Its made of plastic and metal, if you're sniffing really up close on them of course you smell that. If you can smell it from a decent bit away, that means there is already something burning.

It's the smell of ozone and spluttered metal vapor. When you plug and unplug, it creates momentry sparking, which generates ozone and vaporises a tiny amount of the pin/contact metal, that can create the faint smell. It's normal so you should not worry. Unless you can see pronounced flashing and arcing when unplugging etc, then it's not a problem.

Can you explain why I can't smell it on outlets that aren't in use then? This isn't a normal smell of plastic and metal, it's the same smell as my previous burnt outlet only a lot fainter.

Problem can be elsewhere. Make sure your outlet is rated for whatever size breaker it's on because current will still go through it to other outlets even if nothing is plugged in it.

This has been plugged in for days though, I would have thought a smell from initially plugging it in would fade away and not still be there?

Actually you might have nailed it. These are 10 amp outlets and the breaker is 16 amp. So I need to replace them all?

10amp outlet? Are you sure about that? I don't think I've ever seen a 10amp outlet. Most residential outlets are 15amp.

10A 240V written on the outlet switches

Take a look at how they're wired... I bet they're back-stabbed. Re-do them properly using the side screw terminals. Some outlets you can extract the wire, but if not, just cut it off and replace it.

I did that to my whole house after noticing some of the often-used outlets were getting warm and smelled.

Thanks for your advice, my friend is an electrician and although I feel I can do this myself, I'm smart enough to know when it's best to leave it to an expert to get it done properly. I'll call in a favour and grab a box of beer for them. Thanks for your help.

Get him to teach you and you can both do it in less time. Spend the saved time drinking the beer!

Honestly, if you can work a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, you can rewire an outlet.

That's not the outlet rating.

Is it an old home?

Some older houses have wiring that's coated in a rubber type insulation that degrades into a green goo over time. It's got a bit of a stink to it.

The goo is hard to miss, it'll be obvious in the electrical boxes if it is your problem.

Yeah old house, 1969. I'll open one tomorrow morning and check it out. For now I've left it switched off. If it acts up in the mean time I'll just switch off the breaker.

Thanks for all the advice guys, almost 3am. I'll reply in the morning. Really appreciate the help.

alumn wiring?

It might be slightly warmer in outlets in use and so have more off gasing. Maybe it’s from what’s plugged in since those cords are often smellier. Hard to say honestly.

Next time someone asks me why the US uses 120v for home power, I'm citing this post and saying it's so our outlets don't smell. /s

Specialty is a glade is plugged in

You can buy an outlet tester at your local depot store. It’s a device that you simply plug in and it will tell you if the outlet is connected properly. They’re like $10-20.

Electrician friends are cool too, but don’t abuse that. Ask questions or pay for their services at their rates. They don’t want Saturday projects that pay a 6 pack just like you wouldn’t. It’s like the guy with a truck. He only gets a call when someone needs to use the truck.

A little off topic, but suppose the outlet does spark when you plug something in. I've seen that often and was always puzzled whether or not that indicated a serious problem. Sometimes plugging in a computer or AC adapter will cause a quick spark.

Is that a cause for concern?

Lol. I just had to replace an outlet in a condo that was built in the 70s, where the outlet started near burning as described. It was a center of the stream one so it had both line and load wires.

Whoever installed it had a mixed philosophy. Both whites and the load black were stabbied, the line black was hooked.

Guess which one failed!

Since you can smell the outlet, swap one out and see if it changes anything. If you're handy you shouldn't need an electrician.

Make sure to buy an AL / CU rated outlet just in case. You could have aluminum wiring since your place is 1969 - that can cause all sorts of issues. If your ground wire is coming from the same cable it should be copper colored. Also, if you're aluminum you might see some purple connectors if someone has mitigated it in the past.

lolwut? What is it then? 10A is a perfectly reasonable residential current at 240v.

OP is not American.

If there are any pigtails in the junction box (wirenuts) undo them and re-do them to make sure there is a good connection. Could be getting some minor arcing or a high resistance contact if they're not solid.

As far as I know 10 Amp outlets should not be on a 16 Amp breaker because failure mode for drawing too much current is in the outlet or maybe even wiring. So the breaker is then useless. Its a fire hazard. Consider talking to an electrician.

