Is it safe to have 4 Plug extensions in one socket?

Question

1 plug added with 4 plugs added with another 3 so 14 plugs in total excluding the extensions so about 10 plugs in one socket, is it safe?

Answer 1

Check all your appliances, they should have the wattage printed on a label. Add all the watts together. If they don't come to 3,000 watts or more there should not be a problem. The main risk here is if any of the extension baords are rated too low, unfortunately they do sell lower power ones which I think is a bad business. Always buy an extension board rated at 13 amps (=3000 watts), then there is no danger of overheating the cable. Only electric heaters, kettles and powerful motors are likely to use more than 1 or 200 watts so if you only have computers, hifis. radios etc. you should be fine. It doesn't matter that you have lots of devices and plugs as long as the cables are not a trip hazard.



This business of being scared to have a lot of things connected goes back to the early days of electricity when a plug did not have a fuse and electrical fires were much more common. It was not uncommon then to have only one socket in a room or even one socket in the whole house !

So people used to connect many appliances to a single socket which was unfused, and this was very risky. Modern fused plugs made things a lot safer.

Answer 2

Not safe at all. The normal rule is one extension 'block' per socket. You either need to use different sockets and longer leads (health risk) or have some extra sockets installed, that run off a different ring main.



There is a limit to the amount of current a wall socket can deliver. In the UK it's 3,000 watts at 13amps.



Your extension lead/sockets have no built in fuse protection?The only remedy for the circuit if it is overloaded is to catch fire.There is no fuse to blow and the wires inside the wall can overheat, so is a fire risk.If they melt, they will cause a short circuit, so will affect the rest of your house.



Such an incident may not be covered on your household insurance, as the insurance company would argue it was your fault for overloading an electrical system in a way it wasn't designed for.



Get some extra sockets installed and possibly an extra ring main, if what you are using consumes a lot of power.



It's not a hi-fi system, computer or home theatre system is it?

Answer 3

The one extension per wall socket is only a guideline - it's easier to say that than to say work out your total load. You have as many devices as you want as long as you stay within the given ratings.

One other thing to bare in mind though is to be careful if you intend to turn on everthing in one go (at the wall socket, for example). Most electrical devices with a regulated power supply draw much more current immediately when they are switched than when they are operating normally, so if you have 20 devices being turned on at the same time....

Answer 4

Only if strictly low power appliances - actually, if the first extension lead is correctly fused, any overload should blow the fuse in it.



Some 3-way blocks were NOT FUSED, so they could deliver huge overloads.



So, got to be a bit careful with chained extension leads, and work out what load you are putting on it, a fully loaded gaming PC with dual or more graphics may have a kilowatt capable PSU.



So, not inherently dangerous, so long as you, and more importantly, anyone else with access, do not go crazy and run any heating or heavy motor stuff off it - no toasters, kettles, vacuum cleaners etc.

Answer 5

What style of bulbs? In the united states among the strings are designed to be strung finish-to-end and nonetheless be good inside the boundaries for a single outlet. Add up how many watts every bulb requires, x20 for the string's total wattage, x3 for 3 strings. That number, divided by using volts of your mains energy, is how many amps you're looking to pull. If it's less amps than the circuit's breaker or fuse can control, you are good to head. It mustn't make a difference in any respect that it can be all Christmas lights. Amperage is what concerns. [edit] "Fairy lights" doesn't clarify matters. You have to examine what the wattage is per mild, or else the wattage for the complete string. If you happen to still have the packaging, it should say somewhere on it how so much vigor the string requires.

Answer 6

No.



One power strip per wall socket, and only lower draw appliances in the power strip.



If you need more, you need more wall receptacles and perhaps circuits installed.

Answer 7

No.