Fatally Flawed

I've copied the link to Facebook in the hopes that it'll be seen by my daughter's friends with young'uns. Thanks.

Good call, classic case of the blind leading the blind.
It's bad enough that Joe Public is ignorant in these matters, but then some idiot invents stuff to solve a nonexistent problem which actually creates one.
Damn things should be banned.. hmmm, as they plug into a socket shouldn't they conform to some appropriate regulation? Tricky question as they aren't actually an electrical device...hmmm maybe the regs need changing to cover 'idiotic non electrical products designed to be plugged into outlets'
Del
_{(I shall immediately stop work on the KrisDel^TM arm chair which has arms which will plug into a mains socket)}

Just was wondering these outlets that automatically cover the hot how long they been in existence. Are the now required by some regulation. And if so what about the old outlets did the regulation force people to change them also. May be some homes that have older style outlets they could use the protection. It is good to inform the public that there is a hazard and they can be installed improperly. Then again maybe someone that can figure how to place the cover in the socket properly shouldn't be plugging any electrical device in let alone have kids.

We have the covers here in the USA. Are plugs are different and you can't install the cover up side down.

British Standard 1363 : 1947 FUSED PLUGS AND SHUTTERED SOCKET OUTLETS

There are still a few of the older standard things in existence (BS 546 - 2A, 5A & 15A round pin plugs/sockets). They're still permitted by the regs.

Are your outlets shuttered? If not, kiddie-covers make sense.

Are your outlets shuttered? If not, kiddie-covers make sense.

In the US they are available both ways. The shuttered ones are comparatively recent. Many parents use dummy plugs on the older style.

I have yet to see one shuttered here in USA. Must be something relatively new as I have not seen them on the shelves when acquiring electrical parts.

See a lot of the covers. Mostly in homes that have very young children.

As of yet I know of no regs. that mandate the use of shuttered outlets. There may be local regs. around the country that require their use.

It is a good idea. How fail safe are they? Could a child stick something in the ground that would open the shutters on the power openings?

How fail safe are they? Could a child stick something in the ground that would open the shutters on the power openings?

Good question. I have them in my shop, in which I added a bunch of outlets recently. The ones I have require more force to get a plug in. (The shutters are just inside the prong holes, and from 5' away you can barely tell the difference.) I should try to see if I can push a paper clip in. The ground terminal is open all the time. Because the plug prong is pushing quite hard on the shutter, I'd expect the shutters to fail (soon, eventually, ...). We'll see.

I was not worried about kids sticking things in the wrong places, but the shuttered ones were slightly cheaper than the non-shuttered, strangely enough. (The price of all the electrical wiring stuff is remarkable, with two prong outlets usually being far more expensive than the standard three prong type. All based on volume projections. Evidently, the manufacturers think the shuttered versions will outsell the standard ones.)

Poking something in the ground/earth socket to defeat the shuttering system is actually quite hard.

When I've been backed into a corner, desperate to poke a couple of wires in to power up a motor, lamp or whatever, I've usually given up with trying to find a suitably-sized screwdriver etc. and taken a BS 13A plugtop apart to extract the earth pin^[1] (some (but not all) have removeable pins - most these days seem to be moulded in).

The ideal tool would be a broken or inverted "safety" cover (but I've never possessed one).

[1] This obviously begs the question - "if you had a plugtop handy - why didnt you wire into it?". Well, sometimes idiocy just prevails.

We have a simple training exercise around here that teaches kids not to put things in to outlets at an early age.

Its an unfolded paper clip and a few minutes alone with it near a live outlet. You only do it once and never try it again until the day you teach your kids the same lesson.

110Vac, maybe get away with it. 230Vac - prob'ly be lots of fried kids and jailed parents.

For the U.S., it would be possible for dummy plugs to have a tab with a screw hole to be placed under the screw that holds the cover plate to the receptacle(s). Then it would take a screwdriver to get it off. I don't see a good analogue for the U.K. design, though, unless maybe a hole could be tapped through the cover plate in between the live openings.

But that would be a "solution" looking for a problem.

"There are still a few of the older standard things in existence (BS 546 - 2A, 5A & 15A round pin plugs/sockets). They're still permitted by the regs. Are your outlets shuttered? If not, kiddie-covers make sense."

The current version of BS 546 does require shutters, but they were not originally required. Interestingly BS 546 shuttered sockets were optionally available even before 1947 when BS 1363 was introduced (BS 1363 has always mandated shutters). You could reasonably argue that socket covers be used with unshuttered BS 546 sockets, but no one actually makes such a thing!

"I have yet to see one shuttered here in USA."

Although not widely used in US homes until recently, tamper resistant receptacles have been required in US hospital pediatric care facilities for more than 20 years. In fact, TRRs have proven to be so effective that the 2008 National Electrical Code (NEC) now requires them to be installed in all new home construction.

See http://www.childoutletsafety.org/index.html