Do you have enough plug sockets?

[IBBoard]

Apparently we're short on plug sockets in the UK. A new three-bed house must now contain 38 plug sockets, up from 21 last year.

Ignoring appliances, me and my fiancee need five plugs downstairs (TV, DVD, Freeview box, lamp and phone cradle), plus eight in the back 'office' (two computers with three plugs for computer, monitor and speakers, one printer (not always plugged in), one router and one scanner (which runs off power from USB, so no plug there)) and one lamp in the front and back bedrooms.

That's a total of fifteen plugs required, and I could cut two if I used one of the computer splitters that I used to have, with eight being used between two computers. The BBC list six for a single computer. How many people really have externally powered hard-drives?

I guess we are using more and more plug sockets, but given that you always seem to end up with them hidden behind furniture or otherwise in the wrong place, is it useful to have nearly forty for a three bed house?

[Briarus]

i live in the U.S. i have a smallish 3 bedroom. if you count each socket as having two plugins i have 46. and there may be more i just can't think of where they are.
my computer room has a wall outlet on three of the four walls, i have two computers and some lamps a scanner, a printer, a shredder,a router, a switch, a tv, my playstation and two cordless phones. i have two battery backups and a couple of power strips. i have one plug free maybe.

should there be more plugs throughout the house? maybe should all new houses take into consideration that electronics need to be plugged in? yes. better forethought in buildings is sadly not the norm. i work (currently) at a university and i used to be on the 'wiring' crew for phone, ethernet, and cable t.v. and i have consulted with a few freinds and family on new house construction. almost no thought is given to the intsallation of cat5 or phone cableing AT ALL. i have seen brand new building finished before a single communications line has been installed!! then you have to put it on the outside of the wall yuck! telecommunications is sadly still the last component of a building to be planned and installed, with littl thought as to the size and length of the cabling (not to metion if conduit is going to be used or not).

ok that was a little off topic. but the idea that i am trying to explain is that they can double or triple the amount of electrical sockets in a household but poor planning will render those plugs mainly useless and lead to more power strip jungles.

[IBBoard]

Yeah, power strips are a bit of a pain. We have a pair of sockets behind our TV, and into that we have to plug the TV, DVD player, Digital TV box and (on the odd occasion) the PS2. Even though we don't use all of them at once, we've still got a fair few feet of strip adapter cable wrapped up back there!

As for building houses, I can imagine that it's not considered. Cat5 seems fair enough - it may be cheap, but a lot of people won't want their houses kitted out with it. Not planning for phone lines until afterwards just seems stupid.

Still, my dad manages to run some Cat5 from one corner of the house downstairs to the other corner upstairs via the attic in our 1920s/1930s red brick semi without too much problem That was a fair while ago now, though, and it's all wireless today.