Are these appliances safe to use?

FlorayG

My new lodger is from India, and has brought a lot of kitchen stuff with her - kettle, slow cooker, mixer, rice cooker. They all have two pin plugs and she has EU standard adaptors for them. I'm not sure if they are safe to use because electrical safety sites say 
There are ways to improve the safety of your foreign appliances. You can use an EU conversion plug, which have several benefits.

• They can be fitted easily, quickly and safely
• They will make the electrical appliance safe for use in UK sockets
• They will reduce the risk of fire

but then they also say;

• Do not use travel adaptors long term. They are not suitable or safe alternative for continuous use

So I'm not sure if I should tell her she can't use them or not

FreeBear

With a two pin plug, the devices won't have an earth - For most electrical equipment that are double insulated, this isn't a problem. However, a lot of stuff from overseas are poorly made and would fail any EU/UK safety standards.

If you have any concerns, I'd suggest she gets each item PAT tested before she can use them.

FlorayG

A few of them have a 3 pin plug but have round pins so still need an adaptor - are these safe?

daveyjp

Forget the plug type, that could be changed to a UK 3 pin plug in minutes.

As above what matters is the earthing cable,  If an appliance has no earth it is potentially lethal if the mains or internal cable gets damaged or dislodged.

Electrical appliances are cheap in the UK.  I'd be minded to replace them with products that meet our standards.

DullGreyGuy

FlorayG said:

A few of them have a 3 pin plug but have round pins so still need an adaptor - are these safe?

India use type C, D and M... the later two are the 3 pin versions and are actually derived from what we used in the UK until the 1950s when we changed to square pins

There is nothing intrinsically unsafe with different pin shapes. The quoted benefits aren't wrong but the risk of a foreign plug with an adapter is low and likely to be proportional to the electrical draw of the device being plugged in... things like slow cookers are very low draw and highly unlikely to cause overheating/fire. Kettle is the only one with a decent draw but clearly it only runs for a short time. 

My turntable was bought from Germany so has a 2 pin plug and has been happily in an adapter for 15 years or more.

I would certainly be more comfortable with a type C/D to G rather than one of these travel multi region things with lots of different pins you can slide out. I would be much more concerned about running a freezer or oil filled radiator/electric heater via an adapter.

Certainly in more than one thing I've bought its been sealed in manufacturers wrappings but the plug inside is actually a euro 2 pin inside a uk G plug, though you only tell for certain by opening the plug. So you could already have things using an adapter that you dont realise. Can think of no logical reason why these would be any more safe than a different C to G adapter

Ectophile

daveyjp said:

Forget the plug type, that could be changed to a UK 3 pin plug in minutes.

As above what matters is the earthing cable,  If an appliance has no earth it is potentially lethal if the mains or internal cable gets damaged or dislodged.

Electrical appliances are cheap in the UK.  I'd be minded to replace them with products that meet our standards.

13A plugs are even cheaper.

FreeBear

DullGreyGuy said: ... things like slow cookers are very low draw and highly unlikely to cause overheating/fire.

Using Google, slow cookers could use anything from 100W up to 600W depending on make/model and setting.

A rice cooker could be as low as 300W or as high as 1kW if it is a fancy model.

Whilst substantially less than the 2-3kW a kettle could use, I wouldn't consider a slow cooker or rice cooker as very low powered appliances.

DullGreyGuy

FreeBear said:

DullGreyGuy said: ... things like slow cookers are very low draw and highly unlikely to cause overheating/fire.

Using Google, slow cookers could use anything from 100W up to 600W depending on make/model and setting.

A rice cooker could be as low as 300W or as high as 1kW if it is a fancy model.

Whilst substantially less than the 2-3kW a kettle could use, I wouldn't consider a slow cooker or rice cooker as very low powered appliances.

Most slow cookers are closer to 100-200w than 600w... they aren't as low as a phone charger on a 5amp transformer  but compared to the sustained 3kw an electric heater can draw they are low and so unlikely to cause overheating/fire through normal operations

FFHillbilly

how long does the lodger plan on staying? I'd just tell them to fit 13A UK plugtops to their appliances. if theres no earth connected to the plug that is probably ok, a lot of my kitchen appliances have no earth and are made of plastic. I'd be worried if there was something with a metal outer casing and no earth though.

Silvertabby

Plugs apart, have you ever used a rice cooker?  We had one years ago, but it created so much steam water ran down the walls.  Yes, we used an extractor fan!