Every electrical appliance sold, must have a card on the pins of the plug that shows how to wire it, however these cards are very difficult to source.

Most manufacturers that make appliances, print their own version of the cards, but local businesses, charity shops etc don’t have that luxury.

We as PAT testers who take these off, discovered this problem many years ago.

Most PAT testers throw these in the bin, I don’t understand why, we however collect them up and sell them on to those businesses who need them.

These wiring diagram safety cards cards are attached to the pins of a plug when you buy an appliance that has a rewireable plug. These days a lot of appliances like kettles and toasters come with sealed plugs, so they don’t need these cards, but new items like extension lead and multi gang sockets come with a wirable white (usually) plug with the card attached.

If you are a charity shop selling second hand goods, you need to put these cards on plugs before you sell them. The plug / appliance also needs a PAT Test. When we do PAT tests of these appliances for our charity shop clients we put the cards on, for free.

If you make lamps for example, you also need to ensure these cards are in place before you sell them.

These cards are to show how to wire a plug correctly, and are a very handy guide.

If you run a charity shop selling electrical goods, then you will need these cards, as they have to be on the plug of an appliance you are selling.

On the other side – if you are using an appliance that is plugged in – please make sure you have removed the card; remove it before plugging in, as these can heighten the fire risk, especially if the plug overheats.

Wiring diagram safety cards on a plug are packaging; just like the plastic wrapper or bag the item comes in. Do you remove the bag before using the lead? Of course you do; so why wouldn’t you remove the card? You should but so many people leave them on.

In itself this isn’t a major issue; the chances of the plug getting so hot the card catches fire are very slim, and to get that hot the plug will be on fire too anyway but the biggest issue is that the card is a couple of millimetres thick meaning the connection between the pins and the socket isn’t as specific as it should be, which could prove dangerous; mainly as the earth connection isn’t as good as it should be. With that in mind our recommendation is to remove the wiring diagram safety cards from the plug before you start to use the appliance.

When we are PAT Testing we come across these safety cards a lot, and always remove them; but if the customer removed them before plugging in we wouldn’t have to. So next time you buy a new extension lead or electrical appliance; take the wiring diagram safety card off the plug when you take away the plastic wrapping (or don’t, then we will recycle them).

We actually sell these cards on eBay; we accumulate hundreds of these, so rather than chucking them in the bin we package them up in batches of 10, 20, 50 and 100 to sell them. If you need some, send me a message so we can organise getting some to you.

If you’re checking out this post because you manage a Charity Shop you may find this Charity Shop PAT Testing post to be a handy guide for you.