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No, because the rest of the world isn’t America.

Those ring circuits WERE up to UK standard, and perfectly safe when they were constructed, and nowadays are either still covered by the standard, or grandfathered in.

The reason other counties don’t use ring circuits isn’t because they’re less safe. It’s because they’re less convenient. It’s easier and more convenient to make and use, and easier in terms of individual steps, to make seperate fused circuits instead of a ring circuit.

The reason the UK used ring circuits was because they use much less copper conduit, and given the ~copper~ everything shortage during and after WWII, the convenience of modern circuits simply wasn’t worth it.

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Horsecook@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

The reason other counties don’t use ring circuits isn’t because they’re less safe or inherently worse in any way, which the term “substandard” clearly implies.

Yes. That is the reason.

If a ring circuit suffers a break in the live wire anywhere along its length, it fails dangerous. It will appear to be functioning properly right up until the wiring in the wall catches fire.

The only way that ring circuits could be considered somewhat safe is if they were clearly labeled and regularly tested for continuity.

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- Devial@discuss.online ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  And how exactly doe the same exact thing not ally to a branch Circuit suffering a break?
  
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  - Horsecook@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    When the live wire in a branch circuit breaks, the only path for current is severed. Anything prior to the fault continues to function as designed, anything past the fault does not function at all.
    
    In a ring circuit, there are two paths. When the live wire is severed, only one path is broken. The other path continues to function, but it is now able to draw current greater than what the wire is capable of carrying. Everything on both sides of the fault will continue to function, but not as designed.
    
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Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The standards the UK adopted pass higher voltages and higher currents per household circuit than pretty much anywhere else. They adopted standards that allow them to use use less wiring, less copper to provide the same energy. They can plug in many space heaters on one circuit, where two or three would blow a breaker on a US circuit.

That higher voltage and higher current makes their household circuits inherently more dangerous than household circuits outside the UK. A fault in a UK circuit passes a lot more energy than a similar fault elsewhere, before tripping a current-limiting device. The exact same fault in a UK circuit is far more dangerous than in a circuit pretty much anywhere else in the world. The standards for household wiring in the rest of the world are a lot more restrictive than the standards adopted in the UK.

UK plugs on Japanese appliance in Japanese houses (for example) are overkill. The safety provided by the UK plugs is built into the Japanese breaker panel and wiring. Putting the UK plug/socket into a Japanese circuit provides no significant additional safety benefit. The Japanese plug/socket on a UK circuit would be extraordinarily dangerous.

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