Not really. It's gonna spark as you make the circuit. It's pretty inevitable. The circuit is complete ever so slightly before the metal makes contact because the voltage is enough to jump the air gap which is the spark you see.

Normally you don't really see it due to the angles involved (leaning over to plug something in at shin height) or because you're plugging in a device that's turned off and so the circuit doesn't complete until you manually switch it on.

As long as it's fully inside the outlet and only happens when you plug/unplug something, it's probably fine.

Ozone can be created by arching electricity through air... Not likely given that all your outlets would seem to be faulty... unfortunately its not easy to measure (you can actually get breakers that detect this 😱).

If it was hust 1 id be worried... but since its all its unlikely thats the problem... But cant be sure :p

You need to change your breakers to 10 amps also, otherwise you risk unintentionally overloading the outlets/wires or whatever is the "bottleneck".

This is wrong, your breaker amperage should not be the same the outlet amperage. Also, there is no current flowing until a load is connected. Most household loads don't pull anywhere close to 10A. This comment is just completely wrong.

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While this is one way of doing it, the breaker should be fine since it should of been sized approriately for the wire during install, I think he only changed the outlet.

Properly sizing the outlet makes more sense since its cheaper and easier than a new breaker.

There are plenty of appliances drawing 10 amps like a hoover or a toaster. And ypur breakers should absolutely be dimensioned according to the wiring and othe rinstallation materiel.

If its only the outlet, absolutely, just change that. But as its installed now its unsafe and would require a 10 amp breaker.

You an electrician?

I’m in 240v and all my regular 10A sockets are on breakers labelled C20. Lights are on C10 breakers.

No. But an electrician would spank you if you ever installed breakers over 10 amps along with materials that are not rated for over 10 amps.

I'm a licensed electrician, been doing it for over 15 years years, you're wrong

Thats fine, but its not up to code where im from, and it really makes me wonder about the safety of electrical installations where you are from (unless you are fron the UK with built in fuses in the sockets)

What happens if you plug in a 12 amp appliance into that plug protected by a 16 amp breaker?

In addition to this, double check there isn't aluminum wiring mixed with other non-aluminum stuff; the thermal expansion is different between Al and other metals Cu/Brass, etc, causing joints to weaken over time. Once loose they arc routinely with any vibrations in the house, getting looser and looser with time, eventually becoming a fire hazard.

He’s right, the breaker is only to protect the circuit which might have 10 outlets. The fuse on the plug or the rcd protect the appliance.

Eg Uk ring main has a 32amp breaker for multiple 13amp sockets.

got to imagine an electrician would love to smell all your outlets... sounds like easy money

I pay extra for Green Electricity, so mine is menthol

I just had to address this in my place. Expensive mess but I’ll sleep better now. If anyone is wondering I opted to use the AlumiConn connectors. Best I could do without opening up more walls and ceilings.

How much current are you drawing? Having a higher rated breaker doesn’t make your equipment just draw more current. You should not be drawing more than half the current of the weakest link (which ought to be the breaker) for any length of time. Electric kettle, full power is fine. Space heater, no.

Edit: BTW, where I live you don’t see 16A for normal outlets, but 13A is common or 10A for older installations. Your installation sounds dodgy.

Where im from theres no fuses in appliances (unless very special), its all protected at the breaker. Our standard 1.5mm2 wiring is designed to handle 13 amps passing through, so these are protected by 13 amp breakers. You cant ever overload the wiring or the sockets (16 amps usually) this way no matter what you plug in.

In the UK design, you should either have some pretty beefy wiring to support a potential 32 amp current or risk overloading the wires with the way its designed. You could potentially hook up 3x10 amp appliances and not have the breaker cut the current and have 30 amps passing through whatever wiring you have 😱

it draws 12 amps, a 12 amp appliance will not draw more than 12 amps, that's not how it works

I don't think this guy understands how electricity works

Yes, and the outlet is only rated at 10 amps risking that it could overheat and cause an electrical fire...

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Unless you are used to doing this id advise against that. Some older homes are aluminum wiring. You need to add certain wire nuts as well as looking for burnt wires.

Every time I open up a fixture or outlet in my house I remediate the mixed-metal wiring with AlumiConn connectors. They're kind of expensive and a hassle to get crammed back into the box, but it's a hell of a lot better than spending $??,000 to rewire the whole house, and it's supposedly a permanent remediation method.

