A very interesting comment from one of my readers asking whether if it is okay to have multiple appliances plugged into one socket.
While it is not advisable to do such a thing, many homes do use multiple gang extension wires in their homes because when they bought the house, most developers never takes into consideration on how many appliances a normal home will use. One reason is to save cost and another is to make extra from house buyers should they opt to put in additional socket points at the time of purchase.
Now coming back to the comment. Is it okay to plug in more than one appliance into one socket? Strictly speaking, it’s not. If you notice, the multiple adaptors that you buy in electrical shops never carries the approval stamps from the relevant authorities. What they have is a Sirim approved label which I sometime doubt if it’s genuine. The national Electrical Board never advises this practise.
However, having said that, it’s quite impossible to deter people from using it. So if you must, always bear in mind not to overload the circuit. Remember the circuit is designed only to stand a load of 13 amps maximum and it is never advisable to use or load anything to the maximum. Always leave some room for unexpected overloads as it can and does happens in every electrical item. Thus, to safely use the socket, never load it more than say, 10 amps.
The rule of the thumb and the advise I would give is, never use a multiple gang extension wire or a multiple socket adaptor for all your high current consuming items in the house. These will include, the fridge, the rice cooker, the kettle, the hot plates, the washing machine or whatever items that you use to heat or chill anything. All these are power hungry utensils and they consumes lots of current. Plugging any of this items together into a single socket is asking for trouble.
To safeguard your house from burning down due to electrical overload, maybe it’s beast that you know how to calculate the amperage of each and every item that you are using. Check out my previous article on “How to determine the Amperage of Electrical Appliances“