They’re like that in this apartment we’re renting and I keep seeing them elsewhere. I don’t get it.
So we can turn the power on and off.
Why else would you have a switch next to a power socket?
the UK power grid is weird. mostly due to echoes of the war. used to be that, to save copper, the entire house and sometimes multiple houses on a street would be wired as one big loop of wire, no fuse box or anything. that’s where the individually fused plugs and switched sockets come from. then, since it turned out to be quite a good idea for safety, they kept doing it.
Sorry but I’m going to need a source on that because there is no evidence of that being the reason UK plug sockets have switches
Other countries have switches on their sockets, Australia being one because I live here
Switches on sockets do make a ton on sense though for safety reasons for example if you need to quickly isolate electricity from the switch and the breaker hasn’t done anything
Switches also prevent arcing when you pull out a plug if an appliance doesn’t have an off switch and you can switch something off that you use commonly say a kettle but don’t unplug because you use it commonly so theirs less chance of an electrical fault happening while no one is there and its also the same reason I’ll demand an isolation switch be installed on electric stoves just incase the dail on the stove fails and the stove turns on
So that switch will trip like a breaker?
No - there’s fuses in the plugs themselves, the switch is largely for convenience and safety - if you want to unplug something broken and potentially live, it’s much safer to switch it off at the wall than risk a shock given the current limit is on the breaker is so high