Not a shill, just a guy who bought a house from an idiot.

Lol. Must have been the same idiot I bought from. I do know that I no longer have any aluminum in outlet, switch, or light junction boxes. We rewired the bulk of the house when we purchased it. Which leads me to believe the aluminum wiring I found in a wall I was demoing recently is connected to copper in the attic (I contracted out the attic and main panel work). Guess I need to get up there with another box of these connectors.

Ozone is odorless tho

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/54915/why-is-o2-oxygen-colorless-and-odorless-while-o3-ozone-is-a-pale-blue-gas-wi

smelling electricity is the kind of mutation that gets you into Xavier’s school but just barely

no, you can definitely smell it

I associate it with the smell of electricity. I can smell model train transformers and lightning and stuff like that

I've got an ozone SDS in front of me that says "Colorless to blue gas with very pungent odor"

Check for reverse polarity

You have demons in your wiring. Sleep with one eye open.

This is partly why nearly all British plug sockets have a switch on them and it's just convenient.

Seems like you’re worried about an electrical fire, so I’ll offer this advice: If there’s something electrical that’s burning, the smell will engulf the house to the point where you can’t tell where it’s coming from.

Ghosts like to hang out in electrical outlets that have been freshly used. You have poltergeists.

Get someone to check it out. Electrical fires are dangerous.

A friend of mine had faux tiles put on the wall above his kitchen counter, but the sockets weren’t moved out to the new surface, but kept recessed. The cover was put back on.

Now he got arcing between one of the phases and ground on the inside of the cover due to the small gap that was created.

For him it triggered the RCD. In an old house you might not be so lucky.

To put it this way, I’ve never noticed Ozone smell from a properly working socket.

Without knowing where the other person is from this doesn't mean much.

Where I live outlets are required to have the same rating as the breaker of the circuit. Both 16 Amps. The outlets also don't contain anything in the form of protection.

I can't even buy wall outlets under 16amps rating in DIY markets here. Heck they are exclusively 16amps.

My brother had an old farmhouse and found out the hard way that there was a run of lower rated wire inside one of the walls. He had a space heater plugged in against the outside wall but someone had added an outlet to an inside wall on the same circuit and used cheaper wire just in that section, so a fire started inside the wall. Luckily he noticed the smoke coming from the outlet as he was heading to bed for the night. If he hadn't noticed it he may not have woken up. He had so many similar crappy DIY problems with that house he probably replaced 60% of the house before he sold it

HOW do you plug in an Appliance which draws more current than the socket is rated? Let me elaborate. Here in the USA where we use 120v, a 15 and a 20 amp socket will both let you plug in 15 amp items. A 15 amp socket will NOT, PHYSICALLY allow you to plug in a 20 amp appliance. they look like this

Yea I realize this now but this other guy is still clueless

Well, we had a house fire (Electrical wiring at switchboard) and lost everything, you dont want to go through that ever.Call the electrician and sleep well at night.

Just moves the arc of breaking the circuit to a different location, albeit one that is much more effective at breaking the current.

The water in the air around the outlets is causing a circuit with a tiny voltage to occur. as electricity goes through the water vapor it splits the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. When u go sniffing i that area you smell ozone there because it forms ozone as a byproduct but this is not dangerous just open your home to fresh air every so often.

The trade school in the basement.

With plastic outlets/pvc insulated wiring the real warning is a faint fishy smell.

If you’ve not been cooking any fish and you smell it, investigate.

Are you saying American Outlets don't all have switches on them??

That's madness, surely.

edit - Thanks for the down votes on an item that should have a switch by default as a basic safety measure. That' some patriotism for ya.

Only in the bathroom and outside

They do not. The only time we install switched outlets is if we have a table lamp in the back corner of a room and want to control it from a switch at the doorway.

Our outlets only use half the voltage of yours though.

UniversityofXavier.com

Those are test/reset buttons, not switches.

that smell has a lasting odor, and the box, plate cover, etc. would still have it.

My brain produced an interesting image from your description of your urban activities

A switch breaks the circuit many times faster than a human ever could by pulling a plug out of a socket. This reduces the duration of the arc and damage caused by it, extending the lifespan of the electrical contacts in the socket.

