67 so have put plugs on appliances for many years, in fact did one a few days ago as a wire was becoming exposed, and it would be very easy to get in a complete mess with it the first couple of times!

The tricky parts are stripping the wires and getting each of the 3 the right length and uncrossed.

OP it sounds like your Dad could show you how to do it. It's a useful skill but I certainly learned by watching my Dad do it then he watched me try. Electrics are dangerous so you need to get it right and safe.

Take no notice of the sneering. Wankers.

Tbf, plugs have a label attached to the wire with a diagram showing you how to do it and telling you what fuse to use.

It doesn't need to be taught at school.

My husband and I are early fifties, neither of us were taught this in school. DH had wired a plug before, his late mum taught him. We did have to put a new plug on our George Foreman Grill, a year or so back, was very easy to do, DH just doubled checked he had got it right. I think he quite enjoyed it, took him back in time, yes we both remember when everything electrical you bought never came with a moulded plug on, just the cable. Seems strange now, no wonder the younger ones don’t know how to change a plug, why would you if you hadn’t been taught.

No , it’s the other way around…

Fuck me, there’s some nasty comments on here! Just ignore them @Pinkdreams

I’m in my 50’s and was never taught to wire a plug at school!
Jeez, the woman was just asking a question about something she’s not familiar with and instead of being supportive, some of you just felt good to stick the boot in. Incredible.

There are lots of things we could just Google, so as to learn how to do it properly, such as when to use question marks.

Me too - still remember being told “Joe Brown was a live wire” and my friend being sent out for saying “Joe Blue was a neutral wire” and making me laugh.

Yes, no appliance had to have a plug factory fitted, before January 1995. Some brands such as Zanussi and Hotpoint began fitting plugs in the late 1970s, but that was totally their choice.

If a fuse blows, you should investigate and check why before changing it.

Some people are totally unrealistic.

dc1 is 22yo. I cannot think of one occasion when we have needed to replace a plug on an appliance. We’ve done a lot of work in the house, including replacing electrical sockets. But he has never seen us doing that because there has never been a need for it! I’m going to say I’m pretty sure it’s the case of most of the children’s posters on this thread too.

Im not sure berating the OP for not knowing is of any help at all.

I wondered this because OP said they thought it was OK to change a socket but not a plug. Actually it’s the other way around. You really should have an electrician to install a new socket, but a plug is easy to change yourself.

Because you’re keeping those little bits of paper?!? 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

That tiny diagram is about as much use as tits on a fish.

Often puckered to fuck and doesn't describe how to strip the wires etc etc etc

Changing a plug is a fiddly and quite complicated job even for the experienced like me.

I’m thinking that Armageddon honestly can’t come soon enough now…

I take your point; but if you've only ever grown up in a time of moulded plugs on all appliances, how would you even know that it was user-serviceable in the first place?

It's mad, really, to think that, for so long after standardisation, so many appliances were sold randomly incomplete and not ready for use. Why not sell them without any cable either, so buyers 'just' have to buy cable and a plug and fit it ready for use themselves? Why just the plug? Why spoil the ship for a ha'porth of tar?

It was a bit like if, day, you bought a new car and they sold them without windscreens - so that, when you take delivery, you 'just' have to pop down to Autoglass first thing. Crazy.

I'm not convinced all those sneering at the OP would actually be happy changing a modern moulded plug - no screws, so you have to cut the plug off, strip back the outer cable insulation, cut the internal wires to the right lengths and then strip them too?
Stripping wires is really bloody fiddly as well and you need an appropriate tool

Me and my siblings are all early to mid 30's and none of us were taught it at school and none of us have ever had to change one (I read this thread and asked them) or would know how to.

Some of the judgemental attitudes on here are ridiculous. Not everyone knows everything and I'm sure there's plenty of things that others do that seem basic and a life skill and you wouldn't know how to do.

The OP came on here to ask a question and belittling her isn't helping anyone. That's how people don't learn - they don't want to ask questions because others can be so judgemental about not knowing something.

To all those saying that this was in your physics GCSE, plenty of people never did physics to GCSE level (it was still O Levels when I was at school).

Physics was an option when I was at school. I didn't take it because it was going to clash with other things that I was good at and would be taking on to A Level and university. So whether it would have been taught at O Level or not I couldn't say for sure, but it would have bypassed many of us completely by then. NOT everyone learned this in school at all.

I learned to wire a plug from observing my Dad. He was the Mr. Fixit of our household, and a real Mr. Practical too. Not everyone even has that possibility either though so just stop sticking the boot in to someone who has never done this before!

It only became mandatory in the early nineties I believe that electrical appliances were to be sold with plugs already fitted. I think it was an EU directive which we adopted, and not before time too.

I did always wonder what the hell the point was of selling electrical appliances without plugs on, just with the two wires sticking out at the end of the cable (three if earth was required, as it is for very powerful machines like dryers and washing machines). They always seemed incomplete to me and I thought that they should have been sold completely ready for use. However, prior to the nineties that was how they were sold. Ridiculous in my opinion, but there you have it. It was the accepted norm. Thankfully, that is no longer the case and hasn't been for a long time now.

30 years old and never learned in school or brownies, crocodile clips were as intense as we got

I also had no idea that appliances hadn't always come with plugs!

We're not exactly encouraged to mess around with anything electrical, so it's hardly strange that op wasn't aware you could change a plug without a professional