No. The closest we have are GFCIs

I learned this year that some people can hear electricity, like all the time. That's trippy.

The real hero though is AC current, allowing the voltage to help break the arc as well.

Outlets are supposed to have switches?

>GFCI

Thanks. Haven't seen those before.

We have RCD's (residual Current Device) back in the electrical box to protect the outlet user, rather than having it on the outlet like your ones.

Look I guess it varies wildly from country to country for standards.

Australian outlets, yes, this is the standard.

It's interesting how things are similar but different across the countries. Here in the US you can get GFCI breakers, but they tend to be more expensive than the outlets. The outlets can also protect all downstream outlets.

We also have AFCI (ARC Fault) breakers mandated for most residential circuits. This is another reason for the GFCI outlets since some locations like laundry areas now require both AFCI & GFCI protection.

Better yet, a half inserted plug can both make contact, becoming hot, and still have exposed metal, making for just the safest fucking design 👍

I'm guessing that part of that might also be we're running half the voltage you are at.

This is not a stupid question, 'poster' tshawkins described it best for people to understand; whenever plugging/unplugging or opening/closing a breaker - an electrical spark will occur (especially if end equipment has a potential load).

The jumping of electricity across an open-air space creates ozone from the air, a by-product of a chemical makeup changes to the ambient air from the arc; this is a natural reaction of physics.

Even the adapter to charge small electronics, it has a transformer in the line to reduce the voltage; the transformer is the load - it will create a spark that you can see if paid attention to.

New appliances have 'pre-starters', so they are ready to be used immediately (but constantly have a draw on power); the properties or physics of electricity many do not understand.

Think of it as the same as water, it travels on the outside of the conductor; wires that are stranded or braided will carry more volume of load due to more physical surface area to travel on - the terms associated with it may help in the understanding.

Current, Flow, Pressure, Wave are all the hydraulic associations with electricity, if someone sensitive to nature and dowses for water; they can find exactly where buried power cables are. Heavy pressure (amperes) can be felt/seen with a compass, when it is flowing with a lot of pressure behind it; it will cause the wires to resonate/make sound and vibration - like everything, it is governed and confined by gravity.

The properties are fluid and dynamic for change with surrounding environment, heat and air pressure can cause resistance (watts) - if you have extra time for learning, a great many things are documented for any to view.

I have many large reference 'bibles' as well as code books that I still use (sometimes I have to look up a formula to equate end principle) and some are almost impossible to replace.

Hope I filled any holes, good fortune and the best for you. Horse

Socket sniffer

Specifically a proper switch, as they're spring-loaded to snap as fast as possible, crappy (non-kitemarked) switches can neglect the spring and arc if you don't hit them hard enough

And they're usually installed upside down, with no mandatory ground, so it's entirely possible to drop a conductive object onto a plug and start a fire

We're not hearing electricity itself, we're hearing arcing and inductor vibrations

I can hear an inductor failing months before it does, but I can't hear someone talking directly to me, such is life

How many switches do you have in a room? Jesus, I have a relatively small office with 5 outlets, the switch is for the overhead light.

Some people implant magnets into their ears to gain this sense.

Not really, it's just sine waves and coil whine.
Source: WHAT IS THAT DAMN SINUS SOUND COMING FROM?!

What in the Nicola Tesla

Do you have gfci breakers?

Small bedroom will have a single housing with two outlets in it..each outlet has its own switch.
Larger bedrooms will have a double outlet in each side of the bed for 2 people. Loungeroom has 2 to 4 double's. Etc etc.

There is never a stupid question. Someone will know the answer!

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That and their propensity to fall out of the outlet at the slightest provocation.

Technology connections has a great video on this. It explores why light switches are "clicky". To spoil the answer, good light switches have mechanisms that fling the electrical contacts open and closed as fast as possible, to keep the electrical arc as short as possible.

The US electrical is kind of weird. We have GFCI that breaks the circuit if electricity on one leg is different than electricity on the other leg (meaning current is leaking somewhere). This GFCI can be on a circuit breaker, on the receptacle itself, or on the plug of the device.

AFCIs are new and required in bedroom circuits. The early breakers would trip with certain arcing loads, like vacuum cleaners. They were annoying enough that an electrician I know said that almost all home owners would get the AFCIs installed, pass the electrical inspection, then replace the AFCIs with traditional circuit breakers. I think the AFCI technology is better today though.

Arc length is determined in part by voltage. DC would be constant so you'd be breaking the arc at full voltage. With AC the voltage cycles through 0 60 times a second, allowing the arc to dissipate naturally and it cannot reform because the voltage required to maintain an arc is lower than what is required to start it.

In denmark the whole installation from socket to breaker must be rated at or higher than the breaker. This way you are also protected from any malfunctions of the appliance - a short circuited appliance can draw many amps, and in that case you really want your installation protected by the breakers.

You can easily have old wiring worth only 10 amps (protected with 10 amp breakers). Have not seen sockets rated below 16 amps, and we only have one standard socket for this (we ofc have some special ones also like CEE and a couple other weird ones), but for normal households its more or less universal.

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Chucky will be your friend to the end!

Sure but would it kill an elephant?

The Xavier School of Capable Kids.

But as to my direct question, you're telling me that an appliance that draws more than 10 A would still plug into a socket that is rated for 10 A? I mean they're both the same shape and there's no safety mechanism to prevent that physically?

Yes.

But the safety mechanism lies at the breaker circuit. If your outlet is rated to 10 so must your breaker be. That way there is no risk.

What happens if one of your 10 A appliances fails and starts to draw 16 amps? Say a malfunctioning toaster.

I should add that only installations using old cabling are using 10 A breakers. Standard is 13 A for cables and 16 A for sockets. In practice 16 A is only used for ovens/electric stoves, so theres no need for special sockets.

Its all 240 V so theres plenty of power.

Well for our relevant current, the smallest home socket we have is 15 A, but if something did in fact start drawing more like 16, it would probably be a slow heat until the 15 amp circuit breaker tripped, but the breaker, the wiring, and the outlet will all be rated the same if they've been installed correctly.

The point is, you can never be sure that the appliance you plug in doesnt draw more than the rating for a long variety of reasons (bad product, damaged, too many appliances connected to the same outlet etc) so if you want a safe installation you should assume this could be the case and install a breaker thats of the lowest rating in the whole system.

Well for us it means the socket and breaker should coordinate, so you can't burn the outlet before something quits.

That works when the appliances function and people havent put too many things on extension cords... i.e. there are more risks in this design...

That's an externality to what we're discussing though and is equally true of all configurations

Not really - if the breaker is dimensioned larger than the outlet material you could overload the outlet material by adding too many appliances. If the breaker is dimensioned as the outlet rating the breaker will trip if theres too much current passing through the outlet.

If the breaker is rated the same as the outlet, and the breaker trips, that is good. You don't want to start a fire in the outlet. You always want a circuit breaker to trip before excess heat is concentrated at another connection point.

Exactly.

But the other guys slammed on me for stating this simple fact...

I think you should go back and see what you said and see if you misphrased something, then.

Im not sure what that would be - help me out. Think I was pretty clear in my first comment

> You need to change your breakers to 10 amps also, otherwise you risk unintentionally overloading the outlets/wires or whatever is the "bottleneck".

I just had a long thread with them and from what I can see, you'd ALWAYS want the breaker to be the first point of failure, rather than an outlet or the wiring to it. Any chance you can look this over and see if we're all just talking past each other?

My bad, I assume I'm wrong, interestingly tho when I search for it I get different results. I heard it was an odorless gas during my welding training.

https://deq.utah.gov/air-quality/what-is-ozone#:~:text=Ozone%20is%20an%20odorless%2C%20colorless,the%20lower%20atmosphere%2C%20or%20troposphere.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcms.pima.gov/UserFiles/Servers/Server_6/File/Government/Environmental%2520Quality/Air/Air%2520Monitoring/AAWhat%2520is%2520Ozone.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiPvvKK7PL6AhXfS_EDHSroCsIQFnoECD0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2O2-Q6Ls7w0Etm1KBUO26e

https://conservationco.org/2022/07/27/what-you-need-to-know-about-ozone/

https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/54915/why-is-o2-oxygen-colorless-and-odorless-while-o3-ozone-is-a-pale-blue-gas-wi

https://molekule.com/blog/what-does-ozone-smell-like/

I'm courious why there seems to be different information about this. If anyone knows please let me know!

My apologies. "Some people can hear arcing & inductor vibrations" was too long to type, but I should be accurate in the information I spread.